Fall Conference

We spent last weekend at our Fall Conference right outside of Rome in a city called Polmezia. This is my favorite conference of the year because all of the meetings are in english and italian and Italians can come too. Agape Italia kicked off their internship program the week prior and my team leader Amanda was there for the whole thing. To start, there were supposed to be about 10 interns, the 10 turned into 7, and at the last minute it ended up being only 3. At first everyone was disappointed, but then they realized maybe this was God's plan to have it be very intimate and small, and next year these 3 can be teaching the new interns.

One of the staff who has been here for 7 years said it was the most encouraging week of the seven years she's spent here. These interns were also able to stay for the conference and it was definitely great to have them with us!

Another absolutely incredible thing is that Marko from Salerno was able to join us. Marko became a Christian about 4 years ago but has been going though some very challenging life circumstances the past few years. In the last few weeks, a big change happened, and while it was a very hard thing for him, it caused him to really surrender to the Lord on a whole new level. He ended up coming to the conference with us and having many deep conversations about faith and life with older staff people in Italian! And most of the talks were acknowledging the problems we face in this world and the battle that we are in. He said that it was an absolutely life changing experience for him. Praise God!

It was such a refreshing time to see friends from last year and hear what's going on in life and ministry in other cities in Italy.

Let me tell you a little story about a phone...

Our team switched phone companies this year. Now last year, about half of our team continued to get bills for hundreds of dollars that weren't right, money was taken out of accounts, it was horrible and very very costly. So, my teammate and I go to the store to buy new phones because we have to get one that is compatible with the new service. Breanna buys the cheapest one which is 50 euro. Now, my phone last year was a Nokia that was probably about 10 years old that I got from a friend. I couldn't read my outgoing messages, and after using it for a year, I now have to jam a pen in it to turn in on. So I decided to splurge a little and get the next cheapest one at 70 euro.

Now this phone is incredibly average, but I could not have been happier with my purchase! I was loving it. So after I had the phone for 3 days, my friend called me. I could hear her, but in addition a lot of static, but she couldn't hear me. I was really frustrated because it seemed like my phone hasn't gotten reception in my house or the cafe downstairs. So I walk outside and call her back. The same thing happens, she couldn't hear me. It occurs to me that no one has ever been able to hear me on the phone and that something is obviously wrong with it. So I go to the phone store with my roommate who speaks italian. The woman at the store tells me that its under warranty and they'll send it off to be repaired. My friend argues that they sold me a defective phone and they should give me a new phone. Nope. Nothing. So they send me out of the store without a phone and tell me it will be ready in a week. So unfair! But what can I do? A week passes, then finally after 2 weeks, they call her and tell her my phone is ready.

Now, I was having a bad day. A really bad day, I'd already cried for a good portion of the day. But I spent time with the Lord, and was ready to face the day again, and one of my goals has been to just do more things on my own, even though I'm constantly intimidated and afraid of looking stupid in this country since its just so hard to communicate. But all I had to do was pick up my phone. I know how to ask that, not a problem. So I head down to the phone store, ask for my phone. The woman tells me that my phone is irreparable and asks me if I dropped it in water! No... I did not drop it in water, you sold it to me broken, it was broken from the beginning! Is this a joke?! Anyway, she makes me sign a piece of paper to get my broken phone back that they are taking no responsibility for, and I leave the store. She told me I can go somewhere else to pay for it to be repaired.

On my way home I was crying and so frustrated. Telling myself "its just a phone Natalie, It's just a phone!" I remembered at our briefing conference before we left for italy last year, they told us things would happen where our value system would be challenged. They told us we'd find things that we valued as Americans that the country we were going to did not and that it would cause frustration. I talked to an italian friend and he told me that the same thing happened to him and he had to pay for it to be repaired. The phone companies just do that here!!! Anyway, I'm trying to be all righteous and find a deeper lesson in all this, but really, I'm just mad! We just got back from a conference and a crusade staffer said he knew someone who works higher up in the phone company and Nokia also, so I'm hoping maybe something can work out through that and that I won't be out $120... Spero di si (I hope so!)