Well we have some good news and not so good news on this blog. I will start with the not so good news or at least it is sad news. Our friend Sergio from San Gimignano past away a few weeks ago. We have prayed for him to be healed and Pastor Dennis in March prayed with him as well. He went to the USA for a genetic cure but it didn't work. We spoke with him last month and he said he was too sick to visit so we went this past weekend and found his wife busy working away at the ristorante where she broke the news to us. We had to leave so we wouldn't all break down in tears. We returned after 30 minutes and had a nice lunch together. Patrizia said it was a miracle he lived for 8 years after he was diagnosed and was thankful for that time together. He also leaves behind two daughters 14 & 16, he will missed as he was such an awesome husband, father and friend.

As for other news, I suppose good because it is in line with the direction we feel the Lord is taking, we have our tickets and will be back on October 27th to the USA. We have no clue now where we will be going as the job fell through and might or might not open back up in a few months. We aren't concerned though because we know that we have many other opportunities. We are sad to leave because we leave behind Jami & Chloe and our bunny and all our new friends as well as all our possessions, which isn't much these days but about a closet full of boxes, ha ha. We know the time will pass by fast though as 5 years have already gone by and it seems like just yesterday that we arrived.

2 weeks ago we went to Switzerland to meet back up with David & Isabella and what an awesome time we had. We were able to meet up with a group in Constance Germany who we truly believe are key to what the Lord is doing in Europe and specially here in Italy. We are looking forward to the next several years as the Lord enfolds his plans and purposes and are truly convinced that this is the European network that the Lord wanting to build us into. Johannes & his wife have an awesome home church movement going on and have been key in praying and have many awesome and strategic plans from the Lord for the future.

We were surprized by Pastor Freidl of Dave & Isabella's church who invited us to speak at the Sunday Service. Not just speak, but actually do the service. We were going to say no because well hey that isn't our thing yet, but we figured if you don't start you never learn. Guido spoke for the first 15 minutes and I followed up. We both spoke on the Fathers love and had a ministry time before (during worship) and after we spoke. Well I think we did pretty well, many said it was a new message and were touched and they needed it. David said I should have shared something from my life, but I was afraid that if I started talking about my life it would eat up the 15 minutes and more. Next time I will ask the Lord for a specific since it seems my life has been a mini series haha.

What was wild was that they paid us which basically paid for us to go and come back. The Lord is good all the time. Not only does He call you to something that you may or may not be qualified to do, but than he equips you as well. This has been the most awesome on the job training program ever, and certainly the most expensive, but hey He owns the cattle on a 1000 hills so if the military can spend 100s of 1000s of dollars making our service people top notch warriors, the Lord too will spare no expense or resourses to do the same in His kingdom.

We are off to Croatia on Monday and will be back in a week. This will be our last European vacation for a while. We are going to miss being able to fly somewhere for 30 euro's roundtrip for 2 people, yeah that's right 15 euro's each after taxes. How crazy is that, we can't even get a train from here to Rome (2.5 hours) for less than 160 rountrip and yet we can get to a friends house in Croatia for 30. Southwest Airlines has NEVER been this low. A week of laying around at the beach and making our lists and plans for leaving here and getting there is the order of business. It actually serves another purpose as Guido is on medical leave due to his hands.

After many visits to various doctors it appears that Guido has tendonites in one hand, extreme amounts of liqued in both hands inside the joints which is causeing all the pain and swelling and onset of Ostio as well. It appears that all the work in the freezer at -18 has done this. The warm water will go a long way in the cure, which is why they approved this trip be covered. If they don't get this under control and back to normal it can lead to arthritis. Wow you would think a Canadian who was born and raised in this kind of weather would have no problems working in a freezer. Go figure. Although they aren't sure if that was the cause or not. Of course we are asking the Lord for a total and complete healing, hands are needed for everthing, not just to work with.

This bring me to our next request from you our friends and family. We have no more travel miles to use for free ticets and the standby tickets we had offered to us fell through since there are no seats available until after the 1st of the year so we had to buy tickets and unfortunately they aren't 30 euros. The total cost for the tickets came to 1539. which we squezzed onto a credit card that has to be paid within 30 days. If you so feel led to contriubute, please do so by hitting the donate button on the upper left hand side of the page or send your checks to New Life Christian Church with a note with our names on it. If you don't have the address please email me and I will send it to you.

Ciao Tutti
Bye all

Love ya
Joyce & Guido