This Thursday

This Thursday Noella's paternal grandfather, Campa [Elmer], will be having open heart surgery. We would so appreciate your prayers for this wonderful man of God of nearly 87 years of age. The doctors are optimistic about the surgery, one major reason being for Campa's extreme optimism and joy. If ever there was a more determined, perseverant, hard-working (still going to farm daily with dad) and joyful person it would be him. No matter how much pain he is in, "everything is always just great!" We praise the Lord that Campa is a believer and as my dad said to me, "it is a win-win outcome." However, we pray that his days will be prolonged with us. Keep my dad, Jay, in your prayers as well as he and his dad are very close.

Addmition to the Hospital: Wednesday @ 10 am (California time)

Surgery: Thursday @ 7:15 am

Also, we will be flying back to the States on Thursday. We would so appreciate your prayers and especially for the kids. During this past week, Noella, Emma & Luca got the flu again and Samuel acquired a really bad ear infection on Sunday. Pray that the medications will heal his ear quickly and that there will be no problems for him during the flight. Here is our itinerary:

Thursday:

3:00 am - depart from home

7:10 am - fly from Milan to Frankfurt

10:15 am - fly from Frankfurt to Detroit

2:35 pm - Arrive in Detroit

Drive 3 hours to Munga & Grandma's house in Hudsonville, MI

School Pics.

Here are some pictures that we received from Samuel's teachers a couple of weeks ago that I am now just finding time to post. I'm so glad they took pictures of him on the snow trip. He had a great time! You can see how he towers over the other kids in his class. The little boy (Ivan) celebrated his 5th birthday the same time as Samuel. Sam definitely has his father's genes!

The Results Are In

Thank you to all those who were upholding me in your prayers today for my language exam. I so appreciate your concern and desire to see us suceed in speaking the language. It forever will be a point of growth for us, so keep praying for all us including the kids. Our main goal (ministry) over these past three years has been to learn the language and culture without which how can we ever expect to reach others here. We give God the glory for allowing us to make some major significant steps in the process.

I had a good night of sleep for the most part and had a peace going in to the exam. After 4 hours of stress and tension taking the exam I am pretty much destroyed! Seriously, I felt like throwing up the final hour of the exam and pretty much went straight to bed when we got home around 2:30pm. I really hope it was stress related and not an oncoming illness. It took a while for me to get my brain in gear and untangle the mess of grammar rules and verb conjugations that where spilling out of my brain. I don't remember how many sections there were but I do have to retake two: listening/reading comprehension and another section filled with pronouns, prepositions and the like. I am pleased to have passed all the other parts and this will much relieve me of some stress on furlough. I will plan to retake these two sections by the end of the year along with completing some other writing projects.

Anyway, that's the latest. Now I can fully focus on packing suitcases and home for 5 months in our remaining 8 days! Where does one begin??

Sunny Weather. Foggy Brain.

This past week for me has been nothing more than studying every free moment that I could find. Thankfully, there was lots of sunshine so the kids were less inclined to climb all over me while studying on the front porch. I don't understand why Jonathan can study and read without the kids yanking on his arm, jumping on his back and trying to divert his attention. With me, as soon as a book comes out I'm like a magnet to them and my reading time includes three kids climbing in to my lap and saying "Mamma, mamma" every 10 seconds. I have a fantastic husband and he has been doing his best to create the extra study time (kid free) for me this week. Please pray for me on Tuesday at 9:30 am (4:30 am EST--the night before works as well too!) I am a tad anxious to get this test over with and Lord willing I will be able to successfully pass most of it. The exam will take about 3 hours to complete and includes: written, essay, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, reading out loud and speaking. Pray for a good nights rest as my ability to think in Italian greatly depends on my state of mind and alertness. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

"Our State of Health Address": A week ago we took Samuel and Emma to the doctors and came away with both of them being diagnosed with ear infections and Emma having bronchitis. The antibiotics cleared things up real quick and this week Luca acquired a strong cough. We took him in to the Dr. and he was given an "all clear" report and the cough syrup prescribed is working effectively for him too. Friday night we think Samuel came down with stomach flu. He was vomitting from midnight to about 3am every 15 minutes. We finally took him downstairs so Luca could get some sleep and it amazes us how alert Samuel can be during the night. He slept from 3-6am and was feeling fine in the morning with just a diminished appetite. Jonathan and I were dragging like none other for the whole day. This kid has far too much energy! What 5 year old can function on 6 hours of sleep and act like he got 13?! Today we are well....we'll see what this week holds for us.

Signs of Spring

This past weekend we enjoyed soaking in the mid-70's temps. What a refreshment to air out the house with a warm breeze passing through and not to mention not needing to heat the house over the weekend! The temp has dropped some in to the high 40s and 50s for these next couple of days. Buds are emerging on the trees and I am anxious to see the spring flowers poke their heads up from the ground. We are still trying to battle through the most recent cold attack that we acquired last weekend. We were told that upon moving overseas to a new climate, country etc. that the first year always hits everyone hard as your immune systems need to adjust to the new viruses. In our first two years on the field the pregnancy was the only "change" in health that we noticed. But this last year, we have more than made up for it. Watch now that our kids have gotten all their Italian viruses in their systems they will then go back to the States and pick up all the ones they are missing. Haha! We pray not, but we'll be prepared.

Not much to report in the way of news. We are just busy trying to wrap up business here, doing spring cleaning, studying, preparing studies, Jonathan's kickboxing classes and keeping up with normal family activities.

Here is an Emma story: I love to cook but sometimes I just don't know WHAT to cook because I myself don't have any particular craving. Usually, I ask Jonathan if he has any wishes or desires and then go from there. The other night he didn't have any suggestions so I went to the kids. It's usually not much of any help but you never know. I asked Emma what she wanted and without hesitation she said: "I want chicken and smashed potatoes!" It was so cute to hear her decisiveness and to actually get a good meal plan. I haven't made mashed potatoes in a while so it was an out of the blue response. Maybe I should ask her more often!

The Party.

Yesterday we took some time to celebrate Samuel’s 5th birthday with some friends. More had planned to come last week but unfortunately with us having to change the date some were unable to come or were either sick. Nonetheless, it was a good time of fellowship with those that came.

The kids could hardly contain themselves knowing there was a party, presents and cake to dive in to. I made Samuel’s cake on Saturday afternoon so it was a “long” time until Sunday evening for him. I got caught up in conversation and forgot to take more pictures but this is what we do have from the event.

Noella & Barbara

Ivana & Danilo

I thought I would write a couple of funny quirks about Samuel. We call him our little “Monk.”

• He can’t stand it when the Ketchup bottle is upside down. He has to have the lettering right side up and faced towards him if it on the table.


• All his food has to be separated…not on separate plates like Monk, thankfully.


• The other night we had spaghetti and there was one noodle sitting on top of the sauce and he was really getting upset saying “Fix-it, fix-it! It has to go under!”


• If he receives a set of cars, in the future he has to play with every one that came in the set and he knows if one is missing after months of not touching them.

It would be nice if he applied this orderliness and desire for things to be “just so” to picking up his toys!

Third Time's a Charm

Today the kids and I finally received our Permessi!! We are so thankful that at last they got all the information printed correctly and the right pictures to match. I was so nervous they were going to mess up again that I thought Luca's birth date was wrong, until my dear husband said "no, it's the right date!" So, after 10 months of waiting and processing and reprocessing and reprocessing...we now have everyone's in hand. We are so excited and so relieved that we can relax for 16 more months before we start the process over.