santo, santo, santo.

We caught the bus into Florence this morning around 9:30 and met for church there.
We came in and Robbie announced about us and we sang songs for a while in English and in Italian. Robbie would lead the 1 and 3 in English and then the 2 and 4 in Italian...it was a neat way to 'learn' the language. Don't worry, they use Songs of Faith and Praise even in Firenze ;]

We got a surprise during communion - well, not a surprise per se, but it was pretty gross. The 'fruit of the vine' was for sure fruit of the vine and man it was some nasty wine. Oh well.

Today was the last Sunday for the directors of Avanti! Italia (a missionary program/Bible school here in Florence) who had been there for 5 years. Their 'contract' of sorts is up and the Woodroof's (she was my ASL teacher) are in language school right now and are officially taking up their position tomorrow when the Williams leave - as new directors.
Anyhow, the church very obviously loved Gary. He got up to begin preaching and he told us that he would be preaching in Italian only because it was his last Sunday to preach to the Florentine church. So, I obviously couldn't understand - but I did know he was talking about Hebrews 11-13 (only because he told us). But, towards the end I was able to pick out words -- esp. when he had visual aids!
He brought his suitcase up front and put three pieces of paper inside; "la fedes, la esperanza, la amore" (faith hope and love!) those were the only 3 I caught. As we sang the last few songs the whole church (there were probably 70 people there total) gathered around the Williams and all the Italians were singing their hearts out and just weeping because they were losing their dear friends. I didn't even know these people and I was ready to cry!

We met a little girl at the church today named Mikayla who is 7 or 8 I think. She is mentally retarded. However, she made all of us feel so small today when she told us how much she loved Ariel...in English and then turned and spoke to her father...in Italian. It's amazing how brilliant this little girl is in such an unconventional way.

oh, here's our church! it's beautiful!


Leigh and I tricked Libby tonight and told her we were going into Scandicci to explore and we ended up taking her to Gallo's (an awesome pizzeria) and the 4 boys were friends with showed up as well and we celebrated her birthday which is tomorrow. We went big - which we haven't done since being here...and all got a pizza and tiramisu and a nutella calzone; we just split all this food and it was fantastic.
The pizzas are realllllly really thin and have fresh tomato sauce and lots of cheese and are very crispy.


until next time, ciao!