Thursday, February 10, 2011

New Building, New Challenges, Same Faithful Lord!

Main entrance and reception area
Much has been happening here in Treviso to keep us on our toes. We've got news on the church, family and more, so I'll be brief to bring you up to speed quickly. Please pray as you are led in these following areas:

Church
Our day has come for the church to move into the much-prayed-for building. One that is better suited for ministry. It is a rather unique scenario in that we will not be holding a contract but instead renting the space in a pay-by-use type of deal. This enables us to have double the square meters in an environment that really is much more conducive to ministry.

The place is beautiful and in a great location with plenty of parking. Before we start meeting there we need to put up a couple of dividing walls to close off a few rooms and run some wiring. Lord willing, this wont be more than two weeks from now. We'll keep you posted. The picture up top is at the entrance/reception area of the space. The following picture is a semi-side view from the middle of the main seating room. More pics will be put up later as work progresses.

Home
On the home-front, we're battling sicknesses. Matea is finishing up her antibiotics and hopefully will return to school on Monday after her second round with bronchitis. Luka had it too but got over it much more quickly. Now daddy is sick and mommy must stay healthy to care for everyone else :-)

Living in Italy means we need to teach our children our mother-tongues of English and Serbian. Even though they both are able to speak our native languages, they need to learn reading and writing. Pray for them, and for us in this area. Luka has begun lessons with a sister from the church in exchange for me giving guitar lessons to her son. I am also teaching Luka classical guitar, and he's doing amazingly well. Here's a little video from our lesson where he is covering half and whole notes, and counting through a measure while doing an i-m exchange in his right hand (you classical guitar players understand). Enjoy!

Family
Just got sad news today that my (Mark) parents are not well, especially my father who is now in the hospital with pneumonia and injuries from a fall yesterday. He was found on the floor of his bedroom incoherent and unable to get up from a contorted position that may have caused a break in the leg. Xrays will be done to determine what happened on the inside. Please pray for both my mom and dad, age is definitely showing. It's hard watching it from such a distance....

5 comments:

  1. Praying for your family Mark. We know your heart must be aching as you are here-praying for miracles! Happy to hear about the new place for church. Be sure to give us the address so we can visit :) Ciao to Renata.

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  2. Thank you Margie, you and Jim are a huge blessing to us all here! Love you guys.

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  3. Praying for your family and for the church family there in Treviso! Hope your move goes smoothly. As we like to call it the military-smoothe move! Can't wait to hear and see all the changes with the new building! Love to all!

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  4. Praying for your folks...and for your far-away heart.

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  5. We are so excited about your new building CCT, and very sad about Mark's parents, and sick children...we have been praying heavily for 2 yrs. now for all of you....2 yrs. ago tomorrow the 14th of April we closed on our home in Florida. Can't believe it has been that long...we miss you very much and will continue to pray for all, and will be sending you a tithe. We love you, Steve & LB

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