First impressions from Rome

I wanted to give you a stream of consciousness review of the last few weeks. Read on if you're interested in what has happened since you last saw us. Take a look at this first photo.

Before leaving the USA: It seemed urgent to get some of those parental lessons in before we left Sarah Grace and Paul in the US. Two days before we left the country Paul had a blowout on the way to youth group with SG and Philip in tow. The next day I rounded up the two drivers and gave them the tire changing lesson. You can see how well the scissors jack works. Hmm. Do they take me seriously?

Our first stop was Brussels, arriving right on time via JFK and Dublin on August 16th. Thanks for praying for our travel. We did not know of the tornado warning for NYC when were taking off. I'm repeating some of Sarah's last posting, but that's ok.

It was truly strange to be back in a place and with people so familiar yet know that you're "just passing through." We saw as many people as we could in the space of seven days, but still not enough. Sunday the 17th was special. We were able to participate in worship services at La Communauté Chrétienne de Laeken, and were even asked to give an update from the year's activities and the plan for the future. The services were followed by a combined potluck meal with many of the members of the Iranian Church. We stayed all afternoon for the Iranian service. I had the chance to speak at that service. We were encouraged by our faithful brothers and sisters in both churches. We spent the week visiting with those dearest to us...and shopping for school supplies for Philip. By the way, Philip was pretty much kidnapped for most of the week by his friends. Some days we didn't know where he was.

Speaking of Phil, next stop was Kandern Germany. We're thankful that Philip is an adaptable guy. North Olmsted didn't kill him. Looks like Germany won't either. This corner of Germany is really a beautiful place to be. I guess the weather isn't always as nice as the few days we had there.... We also had the chance to reconnect with some long lost friends including Andrew Schaeffer, missionary to Burkina Faso, whom we haven't seen for 20 years! We are very happy that Phil now has, for the first time in his life, a room all to himself. He was very proud to hang his Belgian flag from the ceiling! On Tuesday we left Black Forest Academy after the opening ceremonies. Director Tim Shuman gave a very interesting, historical, and inspirational review of the life of the mathematician Euler, who was from the area, near Basel. I'm not kidding, it was very interesting.

Pulling out of town, to head for Italy we got a good bit of sticker shock at the gas pump. We filled our rental utility van for part 2 of the journey and paid 92€, or $134! Thanks, too, for praying for our moving logistics. I found out that to haul Philip and his stuff to Germany, and from there to take us and our luggage to Rome, renting a work van was a lot cheaper than renting a car. It was a good solution...except that I couldn't drop it off in Rome. I had to drive it back to Brussels again. That's later.


That was the morning of August 26th. Since we didn't have our temporary housing situation till the 30th, we decided to take a few days of vacation in Northern Italy, on Lake Garda. It was a heaven-sent time of rest and recuperation. Thank God.

Drive from Lake Garda to Rome. Traffic was heavy partly because that Saturday was the last day of vacation for many Europeans and many were heading home. The highway was a bit of a war zone. Over the next couple of days on the road I saw several serious accidents, including truck-sized smoldering ruins at 3 different spots along my way. It made me nervous enough so that I experienced no drowsiness on the road whatsoever. Thanks for praying for travel.

Our trusty GPS took us right up to the Istituto Biblico Evangelico Italiano, dirt roads and all. The folks at the Bible Institute got us settled in a much bigger room than we were expecting. That was a really nice surprise. Alessandro, the administrator of the institute has been a great help to us in many practical ways as we got settled. The picture of Alessandro was taken during the winter of 2007. Believe me, we aren't wearing sweaters right now. It's in the mid-80's every day.

Sarah and I had arrived in Rome at 6 PM on Saturday, and at 6 AM on Sunday morning I left to drive the van the 1000 miles back to Brussels. I drove 12 hours through some of the most beautiful spots on the planet -- Tuscany, the Alps, past Lakes Como, Maggiore and Lugano in Switzerland.... The only problem was that I couldn't take my eyes off the road :(

I was able to pull back into Kandern, Germany, and have supper with Philip, and get a debriefing after his first week at school. That night I stayed with our friends the Garritys. Monday morning I drove the remaining 6 hours back to Brussels and immediately caught the shuttle bus to Charleroi (thanks Dan) for my budget flight back to Rome. Thanks Alessandro for the pick up on the other end.

Our impressions: Rome is officially a crazy city. My first full day back we took the Metro all the way across this city of 4 or 5 million people. If Rome were a clock, where we are staying is the 4 and where we are looking for housing is the 10. Where we are staying at the Bible Institute is farther out than we want to be. There is a strange mix of houses, dirt roads, construction, chickens and vineyards. Lots of barking dogs. Lots of mosquitoes, too. There are not really any high-rise apartment buildings here. Everyone has a fenced-in yard with a big metal gate and seem to be very private. It's not really the city here.

Anyway, getting across the city took 2 hours, but I think that was a bit exceptional. It turns out that someone had been either fatally injured by accident, murdered, or had commited suicide on the tracks as we were going across town. We couldn't tell what the story was and neither could the Italians.

We talked to a couple real estate people on the northwest side of Rome. And we were encouraged by our visit of the neighborhood. Looks like a good possibility and may even be affordable. Keep praying. Apartments for rent do not become available very often.

Here ends my babbling.