Passing time

Monday 8/1/2011

Now that the first leg of the Italy mission is complete, I decided to sleep in. The Duomo bells chimed all morning, but I resisted them. Honestly, I cant tell you if they wake me up, or put me to sleep.. There is something really nice about listening and nestling back down into the sheets. They are not an unpleasant sound at all.. Then there is the chime of a watch... when I hear people's watches, it mildly annoys me for some reason; especially when they let them beep and beep... when my watch goes off in the morning, I panic and search to find it so I can shut it up, and then stuff it under my pillow. As far as I'm concerned, the Duomo bells can just keep going. I didn't end up getting out of bed until dang near 11:30, which is absolutely ridiculous. As soon as I wake up, the day is half over. I was going to go with Dennis and Karen to the open market to find some leisure shorts to wear, but they had to leave without me since it closes not long after 1:00pm.

Yesterday we borrowed some bikes from the Methodist pastor of the church building that we meet in on Sundays. He allowed us to borrow them since he and his wife are heading to the beach along with the rest of Florence. Every corner you turn, most of the shops are closed. There is a 3 week period during the beginning of August where Florence basically shuts down. The only Italians that remain are the ones that work in any type of tourist business. Everyone else takes off for the beach. It is supposed to be unbearably hot during the 3 weeks. Well see how hot it gets. When Dennis and Karen returned from the market my day kept dragging on. I was feeling too lazy to do anything but just sit. I had to go through all my pictures and update my blog, but ended up “beating around the bush” until we finally decided to take the bikes out in the evening. The sun was down making it nice and cool. Dennis, Joubert, and I went up and down the cobble streets whizzing through crowds, and ringing our little bike bells..

The pastor of Florence Gospel Fellowship (which is our church here) and his wife are taking vacation for the next three weeks, so we are holding services in the apartment for the time. We have the guitar, the projector.... and that pretty much sums up the property of the church. We tried the projector out and watched a few episodes of Modern Family. Then eventually went to bed.

Friday 8/6/11

We invited as many students as possible over for dinner to spend some time together. Most of the students have headed back home for the summer... There are a few remaining that came over, but besides Dennis, Karen, Micah, Joubert, and I there are about 4. It was good to see them. One of them is returning home in the next few days, so it will be down to 3. We are setting up a “friday night fellowship” for students, or whomever would like to come and enjoy dinner and a movie.. What ended up happening last night was; 

while I was setting up a movie I just happened to open a flashlight picture with Dennis and Tony at camp wearing capes and crowns.. that spurred on a whole evening of drawing more pictures with flashlights. That has become something that everyone seems to enjoy. Dennis is getting the hang of it and is actually drawing some really beautiful pictures. He took a clear plastic cup, stuck the flashlight inside it, and drew huge angel wings on one of the girls that was here.. It is beautiful.

One thing that I have been thinking about lately is idleness.. I realize that I am in a transition period where I am basically waiting for the festival, and I find myself enjoying being idle. I don't want to enjoy being idle. We are trying to get bible studies and fellowship nights going, but the season is not catering to that at all.

As more and more students go home for summer, I feel more and more like I am being forced to sit. I am afraid to go and see too many things because I don't want anyone to get the impression that I am taking advantage of those back home who have sponsored me to come and be Jesus's hands and feet. If Jesus were here I don't think he would care about seeing the Duomo, or going to see the statue of David. He would be going to those people who are begging with their faces hidden against the cobble streets in the background, knowing full well that these things that the world looks for and desires to see is just that; what the world desires. Jesus sees through those things straight to the heart of those tired and needy souls who desperately need him. Just being in Italy looks like a vacation. When I look at the tourists walking around, I see people that are distracted; looking at things that were constructed by the direction of the saints and designed as if there was a way to somehow capture the beauty and extravagance of our creator using things of this world yet I feel are only, as I talked a little bit about in a previous post, bringing glory to the city, country, or author of the art. Forgive me for judging; I don't know the heart of the tourists or the beggars.

Sunday 8/7/11

I took a walk by myself listening to my iPod this morning. I intentionally left my camera so that I could enjoy the sights without trying to take a picture of them. I finished my walk and had to do it again with my camera. Seems that every time I take a picture it never looks the same as it did the moment I saw it. I think the reason for this is my peripherals. I cant capture the scale of anything without a wide angle lens... If I had a word of the day, it would be scale (or tourism, but lets talk about scale). Having said what I did in the previous paragraph, I find myself equally as mesmerized as all the other tourists by what I see. When you look down a street and see a giant looming dome that towers above everything around it, you feel the draw. I am impressed when I can walk 100 feet and all the buildings that are near me have changed, but the large one hasn't moved at all. Its the same as looking at Mt. Hood; whether you are downtown Portland or in Oregon City; it seems to look the same because of its immense size. I get that same impression when I am walking around here. ...Now that I have compared a mountain to a building I feel a little ridiculous... then again; its a nice comparison of a sliver of God's creative ability (that took him less than a day), to the total creative

power of man (that took One hundred and Forty years).. Whether you agree with me that it is the total creative power of man or not, show me something that is bigger and better than a mountain, and Ill show you something bigger and better than what you showed me. :) Okay, another thing that I find really hard to do is to take a nice picture without tourists in them. Oh my gosh, don't even go near the Ponte Vecchio on the weekend; what a joke. Yes, the picture on the right is of the Ponte Vecchio. I must have said “scusa” ...well, ..I don't know how many times, but I said it a lot.

Hey! A very small and out of place door!.. I wonder where it goes!? I think all the street vendors store their knock off umbrellas, paintings, sunglasses and purses in there. How else would they be able to flip their merchandise so fast.. You could look all day and never find an umbrella, but as soon as it starts to get cloudy, they have them at every street corner! Whether they are storage for the street vendors, or homes for little people; I love them and always experience a desire to go inside them. Tonight is our first church service being held in the apartment. We are re-stringing the guitar as I type this. The little pins that go into the bridge of the guitar have been launching past my head constantly. Ill keep you posted on how it goes!