Sunday, April 25, 2010

Busy!

I had two of the busiest weeks. 9 days of lecturing (at a YWAM DTS and for Alphacrucis), preaching twice, and a three thousand word essay. It has been challenging and tiring time, but really rewarding too. I met some great people at the DTS in Pescara and got to know some of the Alphacrucis students who have so much potential. The topics for the lecturing have been interesting for me as a teacher. I taught on the fear of God for the YWAM school which I found fascinating to prepared and I found a fresh appreciation of God's presnce, His grace and soverignty. I will blog some thoughts from that over the next few days.

Unfrtuantly we also had a friend from Carato die during the week in a car accident. Enzo was a really wonderful, friendly guy. We feel quite a loss and feel so much for his fiance, friends and family.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Gazzarella


Mozzarella is not just made from the milk of buffalo according to Blog From Italy. In the southern Italian village of Rosaneto in the Basilicata region of Italy, they have cats, lots of them. An enterprising local entrepreneur, Franco Latitante, had a bright idea. Why not use cat’s milk to make mozzarella?

Putting his money where his mouth was, in a whisker he had set up Italy’s first, and so far, only cat milking facility where the cat’s milk is transformed into creamy mozzarella cheese

Federico Fantozzi is also a happy chap, seeing as he now has a new job as Rosaneto’s official cat catcher and milker. “Yesterday,”, he purred, “I caught seventy three strays. Most of them were pregnant females, and were attached to the cat milking equipment in Latitiante’s new dairy facility.” He loves his new work, but, as the scratches on his arms attest, it can be a little hazardous at times.

Latitante has even coined a name for this new mozzarella, he calls it “Gazzarella” (The Italian for cat is “gatto”)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Doctrinal Pride

If your Calvinism or Arminianism or dispensationalism or views concerning the end times or your disdain for all doctrinal beliefs causes you to feel doctrinally superior to those who hold other views then you are probably guilty of the sin of doctrinal pride.
Jerry Bridges in "Respectable Sins - Confronting the Sins We Tolerate', p92.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Buffalo Mozzarella


It was my birthday the other day so as a treat we had Buffalo Mozzarella with prosciutto! Buffalo mozzarella is my favourite cheese in Italy. It is a mozzarella cheese made from the milk of the domestic water buffalo rather than from cow's milk. It is not like anything you can get in New Zealand and is best when freshly made.
It is a fresh, stringy textured cheese with porcelain-white colour, it has an extremely thin rind and delicate taste. Pearls of milky whey should seep out when you cut into mozzarella; upon tasting, you should notice the liquid separating from the solid, almost as if the mozzarella had been soaked in milk. And, of course, good mozzarella should melt in your mouth. Apart from its typical round shape, it is also produced in small bite-sized shapes and plaits.

The highest quality buffalo mozzarella is the "Mozzarella di Bufala Campana" and there is a shop just around the corner from our apartment!

There was bit of a scandal earlier this year when it was found that some buffalo mozzarella was being watered down with cows milk!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Easter Weekend - Rome

Over Easter weekend we went to Rome for the National Conference. We went by bus which took 6 hours with about 50 others from Bethel Church in Bari.

It was a great weekend where we were able to build on many of the relationships and connections that we have made over the last year.

There were three speakers, from France, Germany and Austria. Our favourite speaker was Gianni Gaeta from Austria. He spoke to the youth stream and also to everyone on Monday morning. He spoke a great message on having courage.

Braden was also presented with a Pastors credential with the Italian A/G, which is a great recognition and honour for him.





New Apartment

We arrived back in Italy to a new apartment. It is in a great location for us, being only a five minute walk to the small church, and only a 20 minute walk to the city. It has taken a while to sort out things with the place, (we had no hot water for a couple of days, no heating for a week, no toilet seat for 2 weeks, and still no internet!) but everything is coming together.

We are on the third floor. One of our neighbours has a cat which Kaira loves.

We are in a gated community with about 7 other buildings. We have met about 10 people in our building and they are all very kind and make a big fuss of Kaira. Most importantly there is a cafe accross the road!







Thailand

On our way back to Italy we stopped in Thailand for 10 days. It was nice to visit there without the pressures of a team, and to catch up with all our friends there.

We spent time with the Potters, missionaries from Cromwell, NZ. They have been there for about 10 years and are an amazing couple doing great things. They took us to Mae Chaem for the day to visit the youth hostel that Harvest Church has invested a lot into. The team are doing an awesome job there with all the young people. It was great to see all the buildings completed. We also saw Panya (who came and spent 6 months at Harvest Christian Church) and his wife Blah. They took us to a hot springs park where we cooked eggs in the hot water, had lunch and then went to an elephant park. it was the elephant annual holiday so there was a big festival for them including a buffet dinner!

We also spent 4 days at Kata beach in Phuket, which was very relaxing.

Kaira making friends in the Airport Plaza


Braden having a fish spa


Kaira making more friends in Starbucks


Braden, Kaira & Panya at the hot springs


Bla & Andrea


Boiling the eggs for lunch






Kaira meeting everyone at the youth hostel in Mae Chaem




Braden & Pastor Jirapong




The beautiful sunsets on Kata Beach, Phuket










Kaira & her new favourite drink - pineapple juice