The training experience has been a great one, and 12 weeks later we’ve made it back home to Florida a little bit wiser and more excited to head to the mission field. Our trip home was enjoyable, with visits to our daughter and son-in-law in Charlotte, NC, a quick stop to visit my uncle Joe and aunt Barbara Sirico 91 and 88 and going strong, in Greer, SC, then an overnight with the Guss’ who moved from Niceville, FL to the beautiful mountains of Hiawassee, GA. Then another quick stop in the Atlanta area to visit Matt and Andrew Ausley and Jeff and Laura French and their beautiful new baby, Rachel. Finally, on Monday night, Nov. 24 we made it home to our little cottage in Baker, FL. It’s taking a little work to get settled in. This week, after Thanksgiving we can be found milling around the Niceville and Destin areas visiting with our old friends and attending our wonderful church. We hope to be leaving for Italy sometime in February, but, first we must get our visas and finish building our supporting team. Please give us a call, 850-685-0877 Joe and 850-685-0878 Mary. We hope to see you all soon.
Graduating from CIT
It took 11 weeks, but we finally made it through our training. They worked us hard. We read several books, wrote a 45 page paper and got hands on experience interacting with strangers as if we were in our mission field. In all, the experience was highly enlightening and made us more aware of what we will encounter in our mission field of Italy. The topics studied included “culture shock”, “understanding culture”, “building effective teams”, “language acquisition”, “spiritual warfare“, “church planting” just to name a few. If I had to say one thing that stood out through all of this training it is the fact that we as Christians are on the mission field every minute of every day whether we are home or abroad.
New Friends
The Center for Interculture Training (CIT) was a great experience for us. We learned so much and made some wonderful relationships that we hope will last for life. The other students were from all across the U.S. (California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, Washington State, Texas and more) and are heading to all points across the world (Africa, the Arab nations, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Central and South America). Everyone’s situation was so diverse. There were families with one kid to 6 kids, single people, married couples without kids and others who had a baby on the way. It seems it doesn’t matter what a person’s situation when God calls, the obedient follow. We plan on keeping in touch with all of these folks as we head out to the field. We’ve already begun to network, sharing photos and stories and prayers across the miles thanks to the internet. It has been a blessing to become friends with so many folks with a heart for Jesus. That list includes you too, if you’re reading this. Thank God for all the blessings He sends us.
Prayer Requests
-that the people of Italy will be softened to receive the word of God.
-that Mary and I will let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit in all of our work.
-that our visa process will go smoothly.
-that the Lord will awaken hearts to pray and give financially to the building of His kingdom in Europe.
-that we can sell, give away, dispose of all the “stuff” we have accumulated over our many years.
Just wanted to share the great news that after many delays over the past two months, we’ve finally closed the sale on our house in Niceville. It was a friendly and holy moment as one of our closest Christian brothers, Skip Weyrauch, was the buyer and another close Christian friend, Steve Hall presided over the closing as the attorney and another brother in Christ, John Recher our realtor, enjoyed the moment at closing. We celebrated with dinner afterwards. One more step closer to Italy
Good-bye Old Friend
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