Italy 2008 Mission Trip - (courtesy of Ron Pipes)
Goal: Help the small Evangelical Church in Montefiascone, Italy through community outreach, relationship building, and demonstrating an active lifestyle of faith, worship, praise, and community.
Background: High School students from Monument have worked with this church since 2002, and we have seen it become a respected part of the Italian community. Monument has not had a team there since 2004, and the local Italian pastor has been less than thrilled by the other organizations that have helped. This year he contacted us and asked if we could bring a team back using the structure and techniques from previous trips.
You can visit the church web site: Montefiascone's "True Vine" Church: http:\\www.visitare.net/veravite (it is all in Italian)
Approach: Free English classes are offered for 3 hours each day for a week as sponsored by the True Vine church. In 2002 we had 20 students attend the classes, the second year we had 60 students, and the third year the class was filled with 60 students a few weeks before we even arrived.
Spiritual Impact: All classes include a biblical component used for teaching. Most of the materials are derived from our local organization, Greater Europe Mission. We have now found that the high school and college students that make up the bulk of the class have very strong English skills, so we use the opportunity to discuss current events, entertainment, the Bible, and other Christian works. We prepare those materials during team meetings here in Colorado using Time Magazine, Focus on the Family materials, and other publications.
Starting in 2003, we added what we called “American Worship” or “Pizza and Praise”. This consisted of a dinner with the more mature students, and then we invited them to our own praise service. We told the Italians that we needed our own service to reflect and recharge. We usually had about 10-12 Italians attend knowing that it was a typical American youth service. We would have 3-5 worship songs, prayer time, a student led devotion, and then closing music and prayer. This has been so successful that the American missionary living in Montefiascone continues to do this.
Since our work with the church in Montefiascone, they now have their own church building and have used it for some community outreach besides Sunday services. This is a HUGE impact because many people in the community look at other Christian organizations as a cult.
OUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES
At this point, the two biggest challenges are finding reasonable airfare, and keeping costs reasonable with the Euro exchange rate in bad shape. Both of these are being resolved to some degree.
THE PLAN FOR 2008
We have been coordinating with the American missionaries and the Italian pastors for about 4 months on the plan for this trip. We needed to have it scheduled after the Italian schools are out, and when we can get access to the small hotel that allows us to use their facilities for teaching. At this point, the dates are roughly depart on June 19th and return on July 1st or 2nd.
SCHEDULE
JUNE 20th Friday:
We would arrive in Rome on Friday, around noon. We would do some local sight seeing and spend the night possibly at the Salvation Army youth hostel (we stayed a week there in 2004 and it worked quite well). Things that are important to see include the prison where Paul was held captive, some of the larger churches, and possibly some of the catacombs. It is humbling to see the prayers of early Christians written on clay tablets asking for relief from their persecution.
June 21st Saturday
We would go to Montefiascone by bus or train (its about 2 hours from Rome) and get settled in. That first night we would make contact with students we know from previous visits. The goal is to invite them to the church service Sunday morning.
June 22nd, Sunday
The day starts with the church service and we would expect to see some of our previous students. Afternoon with the church is a long pot luck meal. Our evening would consist of our first “American Worship” were we would invite the students we’ve known for the last few years.
Monday – Friday.
English classes are conducted from 9-12 each day. Each class includes 30-60 minutes of biblical teaching. The younger students (middle school age) have lessons that are simple bible stories. The older students use direct readings from English bibles with guided discussion. In the Italian culture, afternoons are very relaxed and in fact most businesses (including banks and post offices) are closed. Normally the group hangs out at the lakeside beach. This year some of the more mature Italians have asked us to include afternoon “teaching”. This would be conducted in the church (which is up in the main part of town) and again, this is a big step to get Italians in a non-Catholic church. Evenings are usually a simple meal either with families or at the local restaurants. From about 8pm to 10pm the community mostly comes out and hangs out at the Piazza (the town square). Depending on the quality of soccer players we bring, we may get some soccer games organized in the evening.
Wednesday evening would be our second Pizza and Praise and that usually goes very well. We do that as a campfire at the lakeside beach.
Friday night we have another celebration – roasted marshmallows (which are unknown in Italy) along with songs by the campfire along the beach. This includes some prayer time, but not structured teaching like our other evenings.
Saturday June 28th
We’ll do some local sight seeing during the day (there are numerous historic places), and look at another American Worship service that evening (maybe in the church building if the Italians are comfortable).
Sunday June 29th,
This is our big opportunity to invite more friends to the church service.
Monday June 30th
This is a debriefing day. We have lunch and then work with the pastor and missionary to discuss what worked well, what could be improved, and who are some of the people that the pastor and missionary could follow up with after we leave.
We expect our students to have 10 days of service during this trip – Saturday getting relationships initiated, Sunday serving the church in Montefiascone, Monday through Friday teaching and building relationships, Saturday evening another praise service, then Sunday service, Monday outbrief with the pastor and missionary, and then a possible final praise party on Monday evening.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Where do we stay ? Students are placed in local homes. Mostly these are church members, but some of the older students we place with families that are known to the pastor and his wife and are open to hosting Americans. I (Ron) have been twice, my daughter has been three times, and we have always had positive experiences. The Italians are VERY gracious. The pastor’s wife, Janet, is actually British, and teaches at the High School in town so she really knows the families we are dealing with. PLEASE NOTE: In a number of cases students are placed by themselves with a family (typically with an equivalent age/gender Italian student). We will help the students prepare to be hosted by these families.
2. How do we get around ? We will rent one or two cars to be driven by Zach or Ron. The American missionary, Amy, also has a car available.
3. Are we trying to “convert Catholics”? NO. Marco (the pastor) has grown up in this town and is friends with the local priests. A comment he made to a friend who is a priest: “We just want the kids to start reading their Bibles, praying, and having a real relationship with God”. Marco doesn’t care where they go to church as long as they get connected. We’ve also heard that several years ago Pope John Paul declared Italy a Mission Field because it had become so spiritually dead.
4. What kind of town is Montefiascone ? It is very similar to Monument. The next largest town is about 20 minutes away (Viterbo) and there is a University in Viterbo that brings some of the older students to our classes.
5. What is the church like ? The town of Montefiascone was mostly built in the 1300s. The church is in what used to be a small shop on one of the small roadways. I understand its about 500 square feet (about the size of a garage).
6. Is the language a barrier ? No. Most any Italian high school student can speak sufficiently well. They are looking for help in understanding American culture and in helping with their accents. We did have some high school seniors ask us grammar questions a few years ago and they stumped ALL of us (including a 4.0 student from LP).
7. Do Monument kids from previous trips still stay in contact? Yes. One of our students spent spring break visiting Montefiascone, one of our college students met up with an Italian student visiting the states this last summer, many of them still send text messages and emails, we’ve had 2 Italians come back for 1-2 weeks to stay with us in Monument, and we have another Italian student already working on plans to come visit Colorado later this summer.
8. Why go so far ? We have been building the FRCC Missions Program on the words of Jesus in Acts 1:8 “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. We view Monument as our Jerusalem (those near us), Judea as our region (as seen in our outreach at Acacia Park in Colorado Springs), Samaria as a place farther and more different (which is our mission work in New Orleans), and then looking for opportunities like Italy to take us to the “ends of the earth”. Our Italy mission trip is for those students that have served both locally and on our extended mission trips. It is a capstone trip to expose them to world-wide missions and the need across the globe to hear the good news of Jesus Christ from a new generation.
9. Are we making a difference ? Yes. The church now has a building. The town respects what they are doing, and they see that the youth are impacted in a positive way by what we are doing.
EXPECTATIONS
This is a trip for the mature Christian student. Key expectations are:
1. Age 16 or over
2. Experience on a previous mission trip
3. Demonstrated service in a home church (helping with youth, volunteering where needed, etc)
4. Team Work Meetings. There will be a number of required meetings to prepare for this trip. Some meetings will have an obvious connection to missions preparation such as building up the study materials, learning some basic Italian, and helping with team planning for the trip. This is not a trip where a student can attend passively – all are expected to contribute more than just their daily work assignments.
5. Team Bonding. We will have some required meetings just to build team unity. This may include dinners coupled with some focused Bible study, or even prayer evenings. Once these calendars are established we will expect students to work with their families and employers to have the time available. We are reasonable so we know there will be planned family activities that conflict – we just want advanced coordination.
REQUIREMENTS
1. A passport is required, preferably in late May so we have them verified. There is NO WAY to on this trip without a passport. We have had great luck in the past going to the Palmer Lake post office to get passports (but as with all things, that may be different). Plan on 2 months for getting the passport (meaning you should start now).
2. Some form of medical insurance. Many policies cover foreign travel, but you should check to be sure. You may want to check on the web site http://www.internationalsos.com/en/ which has been used by a number of students to provide augmented coverage on a per-day cost basis.
3. There are no special immunizations required.
4. Some money for food and incidentals is required. Final planning is still being coordinated with the American missionary that lives in Montefiascone, but you could expect that students will be required to purchase about 15 meals. Planning on $10 for each of these meals will be more than plenty. Students can easily spend $2 to $5 on Gelato (Ice Cream) and other snacks. In all a student should be comfortable with $200 of spending money, less if they are frugal, more if they want to experience finer dining. We’ll discuss more of this at parent’s meeting in May and June.
