Home Sweet Home

Hey everyone....I'm home! It feels so nice. I will have to fill you all in on my trip home, but I wanted to let everyone know that I was home at least. Hope you are all doing well and that you all had a wonderful Christmas. God bless.

5 days left!!!!

Hey, I have to make this kind of quick because I'm studying for finals all day, but I just wanted to write really quick an update.
I have 5 day left and I am sad, but really happy too! There's a lot I will miss, but I can not wait to see my family, be in my wonderful bed, go to my church that I can understand, and see my friends back home.
Its been a great last week or so since I wrote last. We had our second concert and it went great! The place was once again packed out. It was a smaller room, but still a ton of people. Everyone said I did great on the solo, so that was encouraging. Praise the Lord,.....I'm so glad I did that. Who knows who God touched through me. I may never know. Afterward, we had another dessert time, which I love:)
We also went ice skating in Feltre. It was AMAZING!! Everyone was in a great mood and had a lot of fun. We skated from 9-11pm and maybe half had never been before. Aside from all the students, we even had one Italian, Lorenzo, and a missionary, Dave.
Another night, Lorenzo and another Italian, Gazie, took us to a town called Treviso. I dont know why, but we went to eat Mexican food. It wasn't that great, but whatever....it's Europes attempt at it. lol. After we finished, a man came up to our table and had a bouquet of roses. He asked if the guys wanted to buy some for us girls:) Well, I'm sure you could guess that our guys didn't buy us any roses, but it was so sweet that Gazie and Lorenzo did!:) They are the sweetest boys! All of us girls got to pick which one we wanted. Then the ladies at the counter gave us all santa hats and we walked down the Christmas lit street. We took a great picture of all of us in front of the huge christmas tree. We all got in the cars and left to go to the MOST AMAZING GELATO EVER!!!! Seriously! Amazing!
Yesterday Me, Laura, and Brandon went to Venice for one last time. It was a great experience, but Venice was flooded. lol....up to my mid-calf. It was a fun time though.
So...I realized just now that I need to go study again, but those are the highlights.....now here's a couple random things...

*It has been raining everyday! I love it, but I'm kinda ready for it to stop
*5 days left!!!
*No heat still, but we do have hot water for a couple days:(
*2 more days of finals
*Graduation on Friday-with a semester video! yay!

Ok got to go...Love you all.
Thanks for all the prayers again!...I really need them.
-Bethany

My Solo....pretend solo:)

Choir-Numbero Uno

The auditorium
Maria's song's

The girls....minus Marta:(

Hey Everyone,

I’m so excited to write you today! We had our choir performance yesterday and it was AMAZING!!!! We weren’t sure how the turn out would be, but the guess was around 500 people!! Praise the Lord!!!

We arrived at the venue and we all were in awe because it was gorgeous!!! Vicenso is quite accomplished in music. He even plays in an orchestra here in Italy! He not only plays the piano, but violin, guitar, drums….and I don’t know what else. Anyways, knowing him, he probably set it all up for us to be able to go to this venue.

Everyone was in black and white and anxious to perform. By the way, we also perform next weekend too! Pray for us if you think about it. So! Praise report…last time they did this choir outreach about 4 years ago, people left after the first song, but this time they gave us an encore! The ground is getting a little softer.

We probably sang 10 songs total as a choir, I sang 2 with Maria (the director’s wife) that she wrote, and then I sang amazing grace solo. It was a great performance. I was so nervous to sing my solo because there were so many people, but I totally had peace once I was up there, I’m sure because we prayed.

Afterwards we served desserts and hung out. So many people came up to me after and rambled off in Italian. Haha. I didn’t really what they were saying, but that’s ok. Once in while I had a translator and its was so nice to know that people actually enjoyed the concert. So, that’s pretty much it. It was a great night! I’ll let you know how the next one goes too.

Oh, really random side note. Brandon and Matt, here at the school, came over Friday night and made all of us girls’ dinner! It was so nice. I think they were trying to get some brownie points haha. Just kidding. They made us an amazing chef salad, cheesy pasta, cheese bread, and fruit bowls. They didn’t even stay to eat! We ended the night with a movie after the guys went to go eat their dinner.

Tomorrow is a busy day…two ladies from the church are coming over to teach us how to make pasta at 9 am. They said it takes 8 hrs, but I’m not sure. They might have exaggerated. Haha.

Then, Tuesday another lady from the church is making us dinner. It’s such a blessing because we all are trying to save as much money as we can and get by on as little money as we can. So its such a blessing because the Lord is totally providing for all of us.

Anyways, I better get going, but I just wanted to give ya’ll a quick update. Thank you so much for all your prayers!

What to pray for….

*Finals

*More opportunities to share Jesus

*Homesickness- that I’d finish strong

*Next choir performance

*Next semester

*Break- job….

Thanksgiving

Hey everyone!
I have a minute so I thought I'd tell you all how my thanksgiving here in Italy. It, obviously wasn't as good as home, but it was very nice. I had one class in the morning, but we only watched a movie, which was nice. I went to the church right after for an hour because they needed someone to watch the turkey that was cooking there at the church. I did some homework and then we went to the church at 4 pm. There was about 45 Americans and 4 Italians from Montebelluna and the surrounding 3 churches. We had the whole sanctuary set up in a U shape. Then came the food. There was SO much food! It was nice because they got all of it from the US airforce base.....all American food! yay!
It was a great time for pictures and fellowship. I'll have to post some when I get a chance.

Choir is going great. They have posters now that they have posted all over the city. I also just found out that I'm singing a solo for Amazing Grace. I'm kinda nervous, but really excited. I will be singing the whole song in English then the pastors wife will sing the whole song in Italian. It will be a lot of fun I think.

What to pray for-
*choir- and for the people coming
*classes-finals
*strength and endurance to finish
*job for break
*finances

Thanks again for all your prayers!
Love you all
-Bethany

Rome

Hey everyone! I know it has been so long since I have written. It's been kinda busy lately. I should actually be writing my Revelation paper, but I figure this is important and it won't take a ton of time. This will only be a quick update:)

Rome was amazing! There were four that went, me, Brittany, Brandon, and Paul. We stayed in hostel Peter Pan:) Yes I know. haha. We were there from Friday-Monday. We saw the Colosseum, the vatican and museum, THE POPE!, a pyramid, the forum, St. Peter's Basilica, and SO much more! It was a great time and we made so many memories!
Three of the four girls were gone this weekend, Marta went home to Podova, and the other two went to Germany with some of the guys.

One of the fun things that Brittany, Marta, and I did on Friday was we made snowflakes!! It was so fun and we taped them on our glass doors.

This morning I woke up to SNOW!!!!! I was SO excited!!! It reminded me of home a little:) It's a lot colder here I feel like though.

For thanksgiving we are having a big dinner for all the Americans:) We have connections to an army base here in Italy and so we already have the turkey and some other stuff for the dinner. I even heard a rumor that the bible college student are going to be in a thanksgiving play:) Should be interesting.

Oh! we also had a 4 hour practice this last Saturday, which was good and exhausting at the same time. We are singing quite a few songs.....I'll talk more about it next time. I also have a solo. I'm singing the English part of Amazing Grace and then an Italian lady will sing the Italian part after I sing the whole song through with the choir. Pray for me because I'm really nervous, but I'm really excited.

-What to pray for-

*More opportunities in the community
*classes-papers, and finals
*roommates
*homesickness
*upcoming christmas, gospel, choir outreach

I love you all and thank you for your prayers! Until next time.

Agape,
Bethany

More than half way through

Hey,
I want to thank everyone for their prayers! I am so thankful for you! Yesterday was a better day and I'm so grateful for God's faithfulness.

Last night was really cool too. Every Thursday we have community worship, which is a night that demonstrates some way that we can worship God. Some times we have a big dinner-fellowship, sometimes we go on a prayer walk around the city, praise and worship with singing, and more. Last night was a little different though and quite stretching I might add.
As some of you might know, I don't love public speaking, but I know that it's something that I have to do sometimes.
So, we had a few worship songs then Brian (the director) said that we are going to try something a little different.
He started to explain what Charles Spurgeon used to do with his bible college students. He would give them a scripture on the spot and he would say, "preach to me Jesus."

So this is what we get to do, Brian said.
To be honest, I was a little nervous, but it was ok actually.

So he asked, who wants to go first. One of the guys raise their hand, Brian holds out a basket full of single verses. He said to pick one and that we can't use our bible at all. We have to just teach whatever God shows us that minute, but for 3 minutes long!
This was a really long 3 minutes! lol.

It was cool though because we all had to do it, we all didn't maybe know the exact context, and we were unified more through it. Also, we were forced to really think about it and try to pull out something more than just the surface....like when we just read over it fast. Anyways, I'm glad that we did it.
Stretching is hard, but good:)

Anyways, today is Friday and we have some friends from Spain coming to visit. Samantha and Melissa. They are here till Monday and so we're going to try to take them around a little. Tomorrow we're going to Venice again. It should be fun.
Also, next Friday, 5 of us are going to Rome. Yay! Finally!

Pray for....

*Trip to Venice and Rome
*wisdom
*roommates
*that I would have more Jesus and less Bethany

It's not by power or might, but by my Spirit says the Lord....Zech. 4
paraphased.....

Thanks again for all your prayers. I need to do some homework now:)
Love you all.