Greetings Saints,

It has been an eventful six weeks or so as we went in to Christmas and New Years hosting a team from Seattle, then moving on in to 2010!  Just before the team came I was rear-ended and sent flying into the car in front of me.  Since one of my inspections had expired without me knowing, it resulted in my car title being taken for a couple of weeks.  Two weeks and two hundred euros later we got that settled.  In the meantime the team arrived we got busy.  By God's gracious grace, one of the ladies in the fellowship who was going out of town for the holidays let us use her car.  The team was great, helpful and encouraging.  We did a few concert outreaches both in Tor Bella Monaca and Frascati, plus some special teaching on marriage and purity for singles.  Amy from the team put her artistic hand to work and painted a couple of paintings for the church in TBM (acting also as a sound absorbent on hollow walls).  She also did some handy work up in Frascati as well.  Thank you to CC East-side for all your hard work and love shared.

I had the privilege of getting away a few weeks ago to one of our European winter pastors conferences in Germany.  God always uses that time to take us aside, discipline us, bless and refresh us, then send home encouraged. I came back to Olivia (our middle child) sick with a stomach virus.  Not pretty. Brayden (our littlest) picked it up that Saturday night (of course) so we spent about ten to twelve straight days cleaning up vile messes, doing laundry out the ears, and praying not only for them two to live, but hoping and praying that the rest of us would remain untouched.  

Despite all the drama, God has continued to bless the fellowship and bring some new folks.  It has been a blast to see Romina and Fabio coming pretty consistently and bringing their kids. Please continue to pray for Fabios salvation and growth in the Word for Romina.  The past couple of weeks brought us a couple of other new visitors too. Sara seems to want to make CC Rome her church family while Giuseppe and his wife seem to be checking things out.  We are grateful to see new faces and pray for a radical outpouring on everybody coming, new and old.  On Sundays we are plodding through Acts and on Wednesdays Vincenzo has taken the baton in Proverbs.  Pray over the meetings, the teaching, for a deep work and for transformed lives.  Continued...

...Continued

Our building continues to be such a wonderful blessing and joy as we have been able to hold all of these various events according to our own needs and just spend quality time in fellowship, worship and prayer.  Pray that we could grow in numbers and in financial giving so that as we get weaned off of our home churches financial help for the building rent in the coming months we could carry the load all on our own.  This can tend to be an interesting challenge for Evangelical churches in Italy unfortunately.  We pray for that gracious work of God's Holy Spirit in maturing the body in this area.  We also pray for God to prosper people with good jobs and consistent pay so that they can honor God with the fruit of their labors.   

On the 13th of February we are kicking off a new type of outreach for us with offering English lessons and Guitar lessons for free in an effort to be a blessing as well as simply bring people in.  Pray for Claudia as she will be teaching the English lessons, for Vincenzo as he leads the guitar lessons.  The lessons will carry on every other week until mid June.  We see this as a great opportunity for many in the fellowship wanting one or the other, maybe even preparing future worship leaders.  Either way we pray for the Lord to draw people and use it for His glory and His purposes.  Pray for divine appointments as we do flyer distribution and registration for the next couple of weeks.  

Lastly, on a personal note, Hope's grandpa Lowell Bennett, who is 90, and has had an amazingly full and Jesus glorifying life, seems to be very near the end.  His lungs are super weak, taking on some fluid, and his body just seems to be giving out.  Please pray for him and the family as it is still hard to think of letting him go.  Our prayer is that God has his way and shows mercy either way.

Thanks for your faithfulness to pray and give to our efforts here in Rome.  We can't thank you enough.

By Grace,
Brent and family, CC Rome