Christmas Street Fair

I love Italy!  And one reason is because of their unique celebrations of the seasons.  Each town celebrates in their own way whether that be an annual or bi-annual "Festa".  In Caselle, there is a spring "Fiera" (Street Fair) and a Christmas one.  The streets are lined with vendors selling regional specialty foods, merchandise, hand crafted items and much more.  Last year we walked the city streets, and enjoyed the cultural experience as observers.  This year we were actually participants with our own booth.

We thought it would be an ideal opportunity for us as a church to participate and let our community know who we are and that we desire to be a blessing to them.  We had 200 calendars with a daily Scripture verse and meditation to pass out for free.  We really had no idea how this would be received but, by 12 noon we were out of calendars!  Since this was an all day event ending at dusk, we quickly adapted a plan B.  We had 200 Bibles in our center, so decided to start handing out those.  By 3pm we were out and Jonathan ran home to grab another box of 100 Bibles we had here.  We were thrilled to pass out that supply as well!  We had balloons for the children, flyers for a Christmas program being held at our mother church in Torino, simple evangelistic cards and we gave everything away apart from the shirts off our backs.

We were greatly encouraged by the enthusiastic participation of nearly everyone in our church.  We had willing hands to set up the tent and table at 7:30 am and to fill three shifts of 3 hours.  It was about 35 degrees for the high of the day, but the forecasted rain held off as we had prayed.  Jonathan was there the entire day, leaving only twice to run home and pick up supplies (which included a thermos of hot coffee to keep warm).

Our group is already talking about what we can do to improve for the spring Fiera in May.  We made a couple new contacts who said they would like to come to our service this Sunday.  One family actually lives in a palazzo on the corner of our street here in Leini and profess to be believers.  In fact they were first time visitors on Sunday to our church in Torino and heard about us there.  The other couple is friends with Antonietta and although unbelievers said they would like to come on Sunday.  Please pray they all come!

Many received these gifts with some hesitancy.  Some of our national believers were joking about wondering if the people they were talking to even spoke Italian, because when they said "Gift" the people would look at you with an expression of really, and it's free?  By definition, that is what a gift is, right?  How telling to what they must think of the God's free gift of salvation.  Nothing is "free" and everything must be earned and received through works, according to the catholicism.  Others would almost baulk and probably thought we were crazy trying to hand them a Bible.  Some refused with the excuse that they didn't know how to read or that we needed to talk to their wife as she made all those decisions regarding religious things.  Some said they already had a Bible, but when asked if they read it, they either said "sometimes" or "I have one [a Bible]".
  

Sign Reads: Free 2011 Calendar. "Freely you have received, freely give. -Jesus"  Merry Christmas from Reset.

Please be in prayer that the 500 people who took a calendar or Bible would read them.  That God's word would penetrate their hearts.  That we might continue to be a shining light in this community.  That we might see some saved through this effort.

P.S. Sorry there are no more pictures.  I was hoping to go myself with the kids but Jonathan was pretty tied up and unable to then make another trip to and from home to bring us.  I'll have to get some better pics at the spring event.