Sunday
24th May: Simon and Anna took a new member of the team, sis Shona, who is able
to speak Italian, to Milan Bergamo from East Midlands airport then travelled to
see Bro Foster, in San Benedetto Po, who gave us lunch.
PM: travelled to Legnago to see Teresa, the late Sis Betty’s daughter,
who provided an evening meal. Shona
was able to converse with Teresa’s husband Alberto in Italian.
Breaking of bread with bro Foster and Teresa stayed in the room to
observe for the first time. Took
Foster home then checked into our usual hotel in Verona.
Monday
25th May: Spoke to Isaiah, a contact, and arranged to meet him the next morning.
Walked into Verona and tried unsuccessfully to meet with Pier Luca, a
contact we had not seen since 2006, but managed to relocate his house for a
future attempt. PM: Simon went to
collect Bro Ben and Sis Becky from the airport in Bergamo while Bro Peter and
Sis Dae from Canada travelled to Verona from Milan.
Anna and Shona met with Richard, a son of a bro and sis in the UK at
Verona station. At the hotel the
whole team did the readings, where he had some very interesting questions, and
expressed an interest in helping us with translation.
Meal out together and lots of conversation before Richard left for Padova.
Tuesday
26th May: Met with Isaiah at 8am to talk about the bible and his progress with
the correspondence course, and arranged to meet him again later in the week.
Went to Mantova for our main preaching effort and distributed 1000
fly-bills around the city to invite the public to a talk entitled ‘Read the
Bible for yourself’ in Italian by Peter followed by English by Ben, which we
held in our hotel by the station. No
visitors but we had some interesting talks about the bible with various people
while fly-billing and Simon talked for quite some time about our beliefs with a
couple at the hotel, one of whom was a priest!
Wednesday
27th May: After a breaking of bread with the whole team together, Simon, Anna,
and Shona set off for the airport while Ben and Becky set off with Peter and Dae
to return to Verona where they had arranged to meet a new contact whom they had
met the previous day in Mantova. PM
met with Bro Roshan for the readings and discussion, then managed to get hold of
Pier Luca for a discussion of bible matters. Although he seems to have regressed on many bible issues,
including the need to actually read the bible, due to contact with other
churches, he agreed to stay in touch with Ben.
Thursday
28th May: Ben and Becky returned to the UK, and after dropping them at the
airport, Peter and Dae again met with Roshan for the readings.
Roshan suggested that the team might like to visit in June when he has
time off to organise
bible study time with friends/contacts which include JWs.
Friday
29th May: Peter and Dae met with Isaiah again in Verona, who admitted
to difficulties in retaining scriptural verses, and found that he has fared
better when he received bible instruction classes from the Christadelphians.
PM: Roshan again visited the hotel for the readings and discussion.
Saturday
30th May: Peter and Dae travelled to Brescia to meet with Pajti, a
contact, and his wife Elma (who is 7 months pregnant with their first child).
Pajti is now a practicing Catholic, now Peter’s contact, so the visit
helped to develop trust between them. Pajti works in several jobs to sustain his
family but may be able to keep in touch via Skype.
Sunday
31st May: Peter and Dae were invited to go to Isaiah's church service
in the morning (3 hrs. long) but opted to forgo it on this occasion in order to
focus on meeting Bro. Foster in San Benedetto-Po for a breaking of bread and
Bible discussions. PM: back in
Verona, Peter was able to conduct discussions with four Italian JWs (one Italian
and 3 Sri Lankans) who were also campaigning, and do so most heavily on Sundays
in order to make a lot of converts, which could be something worth trying
ourselves, God willing.
Monday
June 1st: meeting and breaking of bread with Roshan at the hotel, then drove to
Pisa (4 hours away) in order to be ready to meet with Gabriele Gatta, an Italian
contact who speaks Italian only, living between Pisa and Florence.
Tuesday
June 2nd: meeting with Gabriele, a contact. His initial contact was with a
bro. Vitaly who lives in the Ukraine. Gabriele
is searching for the truth, and this meeting was one of getting to know him, as
previous contact had been through e-mail only.
Peter will continue to contact him via Skype.
Wednesday
June 3rd: Peter and Dae left Pisa en-route to Torre Pellice in the
far north (5 hours away) in order to search and retrieve articles from the local
archives of a Brother Oscar Gocorda who wrote articles in Italian, French,
English in Italy during the late 1800's. He was featured in an article in the Bible missionary
magazine, April 2008.
Thursday
June 4th: Torre Pellice is a small town with one small library, so it
should have been easy to locate the written words of bro. Oscar.
However, delays in search due to siestas, peculiar library hours etc.
delayed the research for a second day.
Friday
June 5th: Visited the Valdese library and finally found the
information as this library protects 'protestant ' writings.
There were some 400+ pages that had to be photocopied.
The librarian offered to do this with collection the next day.
Saturday
June 6th: Now in the possession of the photocopies of Bro. Oscar's
work, this led to the difficult part of reading the whole set of works.
Bro. Oscar was a professor and had built an ecclesial hall with other
brethren, however there was no remaining sign of its existence.
Several buildings were possibilities, and had been visited in the past by
bro. Mac Roberts, a previous Italy link man.
Talked to Roshan by phone and offered to meet one more time before
returning home, but he was unavailable.
Sunday
June 7th: Continued to contact relatives of Peter’s by phone, but
decided not to meet on this occasion due to time constraints.
Monday
June 8th: Peter and Dae returned back to Toronto from Milan.
We
thank God for blessing all of our activities.
Sis. Anna Phillips & Sis Dae Ventresca.