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April 14, 2009 6:57 PM
Posted By CCRoma
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Dear Saints,
Blessings in Christ. Thanks for your faithful prayers and encouragements for Italy during this time of distress.
We wanted to bring you all up to speed on the couple of visits we have made to the area hit hardest by the earthquake now just over a week ago. The Italians have done a great job getting first responders, police, firemen, civil protection units, and red cross on site. Even though the situation is intense and the people are living in tents, I must say that by God's grace, they have plenty in the way of food, water, first aid, and clothing needs. There has been a great outpouring from Italians as well as many other countries.
Vincenzo and I went up there the Wednesday following the quake to assess the situation and see how, if in any way, we might be able to contribute. Since then, we made some efforts to collect specific items according to requests made by some of the displaced folks, such as socks, underwear, extra blankets, and the like. After collecting some provisions in the market on Saturday here in our zone (neighborhood), we headed up again with Robert coming along. Unfortunately, the obvious need not being met has been the spiritual one. Everybody wants to make sure that physical needs are provided for but the spiritual and emotional support is sorely lacking in my estimation. Naturally, the psychological support being offered is worldly anyway. A friend of ours from Rome is with the Gideons. He connected us with some Gideons from the north and Saturday we met there in Aquila. We had a wonderful time passing out hundreds of New Testaments and praying with some folks. People are certainly open to at least listening, or having someone that will listen to them and pray with them. We headed east of Aquila where many other smaller villages were also hit but didn't have as much happening as quickly in the way of relief. About 10 kilometers up the road we found a tent village being constructed and people waiting to reserve a tent. Their houses were right there, not necessarily damaged, but as one lady explained to me, a mess on the inside with stuff all over the place from the quake. They are not sure if the structures are safe and sound or not so until they are inspected and approved, they will stay in the tents, or in other cities with family, friends, or people who open up their homes. Nonetheless, as I spoke with her and offered her and her family Bibles, seeing the kids, I asked them if they could come down to our car to go through the stuff we had and see if something would be of benefit to them. As we pulled the first container of children's clothes in it out of the car, Vinzenzo showed up, curiosity got the best of some others, and within about 15 minutes we had the Van emptied out and about 20 people surrounding us pilfering through it all. We mainly had four large containers with specific things in them; personal hygiene products (deodorant, shaving cream, razors, etc...) socks, children's clothes and toys, and one with sweaters and sweats. They eagerly took most of what we had. The greater blessing was praying with 4 older women who approached after we had packed everything back up. They were really sweet but also very sad and worn out. After encouraging them and huggin on em a bit, we visited about 3 more tent cities and called it a day.
CONTINUED...
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April 14, 2009 6:56 PM
Posted By CCRoma
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EARTHQUAKE UPDATE CONTINUED...
Tomorrow we will hook up with our other churches from the north (CC Montebelluna and CC Treviso) which have come down this week with some of our bible college students to do some children's ministry. From what I understand, most of the families with small children had evidently been being temporarily housed in hotels on the coast but will be brought back sometime soon and integrated into the camps. Either way, we are prepared to bless the children specifically with puppet shows and VBS type ministry. There was an evangelical church in Aquila that had their building destroyed in the quake with many of its people out of their homes. Many of them are camped out at one of the tent villages. We will be working together with them, and Lord willing, should anyone get saved or have interest, there will be a contact to get them plugged in to. Our goal will be to bless and encourage the brethren, then secondly to love on and reach out to the lost bringing comfort to the downcast in Jesus' name.
After all of this, we will decide what our further contribution should be in the way of practical needs. We will still take some basic items with us, but we will wait just a little longer to see precisely what they might need that they are being provided. There were some interesting things that caught my attention that we will probably end up supplying by any financial donations we collect... reading glasses, chap-stick, flash lights, under garments and possibly hangers of all things. Our main concern is for the people in the weeks and months to come after the media blitz fades, leaves town and the politics of it all wears thin. We want to remain diligent and constant in ministering to the spiritual needs of the people as long as they remain in these conditions.
Pray for wisdom and strength for the churches and leaders who live among the displaced. They have been overwhelmed plus they are just as without a home as anybody and their church buildings have been destroyed as well. May God bless them greatly and open up doors of opportunity as well as open up hearts leading people to salvation. May God grant people peace, comfort, safety and perseverance. May all their needs be supplied but may they not miss the reality and importance of the deeper need needing to be met. May God give love, grace, discernment, divine appointments and energy to the teams, groups and workers who are gathering to minister. Keep praying for all of the rescue teams working to clear the rubble and secure buildings as well as the architects and planners who are looking into building safety and re-building for the future. May God's will be done.
Thank you for your love, concern, prayers and support. We'll keep you updated the best we can.
We pray you are being blessed in these trying times.
By Grace,
Brent
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April 10, 2009 4:53 AM
Posted By CCRoma
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For those of you who do not want to wire money, for which we would have to wait for at least a week anyway, you can write a check to CC Boise and in the memo put "Italy/quake donation" [or Donate Online ].
Thanks
Brent
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April 9, 2009 2:59 AM
Posted By CCRoma
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We went to L'Aquila today to access the [earthquake] situation. There were thousands of civil protection units, police, fire men and women, ambulances and you name it. They have done a good job at ordering and organizing the situation, getting tent villages built and providing medical assistance and basic needs such as food and water to the areas we visited. There is no doubt a great black hole in the area of available ministry, moral and psychological support.
With an outreach team still here in Rome one more day, our thought is to organize ourselves a bit better and collect as much as we can in the way of supplies over the next couple of days, and then go up again after the team is gone and establish ourselves as best we can. The main things we felt were mentioned as needs by the folks we talked to were blankets and sweats (to sleep in etc...), socks, underwear, undershirts and those kinds of things. We would like to grab toothbrushes and toothpaste if possible too. We got a hold of a friend of our with the Gideons and he will be getting us as many mini new testaments as he can.
For the children we would like to get some games, balls and balloons, toys, stuffed animals and candy.
If you would like to contribute financially towards these things you can contribute via our Association account as follows:
Our association name - The Vine onlus
Bank - Banca Di Credito Cooperative di Roma
Branch - (018) Tor Bella Monaca
Account no. - [Contact Brent at: Cell Phone: 347-107-3050, Home Phone: 06-200-4872]
Country Code - IT
Cin Iban - 65
Cin Bban - B
Abi - 08327
Cab - 03218
[When calling from outside Italy, precede the phone number with International Code 011 and Country Code 39. EXAMPLE: 011-39 PHONE NUMBER].
Please let us know if helping financially is your intention so we know what is on the way and how much needs to be allocated towards this specific ministry opportunity.
In the way of prayer, please pray for hearts to be comforted, softened to the person of Jesus, granted repentance and salvation as well as obviously being encouraged and uplifted. We really have no clue what we are doing and neither does anybody else up there it seems. We just need God to show us the way and we will be available. May God give us wisdom and understanding, love and grace, and the understanding when to simply listen and when to speak the truth. Pray for GianLuca who we had the chance to minister to today. May God take the seed planted and bring it to fruition and give him peace that passes his understanding! This will be quite a long standing situation I'm afraid so do pray for all of the workers, police forces, organizers and volunteers that they too might be ministered to along with having physical and mental strength.
Thank you for your prayers.
Brent
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April 8, 2009 2:53 AM
Posted By CCRoma
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Tomorrow morning Vincenzo and I are heading over to L'Aquila and the surrounding [earthquake] area to access the situation first hand and see how God might lead, what doors may open, if it's possible get to people to pray with them and minister God's love and comfort to them. Pray for God's will to be done, doors to be opened, divine appointments, wisdom and discernment as to how we might be able to approach the situation, how we might be able to help and so forth. I currently have a team here in Rome that I will take a break from so I can go access things. Pray for them and their time in the city while I am away as they take some time to pray and hang around. Pray for God's protection on everybody. As I'm heading to bed the Italian reports are now over 240 dead, a couple thousand seriously injured and many still missing, thousands displaced. I think of those in the hospital suffering, families missing loved ones, people out in the cold, and little kids or seniors stricken with fear. May God pour out His Spirit and bring salvation, comfort, joy, light and hope out of great devastation and horror. The people are talking about it non-stop. Let's pray that there is some sober reflection for this country that goes beyond people feeling bad, throwing money at the problem, and not really considering the state of their souls before God. I will bring you all an update of what we find and what we feel the possibilities are of practically helping folks in Jesus' name when we return tomorrow. I know for sure that we will need lots of Bibles to give away.
Thanks for your prayers, love and support.
By Grace,
Brent
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