Festival is moving fast!

Tuesday 9/6/11

Shawn and Greg Strannigan arrived in Rome today. We kept them walking. Shawn said that she didn't sleep on the plane at all, and Greg said that he slept for 4 hours... Plane sleeping is ¼^th as effective as any other kind of sleeping, so you could say that they had been up for at least 24 hours and now they were working on their last 12... I have to say though they weren't zombies, they were actually communicating with us in words.. We showed them what Dennis and I had seen the other day.. Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Novella.. (or something like that)

When we rode the metro back to the hotel, we went down to the platform, and there were a million people standing there all waiting for the same train. Greg, Shawn, Dennis, Karen, and Micah snuck onto the train near the middle of the crowd in door #1, and I barely got on in door #2. I swear the door shut and pushed me into the crowd... Compressing everyone so that they would fit. We only had 1 stop that we needed to go. I was so crammed that when I would look down I couldn't see my feet. I looked to my left and I could see everyone else tucked into the train huddled around the middle post. I looked to the right past a few armpits and there were about 4 faces staring back at me. I just tilted my head back and imagined the doors opening and all the pressure being released as I backed out of the train. We came to the stop, the door opened; but it was the door on the opposite side of the train. I swear not a single person moved. I saw Dennis and everyone sneak off the train, so I had a little giggle a little smile then started to squeeze through the sardine can to the other side. I swear people did not move. It was as if they wanted me to miss the stop. I made it to the middle of the train where there were a few arms stretched out clinching the middle pole.. they would not let go, so I had to duck and sneak under them. I ended up taking the shape of a diver with my hands together and my head down as I then popped out the other side in a spiraling motion.. Finally, I was out!

Tuesday 9/6/11

Made it to Napoli, had a wonderful lunch with the Delta Ministries team, and checked into the Hotel. The room is probably big enough for a family of 10, so Micah and I should be very comfortable. Tonight we meet up with a few of the pastors from here for an anniversary celebration. Should be a rockin' time Italian Style. :) Be praying for the safe arrival of the rest of our team!

Tuesday 9/13/11

I cant even believe that a week has gone by already I think I have had a total of five hours of down time, not including the time that I have been sleeping in my bed. Driving has been fun and exciting.. there are plenty of moments each day in the car that remind me how close close can be. When there is a knob on the inside of the door that will not only adjust the mirrors, but also fold them back against the van for those tight moments; you know that you are in for a ride. I have actually become quite comfortable driving here, which maybe is a good thing, maybe not.. When I am at home, and I get nervous about how close I come to a car.. It just doesn't really compare. Take those moments and add 15 miles per hour into it, and remove a few inches, and you get Italian driving. If you look at a map of Naples, it looks like a dish of spaghetti.. There are so many tight spots, and a ridiculous amount of signs that make you tilt your head to the side in wonder of what you are supposed to do. My favorite is when you have a stop sign right next to a green light.. All stop signs are treated as yield, and if you are a nice guy and let people go ahead of you, you will either never get a chance go, or someone behind you will drive around you in the oncoming lane and force their way into the traffic. It really is a crazy thing; driving in Napoli.

The festival has just finished its third day. I have been running security and driving people back and forth from the Festival grounds, the hotels, the church, train station, airport, and from people's homes for Pranzo (Lunch). I have worked a night shift at the grounds, and spent so little time awake at the hotel room that I eventually ran out of clean underwear and today sported a pair of swim trunks in their place.. Not the most comfortable thing when you are walking most of the day.

I think I should fill you in on some of what God has decided to use me for. I have been invited to share my testimony to the churches here, and I even was asked by Doug Valenzuela (Lead Pastor/Missionary and founder of both the Arzano and Casoria churches) to share it during the festival on the main stage. I don't know if he was serious, but I know that God wants to use me in ways that may not be my first choice, but really, my testimony is not my own.. It is His testimony, and He gets to use it in whatever way he chooses. I am just a vessel; a servant who wants only to serve Him and carry out his desires that he places into my heart. I have shared my testimony for the Arzano church, and Greg Strannigan shared his testimony at the Casoria church. Again, I am amazed at what he does with my testimony and how it affects the people that hear it. I start to feel like I just repeat, repeat, repeat, yet people continue to come up to me and tell me how God used it to speak to them in different ways.

The festival has been amazing so far, the music, the booths, the people that have been coming. As far as security has gone, I have had to wrestle about 14 people to the ground, and spray 2 people in the face with mace...

but seriously, that was a joke, and what trouble we have seen has been minimal.. Plus, those are the people that we would love to have around so that they can hear the message of Jesus Christ. Just as a doctor does not come for the healthy but for the sick, so Jesus came for the lost. the Festival wouldn't be very effective as an out reach tool if it were only Christians that attended. 

A typical day starts early and ends late. I have to drive a load of people to the church in the morning, and then we usually carpool to another destination. Since the festival doesn't start until around 6pm every day, we have the morning for outings.. and then Pranzo... but someone has to drive them. When Festival finishes up, it is somewhere around 10:00PM, and we start taking everyone back to the hotels. I take a load to my hotel, and then if needed another load to another hotel that is a little farther away. Seems like every night there is a little something different that goes down. For instance tonight, Dennis and Karen went to have dinner at an Italian's house.. I had to pick them up around 11:00pm at the festival grounds, then take Alessia, a friend and interpreter, back to her house which was some other city that I cant remember the name of.. if you think directions are hard in the US... try taking them in an Italian city.. first of all.. none of the road's names matter, because they are not labeled... or at least I don't know where to look. Second. there is no structure as to the direction a road goes. Just as I said before, a road map looks like spaghetti. At least in the US you could go to 4^th street.. or 5^th street.. its one block over from 4^th street.. yea, doesn't work that way in this place. I finally got back to the hotel around midnight.. last night was largely the same time wise, if you exclude the 3:30am to 8am security shift that I got to work at the festival grounds... What I have remaining on my agenda for today is to shower and go to sleep. My day starts at 7 tomorrow for more driving!! In case you have gotten an impression from what I have said that I am not really excited about what is going on here, I just want to let you know that it is not what I am intending to show you... I love it here. The people are so wonderful. Their hospitality is remarkable, and their love is sometimes overwhelming and driving around is better at waking you up in the morning than caffeine. I'm sorry that it has been a week since I have updated, but this is really one of the first opportunities that have gotten to type... I don't really have that many pictures either...