Great day of Community today in Budrio's Town Hall

This morning Jonathan and Jenny have been invited in Budrio's town hall alongside all the many volunteers that helped in painting the walls of the Middle-School Filopanti to be thanked by Giulio and Luisa, mayor and vice-mayor of Budrio, for the work done for the community.

The authorities expressed their special thanks to our church-plant for our active presence in the community.

What came as an unexpected
surprise is that Giulio and Luisa
gave an honorary certificate to us
as Impatto A Budrio (see picture)
on behalf of all the many volunteers that help in this service project.

We are always so amazed by the doors the Lord is opening for us in Budrio!

This it's also an article from the town hall's magazine about the completion of the painting work

Sunday Service in Budrio - Gospel

Tomorrow morning we'll have our morning service to worship God and to proclaim His Word in Budrio.





We are glad for the Lord's provision of the main room in
Le Torri dell'Acqua, the theatre&modern art-gallery right at the centre of Budrio, well known as a cultural meeting point.

At 10.00 am we'll enjoy our family time together with a lovely breakfast.

At 10.30 am we'll start with Jonathan a new series.
Tomorrow we'll look at the Gospel.

Tomorrow we'll begin our service with a time of prayer characterized by thanksgiving and casting a vision for God's work in our community.

We'll thank the Lord for Mim's arrival in Budrio and we'll pray for her settling in.
Miriam is a Welsh girl who will do an intership experience with YfC Italy.
We are also very thankful for the team of Christians who are committing for the next months to the church-plant work in Budrio.

We'll thank the Lord for the meeting Jonathan and Jenny had yesterday morning in Budrio's Town Hall with  Giulio, mayor of Budrio, and Luisa, vice-mayor, to be thanked alongside all the many volunteers that helped in painting the walls of the Middle-School Filopanti.

This has been a great opportunity to serve our community and to meet many new local friends!

We want a global vision, so in preparation to the WEC missionary meeting we'll have next week, this month we'll focus our prayers for the country of Nepal. 
The Church in Nepal continues to flourish amid pressure as a remarkable indigenous movement. Persecution comes from the religious majority but also socially from within families and communities.

More infos and prayer points for Nepal are available at the Operation World website.

Deputation 2014 Ireland - Tralee Baptist Church

Tomorrow morning Stefano
will be at Tralee Baptist Church in the village of Tralee in Kerry.
During the morning service Stefano will share about the work in Italy and especially the church-plant in Budrio.

The Purpose of Tralee Baptist Church is:

1.   Attracting people to the Gospel.      

2.  Bringing people to Jesus Christ.

3.  Incorporating believers in His local body.

4.  Developing believers to Maturity.

5.  Equipping them for ministry and mission.

This purpose makes the word ABIDE.

In the evening Stefano will speak at the Mahon Fellowship in Mahon, Cork.

It will be an opportunity to present the wider work we are doing in Italy and the outreach focus for Budrio.

Porterbrook - Campus Bologna plenary session

Tomorrow from 3.30 to 7.00 pm
in Nuova Vita Church we'll have the
plenary session for students of the
foundation and advanced years of
Porterbrook - Campus Bologna.

Foundation Year 2 students
will interact with the module
The Bible in Missional Perspective,
led by Gianpaolo, pastor of Forte Torre.

In this session, students will interact with these units:
4. The story begins - creation
5. The plot thickens - fall and fall out
6. The characters revealed - one man and a people

The Bible is the story of God's plan and purpose to redeem a people for himself. This is how God wants to be known.
This course will teach you to understand how the Bible fits together around this theme. It will show you how Jesus fulfills God's salvation plan and how we fit into God's purposes as the Church. The course will introduce you to biblical theology in a way that will reshape your life around the gospel.

Advanced Year 3 students will interact with the module Evangelism and Social Action,
led by Jonathan co-pastor of ImpattoABudrio.

In this session, students will interact with these units:
4. Including the Excluded
5. Evangelism and Social Action
6. The Culture Of Deprived Areas

Social action flows out of a transformed heart.
The gospel word produces communities who care for their neighbourhoods. Learn how social action and evangelism belong together without collapsing one into the other.

Meeting with Budrio's Mayor

Tomorrow morning Jonathan and Jenny
will meet Giulio, mayor of Budrio, and
Luisa, vice-mayor, alongside all the many volunteers that helped in painting the walls of the Middle-School Filopanti.

This is an official ceremony to thank all the people were involved in helping Budrio's community to follow up and complete the painting job we did as service project at the end of our summer camp Exch@nge with the team from the Bethel of Houston church.

These are the articles written about our service project,
click the links to read an English translation:
http://mariottiaction.blogspot.ie/2014/07/article-from-national-italian-newspaper.html
http://mariottiaction.blogspot.ie/2014/08/article-about-english-sport-camp.html

Deputation 2014 Ireland - Meal with friends @ Killeagh

Great evening yesterday @ the house group with new friends from Laois Bible Church. Really enjoyed their interaction and interest for the work in Italy and Budrio. Encouraging to see a church with a missional mindset and a desire to reach out their own community!

Tomorrow evening Stefano will have a meal with friends of my hosts. Their daughter Aoife is an IFES missionary in Bologna. It'll be great to spend time with them and to strengthen the connections in the Bologna ministry!

Deputation 2014 Ireland - Waterford Baptist Church

Tomorrow evening Stefano will be with friends from  

Waterford Baptist Church in the town of Waterford,
sharing about the ministry we have in Italy and 
the church-plant work in Budrio.

Waterford is an Irish church,
yet it's culturally diverse,
with an age spread from very young families to older folks, whose aim is that Jesus Christ would be supreme in the minds and affections of all the people of Waterford and beyond.

Deputation 2014 - Laois Bible Church

I'm sorry that once again I'm missing the walks of Budrio fitness walking group. Yet, even if I'm quite busy here in Ireland, I'm managing to have nice walks in the nature!

Tomorrow evening Stefano will be with friends from Laois Bible Church in the town of Ballyroan,
sharing about the ministry we have in Italy and the church-plant work in Budrio.

Deputation 2014 - Westside Baptist Church

Good time of fellowship yesterday with the friends from Brannockstown Baptist Church.
Great to see a church with many generations interacting together and a desire to reach out their rural context.
Encouraging to see a desire to start a youth outreach club!

Tomorrow evening Stefano will be with friends from Westside Baptist Church in
the town of Bandon, popularly known as  
“The Gateway to West Cork”. 

Stefano will share about the ministry work in Italy and the church-plant in Budrio.

Looking forward to meet these new friends from a church who aims to share the good news of the grace of God in their local area and to encourage interest and involvement in world-wide missionary work.
It's great to know that they are also involved in a church-plant in the nearby town of Kinsale.

Deputation 2014 - Brannockstown Baptist Church

Tomorrow morning Stefano
will be at Brannockstown Baptist Church in the village of Brannockstown in Co. Kildare.
It will be good to share about the work in Italy and especially the church-plant in Budrio and to meet fellow Christians keen to reach out in their community.

Great start of 2014 deputation in Ireland

Great time of fellowship this morning to set up Stefano's deputation in Ireland.
This morning he joined a men's breakfast followed by a book conversation.
We were about 10 men who cooked and enjoyed a traditional full Irish breakfast including a delicious black pudding
(click the link if you don't know what a black pudding is :-)



Then we enjoyed an even greater time of fellowship reading and  discussing together a chapter from the book:
You Can Change: God's transforming power for our sinful behaviour and negative emotions, by Tim Chester.

It was very encouraging to take part of this meeting and seeing mature Christian men alongside some new Christian to openly talking about our identity in Christ and how we work through our action as interpreters and worshippers in trusting and worship Christ in the everyday life at work, with our families and in church.

This has been a very good start for this deputation!

Deputation 2014 - Republic of Ireland

This morning Stefano will leave for the Republic of Ireland to complete our 2014 Deputation with the European Missionary Fellowship.

For 10 days he'll travel preaching in five baptist churches and house meetings.

Pray with us for protection in this travelling and that this time might be a blessing for us and these churches in strengthening Gospel links.

YfC review & planning meeting

This morning Stefano will join Ester, Mark and Sue for a review meeting of the Exch@nge Camps we held this summer.

We are very thankful to the Lord for the blessings, protection and encouragements He gave us and our churches through this experience of organizing 4 camps in Bologna and Budrio.

Later on Stefano and Ester will meet to plan the school projects for this school year.

We already have some schools booking for the Thanksgiving project and we'll definitely organise the baseball clinic with the Arkansas team.

Pray with us for God's vision & wisdom and the He'll open the right doors and the students hearts.

In the afternoon Stefano, Jonathan and Ester will meet in Budrio with Mim, Kristin and Rae Lynn.

This month Mim is starting an intership with YfC in partnership with the Impatto A Budrio church-plant for 3 months while she's doing an Erasmus at Bologna University.
We'll also love to involve Kristin and Rae Lynn with the youth and sports outreach ministry we're establishing in Budrio.

Great time with our Community @ the Onion Fair

This year to we had a fantastic time with the friends from our village helping at the traditional Onion Fair.

In the beginning of September we joined two evenings a week the team making hand-made tortellini pasta for the whole fair.






We had a lot of fun at it was great to see different generations working alongside together, from the 17yo girl to the 85yo lady and even a few men!!!
Local ladies loved to teach Jenny how to make this traditional pasta.

Then during the week Stefano went to help with the men in setting up the stand.
It was great to have good manly chats and to be teased alongside another guy for being the only two with a degree....

Then from Thursday to Monday evening we helped in clearing up, dividing rubbish and serving food to more than 6.000 people.



On Sunday as church-plant we had our fellowship lunch at the Fair meeting many local friends.

This Fair has always been an incredible opportunity to meet new people and to be an active part in the community.

Every time we had good conversations and the possibility to establish friendships.

This evening we'll have the meal for all the 150 volunteers who helped in this month.

We love these people and our village!

Don't miss the Tutorial on How to make Tortellini 

by the team of the 2014 Onion Fair of Mezzolara