Dear Prayer Partners,
We wanted to take this opportunity and bring you all up to speed on what the Lord is doing here.
We are finally getting out winter and spring is arriving. It has been a hard winter for us in the way of the amount of snow this year that we received (much more than the usual), being cold, and as well as being sick. Lori has been sick 5 times this winter and lost her voice 3 of those times. (there was peace in the house!!) Just joking of course! She also kept having a sore throat at night and morning but not during the day for over 3 months. We went to a ENT doctor about 2 weeks ago and he diagnosed her with chronic pharyngitis and has her on some medicines that will clear that out and also will build up her immunities. She is doing much better now. Jonathan too has been sick a couple of times with intestinal flu and the fever that has been going around here. I have also been sick 2 times and this last time even had a bladder infection and high fever. So needless to say we are happy to have all this over with and heading into spring and some nice weather!
Lately we have been having some visitors coming to the Sunday service either by hearing about us or being brought by some of our folks. We continue to average around 70-75 for each service. We also have now around 15 kids in our sunday school classes and three of our ladies are helping us out in that ministry. Just yesterday we had a special music time during the service with the children's Sunday school classes. They played the bells and also sang a couple of songs for our folks. (attached picture)
In February for the 14 (Valentines Day) we had over 60 folks (30 couples) out to watch the Fireproof movie in our building. Over half of those that came were not saved. They were made up of friends and some couples from our English courses. There wasn't a dry eye in the place at the end of the movie. When it was done, we had a over a half an hour of discussion and had a great opportunity to share the gospel. After we finished the discussion time, we had over 30 stay and we had pizza together in the church.
The youth center continues 2 days a week (Wednesdays and Fridays) and we are averaging around 10-12 kids each time we are open. We have a couple of the kids that come to center live right behind it. Yesterday the mother of one of the kids came to the service. So we were happy to see her and we will see what the Lord will do in giving us more opportunity to reach the family.
The bookstore continues to bring in folks both saved and non saved. We have been giving out copies of the gospel of John to everyone not saved who have been coming in to look around. We came up with this idea because during the month of January, we were getting many people coming in to us by mistake. They were looking for the newspaper office which is right next to us to sign up for their subscriptions for 2010. So as a result we started giving out the gospel telling the folks that we wanted to give them the GOOD NEWS since the paper next door has the all the bad news.
One day, a girl came in asking if we charged up phone cards for cells phone. We told her that we didn't but that coffee bar next door probably did. Before she went out the door our co-worker Carol was there to give her a gospel of John. She accepted it as she went out. The next day, she came back asking for another gospel. Carol thought that she wanted another copy of John to give to someone. When she went to hand it to her, she said "no I have that one, I wanted another copy of another gospel because I finished John last night!" She ended up buying herself a pocket size New Testament and Psalms.
We are finally going to be having our inauguration of the store and also on the same day, Nicola Legottaglie, the professional soccer player who is saved, will be coming to the store. Tuesday April 13th will be the day to pray for us. We will be hosting Nicola in the afternoon. He will be there to sign his first book that came out last year called "I made a promise" and his second book that just came out this past week called "100 Times Over". We are expecting more than 300 people out for that day. It should be a great day to be able to evangelize and also to get the word out about the new store.
We are planning on holding baptisms on May 16th. In our next update we will update you on how that day goes.
Thank you so very much for your prayers and for your part here. We praise the Lord for what is being done here in His Name but there is so much more to do. May you experience His wonderful blessings in your lives celebrating His Resurrection this weekend!!
Until next time...
In Christ,
Jim, Lori and Jonathan
"those from Italy greet you" Heb. 13:24
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