The last two weeks of April consisted of a lot of logistics to establish our home in Italy, including picking up furniture and finishing our immigration application with our appointment at the government office for our Permesso di Siggornio (similar to a green card in the US). There were a lot of holiday breaks as well.

We hosted our first ever Passover dinner and invited some long time friends, Chip & Erica Noonan and their boys, Wesley & Calvin. It was such a lovely time and we had an extravagant lamb dinner.

Lauretta and Nate were introduced to some local Italian teens.

Good Friday, we walked our town of Piana di Monte Verna with the Catholic church (basically the whole town) and our landlords and their family. They carry a cross and do their own version of Via Dolorosa, or the “walk of the cross” with 14 stations. The town crowd follows behind while they pray and chant at each “station” or stop along the walk. We ended at the town square and Lauretta and Nathanael were forced to mingle in Italian (which means they just stood there). We ate pizza at our landlord’s apartment and had a really lovely night. I love my landlords and they are becoming family.

The view in the daytime from the town square.

AnnaRita Santabarbara & myself prepping Easter Monday food.

AnnaRita is a long time friend that I led to Christ. The home we are living in was her grandmother’s before she died. Her mother, Nonna Maria (as my kids call her- it means Grandma Mary in English) and her father, Nonno Lino, are now my landlords. I adore them and their family.

Nonna Maria is in pink and Nonno Lino in black. Flavio is AnnaRita’s boyfriend.

Nonno Lino and Flavio showing the goods off. :)

Matrone and Antimo are AnnaRita’s aunt and uncle on her mom’s side.

Dad’s hair is so long that Tirzah was able to play hair salon with him.

We cannot currently buy a car till we get our Permesso di Siggornio and went most of the time the end of April without a car, walking to local shops for food. We did borrow a car from our church, Celebration Italia, to head down to a field trip with our local homeschool co-op, Classical Conversations of Naples. Guess where they were taking a field trip?! The local US Navy Band of all places. This is where John worked as a musician in the Navy, playing the tuba, for 5 years. We left right before Covid hit in 2019. As we walked the halls, my children saw photo after photo with their dad in them. It was more than just a trip down memory lane. John even got to reconnect with several old coworkers that had since returned to the area. Such a cool “coincidence”.

First time John has ever been on the receiving end of one of these instrument demos!

The weeks are flying by!! We are so grateful to be settling into our new life and to watch God move in and through us.

April News

Oklahoma! OK!

We arrived ~ 2 weeks ago!