Blogging from Italy!

Ciao i miei amici americani! I have finally found the time and the computer and the wireless connection to blog! Yay! I am typing on an Italian keyboard, which apparently means I cannot do conjunctions because they look like this (canà t)...So this will be in proper English.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. I will try to get some pictures posted tomorrow, perhaps, when we will have the afternoon here at the villa to hang out and rest. The last few days have been a real whirlwind!

We arrived in Rome the day after all the airports in England shut down. We got to the airport about five hours early and could only take on our wallets and passports in a clear plastic bag - no books! We then got into Rome late in the afternoon and wandered about and ate gelato, my new favorite thing ever. Well, maybe all food Italian falls into that category now. We had an Early Christianity tour, which was really fun - old churches circa Peter and Paul, the catacombs (SO cool!), and some other things. I learned a lot, though it was sad that our tour guide was, if anything, highly gnostic. We kept asking her about Biblical links - for example, in 3rd c. Mosaics they depict a lot of doves, and I asked if that represented the Holy Spirit - she said that was much later, and I was like...well...that depiction is in the Bible...it would have been so sweet to have found a sister here, but the hypocrisy of Rome is overwhelming, and cynicism and gnosticism - or just blatant hedonism - seem to be the norm.

The next day we toured the coliseum, which is amazing - interestingly, we always picture Christians being martryed in thecoliseumm under Nero, but it actually was not built until after Nero died - they destroyed his palace and party lake to build it. We also saw the Forum, which is a lot of old rocks built by a lot of different emperors over a long period of time - most of them are in big piles. I did learn that Brutus was actually Julius Caesars illegitimate son - yikes!

I will post more about Tuscany tomorrow, which has been so good for my heart after the bustle and idolatry of Rome - after I had seen just a few churches, I was overwhelmed with all the human trappings of Catholicism. I began to understand Luther a little more. It just hurts my soul when I watch people devoutly kneeling in these cathedrals to the crucifix or Mary, and I see all the junk of tradition and man-centered thought, and I hate it. Tuscany was a breath of fresh air, thought I have to say in all Italy will leave me with a lasting sense of what it really means to be "un straniera" - a stranger and an alien.

I realize that being a stranger in this land (thank you DC Talk) involves everything about you. It is an interesting thought - does everything about you mark you as being different? Your clothes, your style, your speech, your thoughts, your personality, how you relate to others? Everything about me, even the way I walk or laugh, mark me as an American. I wonder if it also marks me as a Christian?

Thank you for your continued prayers. We got three bags yesterday, but my moms bag is still missing with all her clothes and such, seven days into our vacation! Yet God is so good, as I am reminded as Andy reads through Job. That, and it is always a good excuse to shop! We send all our love and miss you all very, very much.