Conversational Relations

So how do you get to know people in a new city? We have had many different repairmen coming to the house to fix things that probably should have been fixed before we got the apartment. Since we have people coming to us, I have been taking the opportunity to converse with them. Every so often I come up with something specific to talk about, so that I have something to keep the conversation going. The past couple days I have been asking people about Lake Garda. It is a beautiful lake, or so we're told, that is only about 20-30 minutes to the west of Verona. Angie, April and I are going to head to Lake Garda this Saturday to celebrate Independence Day. We'll spend the day of the lake/beach and then return that evening home where we'll grill hamburgers and watch something patriotic. There are dozens upon dozens of cities surrounding the lake, so we have been asking which ones are the best. It depends they say. Do we want colder water that's clean? Or warmer water that is a bit more polluted? Lots of wind in the northern part of the lake, they say, that's why there's lots of sailing, wind surfing and parasailing. There are lots of great restaurants all around the lake. Our electrician told us we should head out between 7:30-8:00AM so that we get around all the traffic. Of course that is just regular traffic, since Italians don't celebrate the Fourth of July! From the suggestions so far, we have several options. I guess over time, we'll just have to try all of them and see which place will become "ours". Ours for going to the beach normally. Our version of a "lakelot" without actually having a "lot" on the lake.

Team Member Arrival

So, in about two hours one of our team members, April Houk, is arriving at the airport in Verona. She is travelling with a friend of ours from college. That way she has help travel and baggage. Once she arrives, we will begin guiding her through her first steps in this new culture in which she finds herself living. It will be an adventure for us together!

Pizzeria at Home

So, did we mention that we live above a pizzeria? There are many other stores too, but I want to focus on this little pizzeria. Some days, the oven smells waft up through our fourth story windows and it makes a little mouthwatering. A new ingredient that this place uses is cream cheese. You might not think it would be good, but it is great! Angie and I have both enjoyed different types with cream cheese on it. Not it's not slathered all over the crust. It is like any other ingredient on an Italian pizza. It is used sparingly. Good stuff, makes me hungry thinking about it, maybe I'll go get one of their "popeye" pizzas. They have spinach, cream cheese and a couple other ingredients. Good Eats!

The Main Piazza of Verona, Piazza Bra'

Here are several pictures that I took while sitting in Piazza Bra, the main piazza or square of Verona.

Various Pictures Around Our New Apartment

I couldn't help taking this picture. This bicycle is just sitting outside the door of our apartment.

This is the tree lined street that takes you to many local stores , including our grocery store.

Here's our puppy, Brinkley, sitting in our new apartment buildings' private courtyard.

And here is a picture of our local grocery store. It's called MiGross. It basically translates "Give it to me in bulk!"

This is the walkway on the backside of our building. This covered walkway leads to each of the four stairwells that make up our building.

Sick as a Dog

I have been sick as a dog for over a week now. We arrived in Italy a week and three days ago. I was still recovering from three pulled teeth when I started showing cold symptoms. Those quickly turned to a sinus infection, with bronchitis tempting its way in. After a few days in Ancona, we moved to Verona one week ago on June 12th. Angie and I came down and got the keys to the apartment from our rental agents. We then cleaned some, got some pizza from a nearby pizza by the slice place and proceeded to sleep on air mattresses, the kind you go camping on. The next morning around 6:30 AM we got a call that the movers were looking for our building. They arrived and we started the process of getting everything put into rooms around the house. They used the same method as when they moved us out of our apartment in Ancona, that is they used a ladder with a motorized platform. It raised and lowered, bringing all of our stuff from the ground to our fourth floor apartment balcony. The owner, Pino, was at the top of the ladder getting stuff off. After he and I would remove the boxes/furniture from the platform, he would send it down, I would tell him where stuff went, then he and I would carrying to each room. Every once in awhile I had to head to the bathroom to cough up congestion. As the day went on it got worse and worse. After getting all of our stuff moved in, we just crashed. For the first time in over two years we are in a stable living situation. Between my illnesses and our tiredness, we couldn't do much that day. Angie and I have been doing what we could as the week went on. We didn't even unpack the TV until tonight!!! We just watched some stuff on the computer.

The thing is I don't even remember the last time I was this sick, oh wait....yeah I do, it was in March/April 2001 right after we had arrived in Italy the first time. I had stomach issues, got bronchitis and fell down two slippery marble stairwells landing right on the middle of my back. I think the enemy would love to use my sickness as a way to get us off balance from the start here in Verona. It didn't work when we first arrived in Italy and its not going to work now either.

On that note, I am retreating to bed to rest. In six hours we are getting up so that a plumber can fix a few things that should have been fixed before we moved in. But if that would have happened, we would have never met the man we are going to meet tomorrow. Maybe God has something in store for him.

How Things Are Going

So, we have not last night, but the night before. Our entire trip has gone really smooth. So much smoother than previous years. Marcus, Emanuela and Ugo met us at the airport and helped us with luggage. Ugo's van carried all our bags and we took most of them to our storage unit, since we move to Verona this Friday. All of our stuff in storage seemed in fine condition. No mold, no dirt. Great! Yesterday, we met our landlord from our storage unit and picked up our car. He had a nearby mechanic do a full onceover, filling fluids and tires, etc... He also changed out most of the filters, which he showed me were a mess. Then we went to check on our car insurance. Our agent wasn't there, but we talked to him and said we could pick up the paperwork today. After that we went out and got new phone numbers for our phones. In the mall, we sat and had a cappucino and some Italian breakfast. Once done, we took off to the pet store to get a few things for Brinkley (check out his blog here). He has been great!! Not barking when we have left him and getting on his regular routine of food and sleep patterns. The funny thing is, as I was writing that last sentence, he let out a loud bark from the other room! After the pet store, we went by the post office and Angie went in to pick up the packets we have to fill out to apply for legal living permits. We have to do that within our first eight days.

Anyway, last night we headed to dinner with several of our friends, Valeria, Luca and two of their kids, Emanuela and her boyfriend, Luca, Daniel and Simona, Maurizio and his girlfriend, Antonetta, Novella and Giulia, Marcus and Kyle (both on the Ancona team). It was a great evening of dinner, laughter and reminiscing. Maurizio's eyes bulged with excitement when I told him OU was listed in the preseason top five and that he was welcome to come visit us in Verona to watch some of the games and have barbecue! He came over many Saturdays here in Ancona and grew to love American Football. He is looking forward to coming.

Really, the only downside to everything has been my health! It's crazy. Because I had three teeth removed last week, I have been dealing with pain and headaches. The oral surgeons' office insisted that the pain would be better next week. Also, apparently, I slept with my right foot in a funny position on the middle and longest flight. It felt like I had a huge internal bruise. For the past two days, I have been practically limping at times. It is feeling much better this morning. The last thing is my reoccuring bronchitis. It is showing its ugly head once more. I can feel it down in my chest and I am having difficulty getting it out. I am praying for it to keep from getting infected and just getting through it. We have a full day ahead for our last full day in Ancona. We make the move to Verona tomorrow.

Three Days To Go

How do I explain the veritible swirling of thoughts and emotions. "To-Do" lists keep flying through my mind. I do one task and then another while making sure we've got time with family and friends too. In three days, we leave for Italy. We'll be gone for over two years. All the things that I love about Tulsa and the USA in general, will out of reach and sight for those two years. We are looking forward to being in Verona, but time is sooo crunched right now it is hard to wade through the feelings.

We heard from the landlord of our storage in Ancona. He has been graciously making sure our car is up to speed for us. This is way above and beyond any repsonsibility he has. He had a nearby mechanic check the fluid levels, the shocks need work and the tag is out of date, all of which the mechanic is doing before we return.

Also, our rental agents in Verona have gone the extra mile for us. They already have our electric and water running. They were going to have it painted and cleaned for us too, but the cost was more than we were willing to pay right now.

We spoke with the manager of our apartment in Tulsa and she said everything looked great and we would be getting our entire deposit back within the next 30 days.

Last night, I found out our first flight had been changed which in turn didn't give us enough time to change planes in Chicago. So this morning, our travel agent got our new reservation for a few hours before. So, now we leave earlier, but still in America the same amount of time. We have a layover in Chicago for four hours!

We found out that excess baggage prices have almost doubled since we last flew internationally. So, we will be going through our previously set aside stuff to determine its "weight in gold" and therefore take it with us.

Lots to think about. Lots to be emotional about. We are metaphorically straddling two continents. My mind bounces back and forth like I'm watching a tennis match in my head. In a week.....things will again begin to sharpen in focus.

Crunch Time

Just a little over two weeks in the states is all we have left. It is crunch time. It doesn’t matter how much we plan ahead and try to get things done ahead of time these last weeks are always crazy. There are just some things you can’t do ahead of time. You have to do them at the last minute. That is where we are now. The last minute.

I am so thankful for the time we have had here in the states. I never would have guessed that we would have a year and a half in America at this point in our lives. I see it as a gift from the Lord and I have thanked Him every day. He knows the desires of my heart. I am happy to serve a God who loves me and cares for me. A God who provides not only what I need but what I desire. I love you Lord!

Stuck at the Airport

So, here we sit at Starbucks inside the Louisville airport. Appartently, when the time change switched my phone's time to Eastern, it automatically switched over all my appointments to Eastern time zone too. Which means, since I input our return info in the Central time zone it changed it by one hour. We got here to the airport to check-in and found out our flight had already left.

About ten minutes later, we had new tickets, no charge...thanks Northwest! The downside was it was four hours later, we thought we only had to wait an hour!!! So, I'm on my laptop, using my cell phone's data connection, writing emails and drinking a nonfat Caffe Latte with shots of sugar free Vanilla and Caramel, and four packets of splenda.

Hopefully, there will be no issues with this flight and we'll arrive at 8:42 PM in Tulsa. We will be in Italy, three weeks from today!!! We don't have time to wait, but then again maybe God is giving us an opportunity to rest. We do have soft chairs, magazines and internet access. God knew about this, and maybe He decided to use it as a gift of refreshment. Thanks God.

Newsletter - May 2009

Below is the link to our latest newsletter....
If you would like to receive this through the US mail, just email us your mailing address and we'll add you on the list!
Go here to read past newsletters!

Time Confused

So, at night for the past several weeks I have been staying up to call various agencies, businesses and people in Italy in order to prepare for our pending arrival in June. At night, I mean late....from 2-4 AM are the best times for me to reach people. I have also been writing lots of emails to people and places in Italy. When I write them I think about what time it is for the recipient and will they have time in their day to write me back. Will their reply come before I go to bed at 4 AM? Or by the time I get up around 10 AM? Then I go back to writing emails to people in other states where we are traveling and I forget and think they are in the same time zone as the others I write in Italy. My mind is getting exhausted thinking in five time zones at the same time.

Newsletter - April 2009

Below is the link to our latest newsletter....
April 2009 Newsletter


If you would like to receive this through the US mail, just email us your mailing address and we'll add you on the list!

Go here to read past newsletters!

Contracts and Visas

We got our passports back after expediting their renewal (the expired February 2010 and they needed to expire after September 2010 for the yearlong visas we are requesting. So, last week we made our way to Houston, Texas where the Italian consulate is that has jurisdiction over the state of Oklahoma, among a few others. We had to go in person to present our application and documents. We are requesting a visa for "religious reasons", which is one of the valid reasons listed on the consulate's site. The visas are good for one year, but renewable in Italy, in the form of living permits issued by the main police station of the city you are living in. In our case, Verona. After inspecting all the documents, they told us the visas should be ready in 7-10 days. Not sure if that is literal or "business days". It literal, we could expect them as soon as Friday, May 1st or as late as Monday, May4th. If it is business days, then it would be somewhere between Tuesday, May 5th and Friday, May 8th.

(A building in Houston reflects another much like a Monet painting)

This week, the rental agency sent us the contracts to sign for our apartment in Verona. They also sent the bank information for the international transfers which would need to be done for deposits, first month's rent and agency fees. We did the transfers on Tuesday and emailed them copies of the contract Tuesday as well. We will be mailing the originals this week.

An Apartment in Verona

So, we heard back from our real estate agents in Verona this morning....it was actually around 2:30 AM last night when I called, that is 9:30 AM their time. Giulia told me she had "Buone Notizie" (Good News) for us! If we met the landlord between what he was asking and what we had offered the apartment was ours! I said okay and they are now preparing the contracts for us to sign. They will get us the landlord's bank account info for us to do an international transfer. Giulia, and on another occasion Elio (another agent), had told me they would be able to help us get utilities turned on. This is amazing, especially for the internet since one time we waited three weeks to get the internet on!

And here are some photos that the agency had emailed us.


Living Room:

Balcony:

Kitchen:
Bathroom:

Hallway coming from the bedrooms (living room is straight ahead):

Master Bedroom:

Matt's Office/Guest Bedroom:

Angie's Office/Guest Bedroom:

Private Parking area:

Here is the location of the apartment in Google Maps:

View Via 24 Maggio, 37 Verona, Italy in a larger map

Route 66 - Galena (Mater & Red)

These photos are from a trip taken on Route 66 from Joplin to Tulsa.

Galena, Kansas. In person it felt like we were standing at the end of Radiator Springs looking down main street.

We were told this 'ghost writing' inspired the "Welcome to Radiator Springs" sign.

This firetruck got brought into town after CARS came out, so he's not the original "Red", but pretty close!!

This was the truck that inspired Mater. Obviously, the eyes were added later.

Apartment Hunting Continues

So, we have been talking with a real estate about one particular apartment in Verona for about a week now. They have sent us a layout of the apartment so we can better see how the rooms fit together.

They sent us a sketched version of layout. After I figured out which building it was on Google Maps, I overlaid the apartment layout sketch on top of the building in Google Maps. Google Maps has a scale on it, so once I scaled down the size of the layout to fit the building, I had the scale to determine the lengths and widths. The measurements may not be exact, but I think they are pretty close.

One of the things that we were asked to send to the rental agency was a "permesso di soggiorno". This is living permit for foreignors. We will not get one until we arrive in Verona and go apply at the Police Station, or Questura. Even then we will just get a receipt for one, sometimes you can wait up to six months for a permesso di soggiorno. However, a receipt should work. Since we are trying to take care of as much of this on this side of the ocean, I asked if there was another document we could use instead of a permesso. For example, could we use our visa, once we get that from the Italian consulate? You have to get a visa to get a permesso, so I thought it might be comparable. He said I should ask the Italian consulate, that they would know better than he. I called the Italian consulate. A man gave me the woman's email address that I needed to write for the information. She wrote back that she didn't know, I would need to check with the rental agency!!! Not sure what we'll do on this one.

I did call to see if they were waiting on that to show the landlord. Giulia is who answered and she said she would need to talk with Elio (the boss) to find out. I asked if they were still showing the same apartment to anyone. She said no, when someone makes out a proposal, like we have, they cancel all showings of that apartment. That means we are the only ones in the hunt for it at this time. We offered a little less than the requested monthly rent, which is common in Italy.

Tomorrow around noon, they are supposed to call and tell me where things stand with showing the proposal to the landlord. It may be a little hard to go to sleep tonight, with all the anticipation! Here's hoping and thanks for praying as you read this. Mainly, we just want to be where God wants us to be in Verona. We believe it is He who called us there and we are just excited to get there and see what God has in store for us!

One of the Things We'll Miss Over the Next Couple Years

Living one mile from Pei Wei, which is PF Chang's more ecomical faster food restaurant, will be something that we will miss when we return to Italy in two months. Mmmmm...lettuce wraps, me miss you long time.

There are chinese restaurants in Italy, but they are an Italian version of chinese food, much like the chinese food we are used to here in America is not real chinese food, but an American version of chinese food. In other words, it's just different, not bad, just different. We'll miss it.

Earthquake In Italy Near My Great Grandfather's Hometown

Apparently, there has been an earthquake in Italy this morning. It's center was near the city of L'Aquila that's in the region of Abruzzo. Abruzzo is the region just south of the Marche where Angie and I lived in Ancona. The province of L'Aquila is where the city that my Great Grandfather came from, Pratola Peligna. I haven't heard anything about that specific city, but in other areas of the province there are at least twenty are dead as buildings fell. Here's a link to an article about the quake...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/europe/07italy.html?ref=europe.

Here is a site about Pratola Peligna, my Great Grandfather's hometown...
http://abruzzo.indettaglio.it/eng/comuni/aq/pratolapeligna/pratolapeligna.html

Matt's Sermon on Biblical Leadership

A couple weeks ago, I preached at Sandusky Avenue Christian Church, one of our supporting churches. I preached on Biblical Leadership. I used several Italian examples, good and bad, to support the sermon. If you want to take a listen, I'll post it below...

Biblical Leadership - Italian Style by Matt Crosser (64 MB)

Reality Entices

Now, that we have our pre-departure date set for June 8th, reality is setting in. First off, we know there is lots to do before we leave but so far God has been providing for us a smooth ride. One of the things we are doing is apartment hunting. This has been surprisingly exciting. I mean, I knew that Angie and I would enjoy this, but it has felt great. I am finding that part of myself that burns for Italy growing and growing. The thing is, while we have been living in a state of uncertainty, we could not dream of Verona all the time or it would have consumed us. In order to live in contentment while God was preparing us and our team, we needed to have balance. But now, it is unbridled. Three of the past four nights, I have stayed up very late, so that I could call about apartments in Italy. At 2 in the morning I am reaching them at 9 AM when they open. The other night I worked and called until 6:30 AM! The next night I went to bed at 11:30 PM, hence the one night out of four staying up. Previously, we have planned on picking out an apartment once we arrived in Italy, after gathering possibilities. However, we have been presented with a really good option. At this point we only have a couple more questions and we might proceed to put down a deposit, if they will let us from here in the states. As we put down roots, we create a stability that we have not had since we moved out of our apartment in Ancona in October 2007. This will feel nice. I have been searching in the neighborhoods nearby for stores, pizzerias, churches, coffee shops, restaurants, etc... It has been fun exploring with Google Maps! Hopefully, we'll know soon if we will have an apartment and I can post links on Google Maps.

Brinkley, Our New Puppy

So, Angie and I got a new puppy. His name is Brinkley and he's a Yorkshire Terrier, or Yorkie. We want to put up photos of Brinkley online, but rather than inundate this blog, we've made a new blog that is all about him. Check it out if you want to see our new little buddy. Follow the link below...

http://apupnamedbrinkley.blogspot.com/

Matt Preaching

Matt Preaching
On Sunday, March 22, I will be preaching at Sandusky Christian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you desire feel free to join us, the service starts at 10:00 AM. It is on 11th street between Yale and Harvard. I will be preaching on Biblical Leadership – Italian Style. I’ll be sharing some examples from Italian culture and history that illuminate the kind of leadership that God calls us to in the church. Maybe we’ll see you there!!

Where Things Stand

Where Things Stand
So where does the recent support increase leave us standing? There were two main areas of support raising that we were focused on. The first area was in one time support. We originally had a goal of $38,521 which included $10,000 towards future facility which, as we reported, decided to postpone since we didn’t need it until the majority of our team is out of language school. That left $28,521. God brought in $27,471, leaving only $1050. That is amazing and we are incredibly grateful to all of you who partnered with us in that or that prayed for it to be. Pray for that last $1050 to come in!

The second area of support raising was towards monthly funds. Our monthly budget sits at $6,976 (based on $1.47 per 1 euro). Of that God has provided monthly committed partners in the amount of $6460, which is 93% of our total monthly budget! That is incredible and we are very grateful for the prayers, commitments and sacrifice that goes along with that. Of course, even from the field we will have some focus on that last 7% of support raising. Please pray for monthly commitments to cover the remaining $516 per month!

New Prayer Topics

New Prayer Topics
You’ll start seeing some new prayer topics filtering through our prayer updates. Just write us if you would like to receive our prayer updates, which normally are sent twice per month. Some things you can begin praying about is our visas, apartment search in Verona, team separation and travel.
· Visas – we have to apply for religious worker visas from the Italian consulate in Houston. In order to apply, we have to meet all the requirements that the Italian government has for that particular visa and then compile all the documents that prove so. Then we must present those documents in person in Houston and wait once more while they pour over the application. It is a process that can take as little 7-10 days and as long as three months.
· Apartment Search – Starting next week, I will be contacting our real estate agent in Verona to begin putting together options for us to look at (and pray over). Hopefully, they will be able to send us photos via email so we can better imagine the situation and evaluate each apartments merits’. We plan on making our choice upon arrival in Italy during our first weeklong stay in Verona. Please be praying about this. We want to be where God wants us to be, not just down to the country or city, but the neighborhood, building and specific apartment. We believe that God has just the place in mind for us to do His work and help us to not get in the way of His plans!
· Team Separation – It is one thing to be in separate states within the same country, it is quite another to be a team separated by an ocean with differing roles and functions. Please pray for all of our remaining team members, as they continue advancing during this time of preparation and support building. Pray for us and April upon arrival to not feel lonely without the rest of our team in Verona.
· Travel – During the remaining three months, we have much travel planned. This includes travel to Houston for visa procurement, Louisville, Joplin, Kansas City and other potential sites. We would love to provide a final visit with each of our supporting churches, pray for there to be time and finances enough to allow that.

Pre-Departure Stage Has Begun!

Pre-departure Stage Has Begun
This week we received confirmation from a church that is supplying $4,000 out of the last $5000 that we needed in one time support. Since that is 96% of what were raising in one time support we are moving forward into our pre-departure phase. We are currently shopping for tickets around June 7-10th. That gives almost three months to do everything we need to do before heading back. Several tasks had to wait until we had confirmation, so now we can begin those tasks and in fact have already begun some. Thanks for your prayers, your gifts, your sacrifice and your support as we have gone through this very flexible period of preparation, training and support building. The time has not been wasted and we have been grateful for the extra time with family, friends and an America that we love.
April Houk, who is also ready, will be joining us in Italy about three weeks after we arrive there. Arriving prior to any team members will allow us to set up a more stable environment as they arrive and experience the culture, Italian style. It also allows us to take care of some of our specific legal and logistical tasks and then be allowed to put more focus on April and all subsequent team members that follow.

Newsletter - January 2009

Here is our January 2009 newsletter, which is the first newsletter for 2009. Click above to view it or right click and choose "Save Target As" to download it to your computer. You need Adobe Reader installed to view it.

Newsletter - December 2008

Here is our December 2008 newsletter, which is the fifth newsletter for 2008. Click above to view it or right click and choose "Save Target As" to download it to your computer. You need Adobe Reader installed to view it.

Team Expansion Meeting

So, we spent the day helping facilitate a special Team Expansion meeting in downtown Tulsa. It took place at the Centennial Park Community Center around 6th & Peoria. That is a really nice facility! It was a great day seeing some familiar faces and meeting some new people. It was a good start to lead into the National Missionary Convention that starts tomorrow.

A Little Bit of Italy

Some of our Italian friends and their family are visiting the US right now. They are members of the church in Ancona. We were able to visit with them last Thursday, September 25. It is the most that we spoke in Italian since we arrived in America. It was very encouraging for Angie and I, because most of it came back very quickly. We conversed and translated for the American host family they were also visiting. We know that God has us in the states for His reasons, however, it was very nice to have this slice of Italy. It added fuel to our already existing fire to return. We look forward to the time in which God has planned for us to return. Check out the smiling faces below.

(Listed from left to right; Angie, Stefano, Emanuele, Matt, Matteo, Sylvia).