Camping holiday

After the dust settled on moving house, we went on holiday. Umm, well, they went on holiday and I stayed behind to mind the house! Boring. Here's the car packed so full that the kids couldn't see each other or their Mum and Dad. Can you see anyone in there? And the other photos speak for themselves...all the rock stars on holiday. Lucky them ;-)

Looking from the front door

Here we all are together. Ezekiel, Jemima, me, Matilda in the pram and Oscar. The door behind us is the Lubbock's front door. Then in the next photo you can see the street behind us with another row of houses on the other side. So you step out their door and almost into the street. Before they do that the Lubbock children have a good look around in case there are scooters cruising the footpath instead of the road!

New house

You can't see much of it here, but the Lubbocks moved house on July 31. But the picture tells it all. Look at me! Just left lying around the floor. And to think of all that dust and dirt. I need to go back to the pool with Oscar. It was so chaotic that they let me fall into little Matilda's hands! The house is back in the city of Florence, much closer now to the university faculties, school and old friends. Right where the Lubbocks need to be.

Summer time

The school break for Summer is around three months long. (University stops for around that time too as the students do exams and have a holiday). That's because there are hardly any long holidays through the year. This Summer the kids went swimming on Saturday mornings. Here are some shots when they took me along one time. Pool looks nice, hey? And how about those cute kids (Ezekiel, Oscar, Jemima). Hmmm, I was happy to be close to them, but not THIS close (to Oscar)! One of the funniest things was watching Oscar doing forward somersaults into the pool. He would say, 'Watch me. I'm doing a ball' and then do a perfect roll in.

Where are the Italians?

But where are all the Italians? Most of the students were already on holiday. So I couldn't meet them. And the truth is that there are only 0.02 percent of Italian who go to evangelical churches. However, I did get the chance to know Andrea Giorgi at a meeting for a Florence-wide youth event called Kaleo. Andrea's a Florentine guy who follows Jesus. Now he's getting a new Christian church started just outside the city. They meet in a Socialist social club. There are more and more people coming all the time, especially Italians who haven't been told much about God or Jesus from the Bible. Andrea's got heaps of energy and love for Jesus, and loads of gel in his hair!

The Gruppi Biblici Universitari

Another person Andrew gets to meet with is the President of the Gruppi Biblici Universitari national board. Hmmm, sounds pretty important! Nice shots of me, hey? Oh, yeah, that's the prez, Johan (Giovanni) Soderkvist. Strange kind of name for an Italian. Well, actually, he's Swedish. Johan has grown up in Italy because his parents came here as missionaries. He works as a software engineer, and volunteers as GBU President. His job is to help Andrew and the other staff in other parts of Italy to keep helping students tell their friends that Jesus is risen and is the Lord of eternal life. Not always easy because most people don't want to hear.

Emanuel-Investigating Jesus

Later the same day we met up with Emanuel. He's from Peru. Emanuel comes along to the Economics Bible Study. Even though he knows a lot about the Bible, he's not 100 per cent sure about why he needs to let Jesus be the boss of his life. When he meets with Andrew they've been reading through the Gospel of Mark together. Wow, the Jesus they were reading about together in the Bible is amazing. Pretty different to what most people think. I'm glad they let me listen in...'cause everybody knows a shoelace can't read.

Neti-the cheeky Albanian

OK. Here we go. Like I said before, I've been here in Italy a while now. So we're doing a bit of backtracking. You can see me in the picture here with Andrew (right) and Neti at the start of the Summer (June). We had a great time catching up with Neti. He's an Albanian student studying at the University of Florence. Andrew's been meeting with him right from the start of their time in Florence. Neti has grown a lot as a follower of Jesus Christ. He's also one of the most consistent and faithful members of the Economics Faculty Bible Study group. And one of the cheekiest...you can kind of see in the photo. Pray he'd keep telling his friends about Jesus.

More photos

Just thought I'd throw in some more photos for you all. I saw this scooter overloaded with water. Glad it was him driving and not me! And then there was this double-decker bus. Not really a Florence thing. But you can see a picture of the cathedral on the side. Will try and get you a real shot another day.

I'm alive

Hi everyone. You might have thought I was lost in the mail on my world trip. But no, I’m alright. I've been in Italy now for a while. Church Missionary Society missionary Andrew Lubbock has been carrying me with him as he rides around Florence. He meets with university students to talk with them about Jesus Christ. Here are some pictures of what we've seen. You can see me on the handlebars of his bike; a local bike rack; and a builder's van (not the kind of thing you see an Aussie tradie in!) I'll write again tomorrow to start telling you about the people we meet.