Adventures Non Stop - 2017 to 2020

So what have Guido & Joyce been doing for the past several years in California? What wonderful and marvelous things has the Lord been doing?  We apologize for the long pause in writing, seems like life & time have flown by so quickly since we came back.  It certainly is time to recap.

Sept 2017 Guido shortly (2 weeks) after we bought our new home, he was fired, which in turned shortly led to them closing down the whole production line.  It seemed a moment of panic could set in as I Joyce only work part time and could never cover all the expenses, even with Guido's unemployment.  12 years of living in Italy has taught us one very important thing, "God is faithful all the time and is good". 

Team VOT

So we breezed through the 4 month trial as if it never happened and Guido landed another better job.  This waiting period included a scheduled missions trip to Italy which was only a few weeks after he lost his job.  It was a fruitful trip which included multiple churches and building & establishing new relationships.  It also gave us an opportunity to get the mission base in Sicily more guest ready for future visitors.

 

I (Joyce) stayed a few extra weeks and went up to the Florence area to see Albiola & Peter, Ps. Ivan & Maria & Stefania, my friend and pioneer of a Christian Counseling center in Italy.  All movers & shakers in what the Lord is doing in Italy & Europe.
  

Inga a German student who we also met in Florence while living in the Montecatini came and stayed a few weeks with us before heading up to Redding and helped us to move into our new home, cleaning cabinets and floors and packing the elderly woman that was still in the home when we moved in.  She came back in November and stayed another week and painted this beautiful mural for us as a way to bless us for hosting her.  Now every morning when we meet with the Lord, Italy is always at the forefront of our minds.  This was her first ever mural and she really did an awesome job.

Dec. 2017 -- So we had the honor of having Shannon King from Italy who is going to school in Redding stay with us with us. It seems we are a portal for the Italians who are coming back & forth.  It's awesome to see how the Lord just keep's us to the vision of Italy and our future there.

 We passed through a very nice Christmas season, with us having our 1st Christmas in our new home with Tim, Lauren, Jami & Chloe our Granddaughter, Haven't done this in a long time.  We passed the day playing games, goofing around and eating great food.

Then it was 2018, which was full of many exciting adventures.

January -- Team Italy arrives and we take them up to Redding.  More world changers arrive every season to drink from the river of Redding so they can take it back to Italy.  It really is such a blessing to be a part of what the Lord is doing even though we are here in California, we are surrounded by Italy on all sides.

March --  Guido started a major bathroom remodel, transforming our tiny cramped bathroom into a work of art.  He moved the toilet, set in a clawfoot tub with the help of some friends from church & voila, a 1920's bathroom we can actually both fit into.  Bravo Guido.

May was back to Italy.  I Joyce went first to the North meeting up with Louise Davidson, and then heading back to Florence and eventually making my way down to Sicily.  Our son Tim came for Mother's day and hung out with me a week before Guido arrived.  Always fun having our family come share our adventure even if it's for a short visit.  We just did work on the mission base, relaxed in the sun and continue to strengthen the relationships with the local pastors and the body of Christ in our area.

June was another trip to Italy for more mission work.  In September 2018 a fellow missionary from Holland, Debbie came to hang out.  This incredible woman has seen many countries and been on many great adventures so it is always such a treat when she takes time out to come and hang with us.  Guido came as he had to handle some details with the passing of his Mom.  It really wasn't a mission trip for him, but a time of closure and grabbing some of the paintings his Mom had painted and to visit his aunt and a Ps. friend of his in the North.

Then it was back home for a few days and off to Kansas City for the wedding of our Spiritual daughter Kayla  who came home from Israel with her Israeli/Argentina fiancee'.  We were asked to pray for them during the wedding ceremony and lay hands on them to go out as missionaries.  It was such an honor to be included in their family.  

Before leaving we went off to IHOP KS and were able to meet up with another student, Joelle, who we met in Florence and got to prayer for her as well.  I love having family all over the world and we can spontaneously just be together

Then it was off to Brazil for me (Joyce) to meet up with Louise Davidson who is my friend from Italy.
  She is incredibly prophetic, anointed and a lot of fun to be around.  She had asked me about 3 years before if I wanted to go if the door opened up and I felt in my spirit from that time on I had to do this.  She has a ministry called Il Desidrio del Cuore (The Desire of the Heart) and it is geared for Women Pastors & Leaders.  She has been doing this for the past 12 years in Italy and it has been life changing for the women there who often feel alone.  She was asked by Ps. Mara Engel of Brazil Ps. to come and be a part of seeing it move from Italy to Brazil.  It was a fantastic time of seeing the women leaders of Brazil being blessed and ministered to all weekend us included.  We were all treated like daughters of the King, every meeting given gifts, prayed over and just loved on. It really is an amazing ministry and it is now on two continents, way to go Louise & Holy Spirit.

I had the amazing privilege to do a prophetic act of repentance and blessing up on the prayer mountain.  Ps. Mara & Joel have a mountain that they have been hosting 24 hour prayer for the past 15 or so years.  Being Portuguese I was able to ask a native Brazilian (Sylvia our interpreter), who was an original descendent from the natives who lived there before the Portuguese came and also a descendent of an African slave who was brought there by the Portuguese to forgive us.  She had never done anything like this so when I asked her to stand in proxy on behalf of the people I felt the Lord wanted me to pray for, she nor I expected what happened. 

The Spirit of the Lord fell on her and she began to weep, I began to weep, there was  shift in the atmosphere, a gentle breeze began to blow upon us.  Ps. Joel spread a prayer blanket from Israel over us as a sign of covenant, we took communion.  It was amazing, and the sunset that appeared after.  There was such thick presence of the Lord that I couldn't help but fall to my knees. It really was amazing and the highlight of the trip.

 

 So what happened from 2017 to 2020 has been a whirlwind.  Many of you have been following us on Facebook, so I won't go into much detail except some highlights.  Our Daughter was married in 2019, much of the family got together for a beautiful ceremony, many camping trips, new friends and home projects, spending time with our Granddaughter Chloe and going her softball games or a movie.  Just hanging out was enjoyable.  New Church family that Pastor Dennis brought us into at VOT

Another amazing blessing is the Lord opened a door for us to buy a home in Sicily with a view of the beach, olive & fruit trees, in the countryside.  It has been a great time of favor and abundance spiritually, physically & emotionally.

We entered 2020 with such hopes and anticipation, we could have never imagined we would have a pandemic happen.  Most of the world shut down, job losses and hardship for many people.  Despite the situation we still were able to to work and even had some family time which included baptizing my youngest brother.  This lead to us getting the puppy we had been looking for.  A beautiful German Shepherd from Missouri, we ended up not being able to ship due to the pandemic so we drove to Albuquerque to meet the breeder half way and getting to stop in and see my Spiritual Parents, Keith & Lynn Page.  In the midst of all of this we were prompted to sale our home.  

Very unsure about the economy and future we decided to wait until the spring of 2021 as that was the original plan, to stay and see our Granddaughter Chloe graduate, however after further counsel we decided to put our home on the market September 11th  and sold our home in a week .   For those who followed on Facebook, you know that Guido transformed this 100 year old home into a gem.  We had help from our son Tim who rewired the whole house, to CJ helping Guido build a new garage.  Only a few outside people did paint & concrete & plumbing but other than that, Guido put in blood, sweat & tears.  He made use of all down time from work and made it possible for us to be able to pay off our home in Italy in full by the proceeds of this sale.  I will upload a blog entirely of all the work he did.  Truly he made it a a stunning place that many of the neighbors stopped in and told him what a great job he had done.  The woman who bought it said it was an oasis for her.

 It was a whirlwind move that included giving everything away, packing up 5 suitcases & 2 animals and taking the 1st flight we could get out having had 3 flights cancel on us from April through September due to Covid.  We were told we couldn't fly into Italy but the Lord opened all the doors and we arrived back on November 7th, 2022.

When we arrived Italy started a new lockdown with different regions having different degrees of restrictions.  We were in the orange zone and had a curfew of 10:00.  Everyone here wears a mask, everything is open but closes at 6:00 so no eating out, but there was take out pizza.  We had decided that next year we would replace our 29 year old car but of course it didn't make it a week.  Guido had started taking down our 1st load of stuff to our new home and our beloved Alphie (the car) which we have had for 10 years died which forced us to buy another car in order to finish our move into our new home.  Thankfully we have Franco & Maria here to help us with all those details and we were able to get a really good dependable station wagon, a Mercedes actually fully loaded and an automatic, which is so rare here.  This car should get us down the road another 10-15  years and has plenty of room for the dog and all the things Guido needs to harvest olives next year.  We stayed in the old apartment until November 30th as Guido slowly but surely dismantled the apartment and transported it to the new house.  Everything including the kitchen sink had to be moved.  We arrived just in time, November 30th and so did winter.  Up until that time we had been enjoying warm fall weather and even was able to go swimming in the sea a few times.  Now it is rainy, windy & cold.  

Don't have much more to report except to say we are looking forward to this year ending, I'm sure many are saying the same thing.  With this year and all the crazy things that have gone on.  All the tragedies, negative news, no churches or limited access to people and worship in person, it has been a long hard year.  The Lord has been ever present and faithful, for that there has never been a lack, a more tangible and real presence but I miss people, hugs & just fellowship in general.  Not sure how the future will look but I know that the Lord has great plans in store for the nations.  

We will try to put one of these newsletters out again every so often  as things unfold but thank you all for sticking with us along the journey.  May your Christmas & New Year be abundantly blessed with all the things that really matter in life.  May the the Lord be gracious & kind to you and pour out His unending and outrageous love and affection upon you.  

My heart & Flesh sing for Joy to the Living God
Just want to check in again with our family and let you know what has been going on with us as we straddle two nations.  In September we will be going to Sicily with a team from Voice of Triumph, we will be 7 in total and ministering in about 8 venues over a 10 day period.  We are super excited for all the open doors & all the heart connections that have been forming. We would ask you to please partner with us financially as many of you know we are in the process of buying home & this past March, we set up a mission base in Sicily which was quite financially costly.  We really felt the Lord pushing us to ask our family to sow into this trip and the base.   We already had our first guest in May and she will be back next year with a team of young adults from Pennsylvania.  We just had Jose & Dana from the Heart of David who are bringing a team to minister around Italy and they stayed for several days at our base as to refresh & strengthen relationship that they started forming on the last visit.  We still are in need of some beds & dressers so we are ordering them today to arrive before we do.   Guido will stay for 14 days and Joyce will stay on for an additional 2 weeks doing final touches to the base, painting, making sure the apartment is well equipped so that when the nations come to bless Italy, they will have all that they need.  We want to bless them, we want to keep these doors open and make it a resting place.  Anyone who needs a place to go and rest and get away from it all, these doors are open to you.  If you want to come and minister, these doors are open to you.  If you know a ministry needing a landing place, these doors are open. Thank you all in advance for sowing into Italy & the mission base in advance.  We love you all.   His Presence Is So Sweet  June 19-24th we flew to Austin Texas with Pastor Dennis where we were invited by Jose & Dana, the directors of Rick Pino's Heart of David School, to be a part of a round table with around 14 other nations & leading ministries around the USA prior to their Presence 17 conference.  It gave us a chance to meet and hear from other leaders around the world as to how to host the presence of the Lord in order to mobilize and effectively make an impact into our communities with worship & prayer.  Not a new concept however these people have been doing it and have had wonderful success.  They aren't big name people, just regular everyday people like ourselves who love the Lord and want to see the harvest come in.   Then the Presence 2017 conference started at the Moody Theater.  Did you know that Austin was the Live music capital of the world and that before this event, no Christians had ever worshiped in the world famous Moody Theater?  The Lord is taking ground in every city and every nation, releasing His presence everywhere.   We met a young    woman named    Marta from      Verona after they  called  up the  nations to  pray .  We were  so  excited that we  weren't the only  Italian  representatives  and even more  excited that she  was a youth doing  mission work in Texas.  That is our heart, the youth of  Italy to be on fire, going out into the nations.  So  instead of Guido praying for Italy, he handed the mic to Marta and told her to pray for Italy.  I love divine moments like this.  She was only here this 1 night, the only night that they prayed for the nations.      Met some young men who have wonderful ministries along with their wives and who have a heart for Italy.  Kevin is Sicilian so he specially wants to come and do some ministry along with Daniel, who sings like an angel.  Looks like spring of 2018 we will be going back for ministry time with these awesome world changers.  Daniel from Arkansas, Jeremiah from  Alabama  & Kevin from Florida  http://www.heartofdavid.org/ All Together Again So on June 30th - July 4th, finally after 11 years the whole family was together for a camping trip.  We have grown from 6 to 12 :) We just hung out, ate, swam, played and enjoyed catching up with each other and all the new additions to the family. Everyone got to meet Jupiter, our newest Granddaughter. Hoping to make this a yearly event.  Back Row:  Chloe, Guido, Joyce, Kyle, Jupiter, Shannon (Kyle's daughter & wife), Lauren (Tim's girlfriend), Daniel, Tim In Front:  Jami Eva & Mike (Jami's boyfriend & his daughter) And I heard A Sound From Heaven like the roar of rushing waters, Revelation 14:2 and again in Ezekiel 43:2 , and His voice was like the sound of many waters and the earth shone with His glory  The Bride rises and returns the sound with praise.  Many of you may not have heard of Chris Burns or the incredible challenge that the Lord gave him regarding California.  He & his family sold everything and came with a mandate to make a sound on the 50th anniversary of the Summer of love.  We kicked it off on 7/6/17 at the Norse theater then on 7/7/2017 with Lou Engle, Mario Murillo, Jose Diaz, and many others we stood in the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater and made a sound that went up into the heavens and the heavens responded with a sweet presence of the Lord himself.   Many were saved and touched as we became part of rewriting history.  Rebellion was birthed 50 years ago, and swept the nations but on 7/7/2017 the Lord broke that and wrote a new story over California and the nations.  They followed up with an all day at  Hippie Hill on 7/8/17 where  churches from all over the States came with acoustic guitars, & flags made a joyful noise unto the Lord.  It was such an honor and a privilege to step into Chris's mandate and see a young couple so on fire and so sacrificial to come to our state and be a part of what  the Lord was doing  here.   I know we love California but not everyone feels the love, so when the Lord asked them to move here, it wasn't like yahoo were moving to California, it was like, no way, I'm not moving there.  Thank you Chris & Danielle for following the Lords heart to California.  Thank you for truly loving our state the Lord does.  It has cost you something but the Lord will reward you. https://burnsministries.com/ Home Sweet Home So as I wrote in our last newsletter we bought a home, however 1 week before our 60 day Escrow closed, the seller backed out of the deal.  We were really disappointed however we prayed and asked the Lord to close the door if this wasn't our home.  So that's what happened.  We had a peace about it and moved on.  A few weeks later we found a beautiful home that was in move in condition and had a wonderful peace about it.  New roof, windows, kitchen cabinets, hard wood flooring.  It needs some updating as you can tell by the garage, but it is absolutely perfect.  We are set to close in a few weeks.  Guido & I have been over there helping the elderly christian lady remove 30 years worth of storage out of the garage & basement and fixing things up to pass all the inspections to fund the loan.  All sweat equity at the moment but some blood as well as Guido developed a hernia.  He said he felt something happening before that, but all the heavy lifting and pushing brought it to critical mass.  He has surgery on Thursday. :( Before & after of some garage repairs. PRAYER REQUESTS & NEEDS We are in an incredible time of blessing, however the Lord keeps reminding us that we are not in this alone and don't be prideful and selfish and rob others of the blessing to be a part of what the Lord is still doing in Italy and now in California. Pray for Guido as he goes under the knife to fix a hernia.  We have insurance through his work however we have a $2600 deductible that we will have to come up with to pay for it. Upcoming Trip to Italy September 16-28th -- Need to cover our expenses for the time there & get some furniture in the rooms for the team that is coming. We need everything practically for the house here in California.  We don't even have a bed.  We really will need funds to buy things like pots & pans, furniture, etc. We need handymen to come and help Guido to update some things around the house that need attention as we bring them up to date.  Sowing time in will be sowing money into Italy because this is our investment into the missions in 4 years when we go back permanently.  Plus you'll always have an open door to come and visit what you sowed into. If you would like to partner with us financially, use our Donate button (Paypal) on our this page or  through our sending church - Voice of Triump via their web page, make sure to mark it clearly for Missions and send me an email so that I can have them apply it to Italy: http://www.votfremont.com/offerings/ We just want to thank you all again for your continued support while we have been here in California.  Your friendship, prayers and financial support have enabled us to continue working in Italy while being in California for our family and continued training and connections for Italy.  It has truly been a wild and crazy adventure discovering, the thrill the rush, the more of Him we discover, the more it makes us want Him.  Yes that is a song and we love that chorus because it so fits us. Please come visit us in Italy or here in California, our home is your home. To live for Christ is the only adventure worth living Love you Guido & Joyce Bassi

Happy Resurrection Sunday – He is risen & He is faithful….

It has been a whole year since we have sent out a Newsletter so we thought we ought to touch base and let you know what we have been up to.  Many of you know that we  moved back to California on March 10, 2016 to be  here for our family as the Lord really impressed  upon us that it was time.  So much has  happened, I’m not sure even where to begin.

 We have been living in the home of my Italian  teacher who is elderly and needs help around the  house.  She lives in the same city that we left  from,  so it has been such a blessing to  be back on our  home turf so to speak.  It has  been an enormous  blessing for us as it has  allowed us to be stable,  close to our daughter &  granddaughter & to save  some money.   Not to  mention, she let us bring our  cat Judah.  We have  a beautiful downstairs room a  private bathroom &  a garden view.  

Blessed is the fruit of our labors

Guido started a new job upon arrival and has been doing really well; in fact they just put him into a supervisory role and put him on salary.  This was a total blessing from our daughter who referred him.  He works Tuesday, Thursday & Sunday for 12 hours.  You can check out what he does by clicking on the link below.  For the first few months he worked so much that we were able to sock a little money away and bought a practically new car.  This car was a huge blessing a real super miracle since we didn’t have any credit as we have been gone for 12 years, and Guido had only been on the job for 2 months J

I am still plugging along doing bookkeeping with my awesome friend Kaylyn.  I am now a Quickbook Pro Advisor but have so much more to learn.   Adjusting for some reason was not that hard, although my heart really pined daily to go back home to Italy.   It almost was as if I never left, like no time had passed.  I was extremely stressed out before I even got back, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to make the adjustment.  We were told we should get counseling as it is normal for missionaries to have some difficulties but it became very apparent that we were inside an enormous grace bubble.  The Lord had personally wrapped us up and was carrying us along in such sweet and faithful manner.  Such grace & favor has been upon us.

www.habit.com

Let go, Move on!

The only thing that did make it difficult was that people kept telling us now was the time to settle back in, Italy was done & over, move on.  I started freaking out because in our hearts we really only felt that this was for a season & that our work in Italy was still ongoing.   Contacts for further work in Italy were opening up and we were just starting into this wonderful season of fruits from our labors.  It wasn't just that we love our life in Italy and just want to live there, but we still have so many plans & dreams for Italy.   I really started hitting an emotional breakdown thinking I was never going to get to go back. 

While We were visiting VOT Church, they had a guest speaker who has a very accurate prophetic ministry.  After the service, Pastor Dennis introduced us and talked about our adventures in Italy together and this man asked if he could pray for us and he started giving us this incredible prophetic word that totally lined up with our heart vision for a school in Sicily.  He talked about us going back & forth and it totally set our hearts at ease.  We really were blown away at the accuracy of the word and totally blessed & it encouraged us to kick it up a notch & get ready for these things to happen.

New Beginnings

The year had many changes for us personally as well.  We officially resigned as missionaries at New Life Christian Church.  This was not an easy decision for me as this has been my church since I was 23.  I raised my children in this church.  It has been my home & family.  They have blessed me for 30 years and loved me & Guido so faithfully.  It was a very difficult prayerful decision but we felt we had to move into the next season and align ourselves with those who would partner with us for the future in Italy. 

The church we have settled into is called Voice of Triumph with Pastor Jim & Marti Souza.  A very young, upbeat, on fire community with awesome worship & powerful preaching & teaching.  We are now on staff and are their missionaries

to Italy.  They have been so loving and caring to us.  Pastor Dennis is also

 here so it really feels like home having  my spiritual father here as well.  It feels like we have always been a part of this fellowship.  We have so many new friends our age & many young families as well.  They just celebrated 7 years on Sunday, very exciting times ahead.  They are very connected with the flow of Bethel & we have many awesome guest speakers & ministries coming through.   It really is a time for us to fill up, grow more into the body of Christ in a much fuller way and to strengthen relationships, gain new contacts & be better equipped for what the Lord is doing in these last days.

 We also had a

 young lady from Sicily come & stay 3  months with us.  Enza Maria or  Fireball Enza as we call her. 

 This is one of the most incredible young  women we have ever met in Italy.  She is  young, on fire & knows how to pray &  fast.  She got to check out the School of  Supernatural in Redding, hang out with the  students currently there from Italy, go  down to LA & visit Chapman & Hannah

 & their new baby Shepherd & even got a  surfing lesson & had her first American  Thanksgiving with Chapman's family.  She  was such a blessing to the VOT Church  youth & semi youth (lol).  She was deeply  impacted as were they 

 as they shared their love of Jesus from different cultural perspectives.  She hopefully will be back in October with a group of youth to do some music ministry/workshops & perhaps even go to school.  We feel we have become a bridge between two nations and are looking forward to many more Italians making their way here to bless our American church family and to be blessed by them as well.

Mission Base ... 

We currently go back and forth to Italy twice a year and just returned from our last trip on March 31^st.  We planted a mission station finally.  10 days of intense work building the furniture & kitchen.  We also got our things out of storage from our lovely friends Vittoria & Joyce who blessed us tremendously by storying it for us in their atic.  We managed to get most of the unpacking done and the apartment is now ready to receive our first mission guests.  It really has been a dream realized as returning to the USA, we weren’t sure how this

could happen, but our awesome friends Manuela and Marcello in Sicily found the apartment and made all the arrangements from getting the contract together, all the utilities turned on to being there when the couriers delivered package after package from IKEA & Amazon.  

                                                      We weren’t 

 able to visit with  many people  however we did  reinforce some  friendships & made

 new ones as well.  Was able to pray & lay hands  on our new neighbor Franca who had a bad back  and her daughter in law Rosalba who is fighting  cancer, please keep them in prayer. Believing f  or complete healing & restoration amen.

 We need to be convinced of this one thing, the  Lord is our provider always and He works out  His  plans in our lives.  We had many years of  being  so financially stretched in Italy but He  never  let  us  down.    We just  need to  trust in  His goodness & faithfulness.  We till marvel at how He does this stuff.  How He opens the right doors, makes the right connections and divine appointments, not just in finances but in every aspect of our life.  There is never by chance when the King of Glory is ordering your steps and you are looking to Him for everything.  A man plans his ways but the Lord directs his path has become a life plan for us.  

Having left lands & homes & families....

Another awesome report is that we bought a house.   9846 Olive Street, Oakland.  Yeah can you believe it, Olive St. I just have to laugh.  A total miracle has happened for us.  Literally a meeting with a Jewish realtor who hooked us up with a loan agent who has gotten us funding, grants & special loans to make this possible.  The realtor & the broker just championed for us through the process.  We were going to get just get a 2 bedroom 1 bath house.  We had made at least 8 offers and had been outbid on every one of them.  We were feeling a little discouraged thinking this would not be happening since this is the only place in the Bay Area left that has some afforadable housing.  Then literally right before we left for Italy, this house dropped into our laps, 4 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms.  It really is what we need with the amount of people that are coming from Europe to visit us this year.  Miracles grace & favor.  I’m still in shock; Guido is like “yeah that’s my Daddy”. 

When we left California in 2004, everyone said we would never be able to buy again, geez I even 

said it.  Homes in California already were skyrocketing & even though they had a crash, it still continues to escalate beyond reach for most people & rents are not even practical and yet the Lord saw fit to open a door for us.  We had an excepted offer on March 10^th, the 1 year anniversary of our return.  What a gift the Lord has granted us.  Such incredible

favor in finances he has given us abundantly so we can stay with both 

feet in both countries for the moment.  Instead of throwing money away on rent, we can build equity for what the Lord is doing in the future for Italy again.  I love how the Lord works out every detail. 

Oh a little side bar the Lord even put the seed money into our savings for the down payment a few months after we returned.  My friend Raye texted me in the summer and told me about a Government site that you can go to and see if you have any unclaimed money.  She said she looked me up and I had money sitting in this account.  Not possible, I know where all our money is and we don't have any lol.  But there it was $2400 dollars from a settlement?  I’ve no clue what settlement but there it was.  

We need to be convinced of this one thing, the Lord is our provider always and He works out His plans in our lives.  We had many years of being so financially stretched in Italy but He never let us down.  We like Paul learned to be content in seasons of little and now in seasons of plenty because what we need for each season is available to us.  We need but to just trust in His goodness & faithfulness.  We till marvel at how He does this stuff.  How He opens the right doors, makes the right connections and divine appointments, not just in finances but in every aspect of our life.  There is never by chance when the King of Glory is ordering your steps and you are looking to Him for everything.  A man plans his ways but the Lord directs his path has become a life plan for us.  

A hear the sounds of Revival

California also has some breakthrough things going on, so were super excited to be a part of this as well.  We got to go to Azusa Street when we got back last April & now were having the Sound 2017 on 7/7/2017 in San Francisco.  Putting our feet down & walking and praying the ground as we wait for the outpouring that the Lord has promised here.  Being a Californian you can’t even imagine how truly full of expectation I am to see this happen.  I spent most my life praying and believing for this moment, so I'm feeling extremely honored to be a part of it.  Again there is no chance with God, He is masterful in His plans and I come with the authority and right as being born here to stand and make declarations over my City/State.  How ironic that I will be living in the city I was born in.  Oakland will become a city filled with Oaks of righteousness amen.  Come and visit, our homes in both countries are open; we would love to see you.

Thank you again for all of you who have continued to bless us financially, to pray for us to follow up on us.  Now that we are moving again in the work in Italy we will try to be diligent to report on a qtr. basis. Should you desire to go & visit Sicily, the apartment is available.  Just let us know.  It can accommodate at least 8 people & has 1 small bathroom but hey, it’s Italy.  Oh & is only a 7 minute drive to one of the most incredible beaches around, Lido di Fiore.   Many doors are opening and hearts are being melted together as the Lord is blowing upon Italy/Europe in these days.  It is so awesome to see.

Or perhaps California is where you feel the Lord is calling you to come and partner with us for this great State.  Our home is always open.  Please keep us in prayer as there are so many new things on the horizon.  We are preparing to start making some trips to various schools around the nation as we  look into putting a Leaders Training School in Italy.  We are looking to partner with other ministries that are already doing this here & checking out all the awesome material they have been using.  We also will be having ALL our children & grandchildren together for a week long camping trip in July.  We have not all been together since 2006.  We are literally scattered all over the US & Canada.  

Abundant Blessings upon all of you our wonderful brothers & sisters in Christ

with love & affection

Guido & Joyce Bassi

April 2016 -- New Adventure, moving forward towards the promise of Italy, Destiny & Revival

Well it has been quite a while since we wrote and many exciting things have happened, so let's go back in time a bit.

First , please forgive us for never finishing up our posts regarding our past prayer walks on the Gothic Line that we started in 2013.  Let us just start with March 2014 and we will try to be more diligent to keep up posting on a regular basis.   Please see previous blogs if your interested in what were talking about.

 March - April 2014 -- After several mountains we had to stop due to snow and the risk of falling to our deaths, I know it sounds a little dramatic but we are amateurs so it really isn't too far a stretch to imagine us sliding down the face of one of them due to a lack of experience.  Then we had guests for a few weeks, then our car broke down for 6 weeks.  Then we found out we had to leave our apartment. so we decided to pack it up and head back to California.

Gesu Viva

In the the meantime Guido suggested we start to revisit some of the ministry connections we had made over the years, so in May we decided to head to Sicily and check in on our Church Plant in Marsala and visit a group of youth we had met some months earlier at a Bethel Event in Viarregio Italy.  Guido called ahead and talked with their Pastor and if they could find accomodations for us.  We came to find this most incredible group of youth and a most incredibly gifted Pastor.  While there they invited us up to a mountain for what we thought was siteseeing.  It turned out to be a prayer walk to pray down into the valley and over their region.  Can you imagine, they had no clue that that was what we had just been doing in our own area.  They then invited us to come and live in Sicily instead of going back to the USA.  Hmmm was the Lord up to something?

We got back home on June 6th and now we would be leaving sometime in September to live in Sicily. Plenty of time to finish the 12 mountains we had left right?  However they found us a place to live within a few weeks so it was decided we would leave in July and spend the Summer in Sicily and do the mountains in September when we came back to pick up our stuff.  The only thing is we kept feeling the Lord telling us it was vital to finish our walk before we left and it had to be done for sure before the end of 2014.  We felt such an urgency but we had no clue why it was so important to the Lord. The fact that we were rolling around to the 70th anniversary of the end of the War in 2015 might be important, but we wouldn't know just how important until later.

So with only 1 month till moving day, we walked to the top of 12 insanely high mountains while packing the apartment up on rest days (ha ha ha) and entertaining drop in visitors from the USA & Ghana.  It was awesome & difficult all at the same time.  We had great encounters with the Lord, tangible, visible presence and awesome views, not to mention pushing us physically to the limit.  It wouldn't be until December while living in Sicily that we would be invited to an Event in Germany on July 2015 called Awaking Europe.  We learned that just a few months before (February 2014) Todd White & Ben Fitzgerald were in Germany overlooking a field and they both had an open vision of a massive gathering of people in Europe, in unity coming together praising the Lord and then being sent out to gather the harvest.  Now we understood the Lord's urgency.

Ps. Antonella 

So on July, 4th 2014 we officially moved to Sicily.  The Lord had divinely opened a door for us to become a part of a very vibrant church called Gesu Viva in Santa Margherita di Belice.  This church has a female Pastor which in this part of the world is very rare and comes with many pressures and attacks  as the culture is still very much back in time physically and spiritually. She has a church full of passionate youth and she is loved and followed by many around the region.  Many Pastors call and ask her to come and help them with their youth as well.

This little church on a hilltop took us in and loved us dearly, honoring and blessing us on every occasion.  We did many things together, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Bible Studies and just hanging out.

Marika's 18th Birthday Bash

The music is very lively with a keyboard player (Massi), drums (Salvo), electric guitar (Ps. Antonella, or Anto for short), and a base player (Silvio).  Pretty much everyone has a nick name which is so cool.  You get a real sense of family and tradition while going forward and being upbeat for the Kingdom.

Guido's Birthday Bash

Although this church is far from arriving, they are the most progressively on fire church that we have encountered in our 12 years in Italy.  They have well rounded teaching, incredible worship, powerful prayers, and although the leadership is still in it's infancy (still functioning with just a pastor), they are well on their way to incorporating apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists & pastors from among their own group or associations.  They have a strong call and many mandates.  They need prayer as they traverse a very difficult terrain filled with religiosity.

Fireball Enza

They are spiritual warriors who intercede and pray with many of them doing fasts and all night prayer vigils.  Sicily was, the most exciting time and adventure we had in the 12 years.  Maybe it was just a kiss from the Lord for the 10 years we put in up in the North. It was like picking ripe fruit off the vine.

Very Serious bunch

Although our 10 years in the North was full of so many wonderful memories and times of blessings, healing, love, outpourings, friendships and the like, it was an intense time of plowing and building and laying foundations.  The North is by far a much harder ground to work, however Sicily has many challenges as well.  Some of the greatest things they really have is a strong sense of adventure, spontaneity, humor, family and openness. This atmosphere was exactly what we had been longing for and missing.  .

Really a Camel too?

Amazing Sunsets

Sicily was a season of intense refreshing, and yes some work, but the work was shared, it was no longer just us two plowing as much as we were a family working together for the Kingdom.  It was the closest thing we saw to Kingdom living with a group of Italians.  We have seen it with other groups living in Italy but they are comprised of mostly foreigners.

 Sicily is raw and still old world even among the modern things.


It often felt like we were living in the wild wild west as sheep ran through the streets guided by shepherds with dogs & farmers parking their tractors outside their front doors.

Lunch Break at McDonalds

July 2015 -- In Nuremburg, we  gathered 25,000 strong  from among the Nations for Awakening Europe .  Like we said earlier, it was from an open vision that Ben Fitzgerald & Todd White had the year before.  They did all this in faith. They  had it translated into 4 languages, Italian being one of them.  They also wanted it to be a time of reconciliation between the European Nations effected by Hitler during the II World War.  The theme was basically 70 years and the captivity was over.  Yeah so glad we finished our walk in Italy.  The Lord has a timeline.

Ran into our friend Lidia who now lives in Germany

We brought a group from Italy and became part of His Story for Europe.  It was powerful, anointed and shifted the atmosphere of Europe.  This was the same Stadium that Hitler trained his youth for hatred and murder.  From this same place we exalted King Jesus and set Him as King over Europe and commissioned a generation of youth to the Harvest of souls for the Kingdom and blessed the spiritual moms & dads to rise up and help them to do it.   Europe will be saved.

Team California

 Interestingly enough, in the 20 months we were in Sicily, the Lord brought all kinds of people around us from all over the world who wanted to partner with us to put in a training school.  All in all, we had 58 visitors in 20 months from places like Israel, Australia, USA, England, S. Africa, Italy, and other places we can't remember.

Ps. Dennis & the Church in Marsala

We have hosted teams, ministries & friends, some who returned 2 or 3 times. We never had this many people visit us in the North.  It is like the floodgates opened as people who have been longing to come to Sicily arrived.  Many have family roots here, others just felt called to be here.

Chapman, Hanna, Penny, Giovy, Silvia, Pete & Michelle

It was crazy, our house was full to overflowing at times.  They all want to be a part of the Lord raising up the Italians and learning from them as well.  The Body of Christ has so much to give to one another, every joint supplying, it is awesome.  We all want a place where we can gather with the Italians from all over Italy, and have people come from all over the world for 3 months to train and hang out and be a part of this incredible place.

Albiola & Peter from Florence, meet Enza & Christina of Sicily

 A self sustaining place that can then flow out into the surround communities & Italians going out into all the earth.  Italy needs to send missionaries out as well. The Lord renewed our vision, rebirthed our dreams (which I think we lost sight of ), and now we want to make our life in Sicily forever.

Michael Miller doing a Prophetic conference

Bethel in Palermo

With that said, one would say, "why did you come back to California then".  Well it started with a dream that Guido had about 10 years ago regarding our Granddaughter and in that dream he saw us alongside of her while she was in High School and well, that time has arrived and she doesn't live in Italy so that required a move.  Although we are really sad about that, we know that the Lord has a timing.

Penny from Australia

Onward with the Sicily story.....


It is very difficult for Italians to leave for extended periods of time from their family due to financial obligations for schooling not to mention there really isn't very many places in Italy that they can go for Bible School.

 We know in the USA it isn't if you can go, it's
where should I go,  because it is overflowing with every kind of Bible School known to man.  This just isn't the case in Italy and many are lacking basic training and forget about anything like Bethel, or IHOP, it just doesn't exist.

So it is our desire to use these 3 or 4 years here in the USA to formulate the vision into something that is tangible and workable in Sicily.  We already have sat down with our friend Sarah and begun to write out the vision and what it could look like, however we now need to type it up and begin to present it to others so that they too will catch the vision and partner with us.  It really is an exciting time and also a very challenging time as we sort of settle into a life in California that we know we are going to be leaving again in a few years.  How do you stay all in here as you live life, and all in Italy at the same time.  Only by the Grace of the Lord.

So to fast forward....

We arrived back in California on March 10th 2016.  A few months before that, Guido was given a job opportunity that he started 4 days after we arrived.  Talk about provision from the Lord.  It's perfectly suited for him in a test kitchen working on meals that are prepackaged healthy eating.  Good wage & benefits for both of us.  I am still plugging away at my Bookkeeping job that I have been doing for the past 5 years, and I am believing that the Lord is going to increase my clients so when I return to Italy I will have a good wage to supplement our missions work.

We already have settled in with a home here that is just around the corner from our Granddaughter and into a routine.  We are beginning to reattach ourselves to friends & family that are now all over the great state of California as 12 years is a long time to be away.  We still belong to New Life Christian Church as their missionaries however we also are frequenting other churches at this time.
We are not our own and so we are seeking the Lords direction at this moment to our future and what that might look like.  I personally don't like change, who does right, however we believe it is a huge season of change for us so we want to make wise decisions.

Grace is what has been on us since we landed.  We were a little afraid that we would be overwhelmed living here as everything is big, fast, and more than abundant.  Our past visits have found us crying in grocery stores and longing to leave as soon as possible, however this time it is as if we never left, which is very strange and so we know this is His grace for this season.  We have had huge amounts of favor, love and provisions.  We had to leave everything behind except a few suitcases and needed everything, which the Lord has provided, even a car.  You don't realize how much you had until you have only 2 suitcases and your missing a bunch of stuff you use everyday.

Within a few weeks we went to LA to  Azusa Now and it was an extension of the same kind of reconciliation work we have seen in Europe.  Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Catholics, Jewish brothers & sisters repenting and forgiving.  Calling forth Heaven to invade Earth. It was great fun running into other fellow missionaries and friends who have been with us in Italy or partnered with us for Italy.  We are living in times where Heaven is touching Earth and we are calling down the revival rains.  We are walking in a time of great favor and Mercy as the Lord longs to touch each and every person on the planet and bring them to Himself.  We are living in the greatest times ever and we all get to be a part of it.  The world is so desperate for hope and love and need answers and we, brothers & sisters, we have it, we have Him and He is moving mighty upon the earth.

So we will leave you with this, and we will continue to update you hopefully more regularly.  If you want to be on our mailing list, please drop us a line at ocityofgod.italy@gmail.com and ask.  If you have a heart for Italy and would like to partner with us, drop us a line.  If you would like us to come and speak at your church and share with you the vision, again the email address above is the best way to contact us at this time.  Do you get the hint, contact us.  Father God is doing wonderful things in the Nations of the earth and there is a call for everyone to go, be it short term or long term, the fields are white with harvest and we pray that the Lord would send workers, we hope he sends you to us in Italy./

Blessings & Love
Guido & Joyce Bassi
Missionaries to Italy