Sunday, November 6, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
September 2011
Over the past several months the Lord has begun to challenge us to take our ministry to another level virtually turning the tables and pointing us in new directions. Since we are moving into our year of new beginnings (8th year) it is only appropriate that the Lord began giving us clear directions which have required us to learn new skills that we are now attaining and utilizing to accomplish. Europe is vastly an untapped field. Once the greatest fields of His glory, they have been left short of workers to maintain them. The Lord is once again raising up and army to release the captives and blow new life into the nations of Europe.
The Lord has given us clear direction and vision and so as we are starting a new season where the doors of opportunity have begun to swing wide open for us to teach and impart what the Lord has given us for this nation. Some of those things are:
* Co-laboring with Florence Gospel International Fellowship with Ps. Maurizio & Tuula Secondi.
www.fgfint.blogspot.com. We will be helping them with every aspect of church function.
* Outreach to various communities and inviting other churches to join us.
* Bible study in our home
* Food bank to start meeting the needs of the poor and needy in our community.
* Working with the Catholic Church in their Soup Kitchen as another way to reach out to the poor
* Prayer walking in our surrounding communities with believers from local churches joining us.
* Continued work with 24/7 Tuscany www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com,
* Continued work with local Pastors
* Building a prayer and financial base of partners
* Partnering with other organizations who have a desire to come and minister in this nation
With this new and exciting vision has also come the realization that tools that use to work don’t work here as well anymore. We have asked others who do outreach about the materials they use and they are all saying they need something fresh. The Lord is so patiently teaching us all some new things amen. The long standing desire of the Lord to disciple the Nations is beginning to be spoken throughout this Nation as well and we are all starting to join hands to that endeavor. Guido and I on Friday learned how to use the cube in outreach as we hit one of the Parks in Florence with our dear friend Stephen Critchlow from Ireland and Guido actually led two men to the Lord, amen.
We just had another 24/7 prayer gather this past a week ago. Guido was asked to share for the first time at this event. We have as a group made a great spiritual impact into this region with many testimonies from people who say they can actually feel the atmosphere has changed. Multicultural/denominational churches working together for the end time harvest. In fact In October we will be having our first ever multicultural/denominational outreach in Tuscany. Please check out the awesome flyer on the blog page of www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com. This is so incredible and we are so excited for the opportunity to be a part of this work. We are expecting many to come to salvation, to receive healing and come away with more fire to reach this nation amen. Please keep this in prayer.
As agreed we have moved into another apartment and out of Guido’s mom place. It is important that we honor our mothers & fathers so we can have long days and the blessing and indeed it truly has felt like a weight lifted off of us. The contract is only for 3 months and can be extended to 7 if we want. We have almost all our things in storage and have begun selling some things to bridge the financial gap. We have dedicated our days to working totally and completely in the ministry filling our time with prayer, bible reading, studying, outreach, fellowship, etc. Still unable to find work and have come to the conclusion that this is obviously not the direction the Lord wants since no doors have opened to us. We have because of the move and being unemployed have fallen behind in our bills and have incurred some debt again but happy to report that we sold my desk and a small motorcycle all in a week and people are already making commitments to partner with us financially as well as praying amen.
It has become clear that God is taking us in a new direction of partnering and humbling ourselves before the Body of Christ. We don’t want to fall into the trap of begging for money or making anyone feel pressured to give but we must learn how to partner with others who have the same heart for this nation and do that in a manner that we all feel we are doing the Lord’s will amen.
We are asking now for you to prayerful consider becoming a monthly partner with us and helping us to continue in the direction the Lord is taking us. We are asking for 100 people to commit to $10.00 a month. We know that things have been financially tough all over the globe but we think this is a doable amount. Many won’t give because they think it is too small or an insignificant amount, just a drop in the bucket but have you seen how many Ronald McDonald houses have been built with just change and yet everyone can say they were a part, some more than others but everyone has a part. Others would rebuke us and say were not asking enough, go bigger in your asking, but the goal is not to get as much as we can while disqualifying those who don’t have much.
Prayer Points:
1. Strength as the work load continues to build, and that we would really rely on God for strength and wisdom because it’s so easy for us to look to ourselves and let it get to us, when in reality we can do nothing without Him.
2. Protection because we are traveling more and more at night.
3. We will be speaking with many youth saved and unsaved in the days to follow as well as teaching. Pray that the Lord prepare every heart in advance and that we are totally led by the Spirit for each situation, speaking the truth in love and boldness.
4. Pray for the leaders in this country that they may have their hearts united for the cause of seeing the gospel preached to every person possible. That they set aside their differences, offenses, traditions and religious legalism in all areas of their life to work with one another to present Christ and His freedom among the lost.
Finally, we would like to thank you again for your prayers and financial support for without it we would not still be here. We are truly honored. Our God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory….
Guido & Joyce Bassi
Montecatini Terme Italy
*************************************************************************************
If any of you would like to partner with us in prayer please send us an email.
If you want to partner with us financially and you don’t need or want a tax deduction hit the donate to the right and donate through paypal. If you need or want a tax deduction make checks payable to:
New Life Christian Church (Please put on a separate piece of paper or sticky note as follows: For the support of Italy Missionaries)
20394 San Miguel Ave.
Castro Valley, CA 94541
510-889-1304
Over the past several months the Lord has begun to challenge us to take our ministry to another level virtually turning the tables and pointing us in new directions. Since we are moving into our year of new beginnings (8th year) it is only appropriate that the Lord began giving us clear directions which have required us to learn new skills that we are now attaining and utilizing to accomplish. Europe is vastly an untapped field. Once the greatest fields of His glory, they have been left short of workers to maintain them. The Lord is once again raising up and army to release the captives and blow new life into the nations of Europe.
The Lord has given us clear direction and vision and so as we are starting a new season where the doors of opportunity have begun to swing wide open for us to teach and impart what the Lord has given us for this nation. Some of those things are:
* Co-laboring with Florence Gospel International Fellowship with Ps. Maurizio & Tuula Secondi.
www.fgfint.blogspot.com. We will be helping them with every aspect of church function.
* Outreach to various communities and inviting other churches to join us.
* Bible study in our home
* Food bank to start meeting the needs of the poor and needy in our community.
* Working with the Catholic Church in their Soup Kitchen as another way to reach out to the poor
* Prayer walking in our surrounding communities with believers from local churches joining us.
* Continued work with 24/7 Tuscany www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com,
* Continued work with local Pastors
* Building a prayer and financial base of partners
* Partnering with other organizations who have a desire to come and minister in this nation
With this new and exciting vision has also come the realization that tools that use to work don’t work here as well anymore. We have asked others who do outreach about the materials they use and they are all saying they need something fresh. The Lord is so patiently teaching us all some new things amen. The long standing desire of the Lord to disciple the Nations is beginning to be spoken throughout this Nation as well and we are all starting to join hands to that endeavor. Guido and I on Friday learned how to use the cube in outreach as we hit one of the Parks in Florence with our dear friend Stephen Critchlow from Ireland and Guido actually led two men to the Lord, amen.
We just had another 24/7 prayer gather this past a week ago. Guido was asked to share for the first time at this event. We have as a group made a great spiritual impact into this region with many testimonies from people who say they can actually feel the atmosphere has changed. Multicultural/denominational churches working together for the end time harvest. In fact In October we will be having our first ever multicultural/denominational outreach in Tuscany. Please check out the awesome flyer on the blog page of www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com. This is so incredible and we are so excited for the opportunity to be a part of this work. We are expecting many to come to salvation, to receive healing and come away with more fire to reach this nation amen. Please keep this in prayer. As agreed we have moved into another apartment and out of Guido’s mom place. It is important that we honor our mothers & fathers so we can have long days and the blessing and indeed it truly has felt like a weight lifted off of us. The contract is only for 3 months and can be extended to 7 if we want. We have almost all our things in storage and have begun selling some things to bridge the financial gap. We have dedicated our days to working totally and completely in the ministry filling our time with prayer, bible reading, studying, outreach, fellowship, etc. Still unable to find work and have come to the conclusion that this is obviously not the direction the Lord wants since no doors have opened to us. We have because of the move and being unemployed have fallen behind in our bills and have incurred some debt again but happy to report that we sold my desk and a small motorcycle all in a week and people are already making commitments to partner with us financially as well as praying amen.
It has become clear that God is taking us in a new direction of partnering and humbling ourselves before the Body of Christ. We don’t want to fall into the trap of begging for money or making anyone feel pressured to give but we must learn how to partner with others who have the same heart for this nation and do that in a manner that we all feel we are doing the Lord’s will amen.
We are asking now for you to prayerful consider becoming a monthly partner with us and helping us to continue in the direction the Lord is taking us. We are asking for 100 people to commit to $10.00 a month. We know that things have been financially tough all over the globe but we think this is a doable amount. Many won’t give because they think it is too small or an insignificant amount, just a drop in the bucket but have you seen how many Ronald McDonald houses have been built with just change and yet everyone can say they were a part, some more than others but everyone has a part. Others would rebuke us and say were not asking enough, go bigger in your asking, but the goal is not to get as much as we can while disqualifying those who don’t have much.
Prayer Points:
1. Strength as the work load continues to build, and that we would really rely on God for strength and wisdom because it’s so easy for us to look to ourselves and let it get to us, when in reality we can do nothing without Him.
2. Protection because we are traveling more and more at night.
3. We will be speaking with many youth saved and unsaved in the days to follow as well as teaching. Pray that the Lord prepare every heart in advance and that we are totally led by the Spirit for each situation, speaking the truth in love and boldness.
4. Pray for the leaders in this country that they may have their hearts united for the cause of seeing the gospel preached to every person possible. That they set aside their differences, offenses, traditions and religious legalism in all areas of their life to work with one another to present Christ and His freedom among the lost.
Finally, we would like to thank you again for your prayers and financial support for without it we would not still be here. We are truly honored. Our God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory….
Guido & Joyce Bassi
Montecatini Terme Italy
*************************************************************************************
If any of you would like to partner with us in prayer please send us an email.
If you want to partner with us financially and you don’t need or want a tax deduction hit the donate to the right and donate through paypal. If you need or want a tax deduction make checks payable to:
New Life Christian Church (Please put on a separate piece of paper or sticky note as follows: For the support of Italy Missionaries)
20394 San Miguel Ave.
Castro Valley, CA 94541
510-889-1304
Sunday, July 17, 2011
PRAISE REPORT
Well I just want to thank the 6 or so people who wrote us like immediately with the same theme of not giving up, moving forward, adjusting our faith talk and to start working with others more, partnering with them so to speak. So with that I would like to report aht we have bought our very first car in Italy. An Alpha Romeo to be exact. Extreme step of faith but the Lord has opened the door and we are walking through it. As it turns out the car will be in Anna's name, and for those of you who remember, she was the gal who lived with us for 10 months as an exchange student in California about 10 years ago. She has her fathers low rate of insurance and so that alone saves us about 700 euros a year in insurance. Her father has offered to pay the insurance up front and we can pay him in 2 payments, amen. They have agreed to this for 2 years and at that time we will switch the car into our name but because it will be considered a classic in Italy the insurance will only be 170 a year, which is a blessing since this is our first car in Italy (motorcycle doesn't count) and we would have to start at category 14, the highest and with this we by-pass that very large insurance payment. Yeah can you imagine 1400 a year for a car that is 18 years old and only covered at the bare minimums?
This afternoon we are going over to look at an apartment which has all the utilities included and is only rented for no more than 6 months at a time. No deposit is necessary, fully furnished and centrally located. Our stuff will stay in storage and this will allow us time to regroup. Guido has also gone to get the packet to take his truck license test as there are lots of driving jobs and it appears the young don't like to do it so mostly guys Guido's age are hired. In fact a woman from his last job called him with a driving job with her boyfriends company but without the license no job. We are looking for people to sow into that avenue of retraining, so please if you feel the Lord asking you to partner with us in that please let us know ASAP so he can reserve a spot in the class. It is a total of 950. Euro. Again Guido already has this license in the USA but the license isn't transfirable. He possible can save a little money since he won't have to do the school part, but the taxes and cost of the tests and the truck and the doctor exam and, and and, and, add up. Keeping Guido & I in jobs serves 2 purposes, it lessens the need for financial support and it keeps us in the work force where we have contact with the people of this nation, which we have always felt is the most important. Many pastors work and pastor so even if we were to become part of a new church plant we still would want to work and to be honest, it has been the best source of meeting people and learning the culture and keeps us in touch with what the people are going through. It is better to be a part of their lives in all aspects, not just on Sunday.
And last but not least, I just finished filing my taxes in the USA and even though we filed a 1099 for work we have done online in the States, we are getting a tax refund which covers the payment to Social Security but pays for the other 1/2 of the car. We bought in faith and found out the other 1/2 was covered. Again we are stepping out in faith with this apartment which become available 1st of September and praising the Lord for His provision to keep us in the land. We are called here and the circumstances are going to be like this up and down, everyone goes through it, we are not special, but our Lord is ALWAYS faithful, you just have to get out of the boat even if your dialog sounds a bit like this:
Jesus: Get out of the boat, walk over here
Us: Have you seen those waves, they have to be at least 20 ft. tall
Jesus: There not that tall, besides I said come over here
Us: I think that was the Lord telling us to come over there, obviously He didn't hear us say the waves were at least 30 ft.
Jesus: They aren't even waves, their boogie board waves and your being dramatic, yes your are overeacting and yes you heard me, get over here
Us: really, I'm sure He isn't talking to us, surely he see's the waves are well over 40 ft.
Jesus: get out of the boat and see what happens, don't you trust me?
Us: Aaagggh why does he always use the trust card? Ok, were getting out, even though these 50 ft. tall waves are going to kill us and we don't want to, we will trust you, you haven't failed us yet
Jesus: Finally! Quit making me resort to using the trust card, aaagghhh, testi duri (hard heads)
Us: hey, what happend to the waves? We put our feet down and the 100 ft wave flattened out like glass
Jesus: told you so, now in the future could you just do this first instead of having to go through all the drama, really, we have so many more important things to do than debate my faithfulness and love for you guys. Stop listening to the lies, your fears, the circumstances and above all the enemy. You know you can always tell the waves to be still.
Us: How come this always takes us so long to figure out? Geez, you'd think we would be pro's at walking on the water by now.
Thank you everyone who prayed for us, it was felt. Thank you for being patient and thank you to the ones who responded with the most encouraging and fun responses to date. We love you guys.
To Him be ALL the Glory
Guido and Joyce
P.S. We also are selling the motorcycle so pray that a buyer comes soon, again this is all money to put back into insurance & housing as well until Guido gets work. Once I settle I have a jobs already lined up for twice a week and hope to secure more days with more clients
This afternoon we are going over to look at an apartment which has all the utilities included and is only rented for no more than 6 months at a time. No deposit is necessary, fully furnished and centrally located. Our stuff will stay in storage and this will allow us time to regroup. Guido has also gone to get the packet to take his truck license test as there are lots of driving jobs and it appears the young don't like to do it so mostly guys Guido's age are hired. In fact a woman from his last job called him with a driving job with her boyfriends company but without the license no job. We are looking for people to sow into that avenue of retraining, so please if you feel the Lord asking you to partner with us in that please let us know ASAP so he can reserve a spot in the class. It is a total of 950. Euro. Again Guido already has this license in the USA but the license isn't transfirable. He possible can save a little money since he won't have to do the school part, but the taxes and cost of the tests and the truck and the doctor exam and, and and, and, add up. Keeping Guido & I in jobs serves 2 purposes, it lessens the need for financial support and it keeps us in the work force where we have contact with the people of this nation, which we have always felt is the most important. Many pastors work and pastor so even if we were to become part of a new church plant we still would want to work and to be honest, it has been the best source of meeting people and learning the culture and keeps us in touch with what the people are going through. It is better to be a part of their lives in all aspects, not just on Sunday.
And last but not least, I just finished filing my taxes in the USA and even though we filed a 1099 for work we have done online in the States, we are getting a tax refund which covers the payment to Social Security but pays for the other 1/2 of the car. We bought in faith and found out the other 1/2 was covered. Again we are stepping out in faith with this apartment which become available 1st of September and praising the Lord for His provision to keep us in the land. We are called here and the circumstances are going to be like this up and down, everyone goes through it, we are not special, but our Lord is ALWAYS faithful, you just have to get out of the boat even if your dialog sounds a bit like this:
Jesus: Get out of the boat, walk over here
Us: Have you seen those waves, they have to be at least 20 ft. tall
Jesus: There not that tall, besides I said come over here
Us: I think that was the Lord telling us to come over there, obviously He didn't hear us say the waves were at least 30 ft.
Jesus: They aren't even waves, their boogie board waves and your being dramatic, yes your are overeacting and yes you heard me, get over here
Us: really, I'm sure He isn't talking to us, surely he see's the waves are well over 40 ft.
Jesus: get out of the boat and see what happens, don't you trust me?
Us: Aaagggh why does he always use the trust card? Ok, were getting out, even though these 50 ft. tall waves are going to kill us and we don't want to, we will trust you, you haven't failed us yet
Jesus: Finally! Quit making me resort to using the trust card, aaagghhh, testi duri (hard heads)
Us: hey, what happend to the waves? We put our feet down and the 100 ft wave flattened out like glass
Jesus: told you so, now in the future could you just do this first instead of having to go through all the drama, really, we have so many more important things to do than debate my faithfulness and love for you guys. Stop listening to the lies, your fears, the circumstances and above all the enemy. You know you can always tell the waves to be still.
Us: How come this always takes us so long to figure out? Geez, you'd think we would be pro's at walking on the water by now.
Thank you everyone who prayed for us, it was felt. Thank you for being patient and thank you to the ones who responded with the most encouraging and fun responses to date. We love you guys.
To Him be ALL the Glory
Guido and Joyce
P.S. We also are selling the motorcycle so pray that a buyer comes soon, again this is all money to put back into insurance & housing as well until Guido gets work. Once I settle I have a jobs already lined up for twice a week and hope to secure more days with more clients
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