Rinfreshcament

Favorite highlights from the trip last weekend:

- A tractor race in the mountains! They were having a chestnut festival, and one of the events was tractors driving slalom through big round bales. I loved it! Farmers are the same in all the world. Alana, describing it to Lilliana later, said, “They were driving through hay…bales? Is that what you call them?” She can’t help it she’s from San Francisco. =P

- Lilliana trying to make us eat more and more and more all weekend! She gave us cake and cookies for breakfast. And when we went out to try some of the local food that Alana needed to try (crescentine, gnocco fritto, borlenghi), A and I split one of each because we were still so full from lunch. L got one or two of each for herself and then was shocked when they were larger than she expected, but ate them anyway. She also wore a silk nightgown, and reminded me in many ways of Aunt V.

- A and I in our room talking the last night, hearing L in the other room, saying, “PICK UP YOUR PHONE. YOU CAN’T HEAR ME. PICK UP YOUR PHONE.” We laughed so hard we cried. She later explained to us that someone was on webcam but had something disconnected…anyway, it was funny.

- Getting lost in the hills trying to find the town with the castle, then reaching it about twilight and A and I running up the steep hill, poking around the tiny chapel with the lights shining out, looking out across the valley at sunset…

- Driving back down the hill after dark, with all the lights spread out beneath us, singing Christmas carols, which have some wonderful application for missions—He’s come for the whole world!

- In church Sunday morning L playing hymns, improvising magnificently (I had asked if they had someone to play, and she said yes, but didn’t say it was her!). Then that evening me telling her so, and her saying she was nervous to play in front of A and me! We laughed.

- Luciano and his wife, whose name escapes me, two elderly believers who remember WWII. He said they first met when he was standing looking out from a castle (Montecuccolo) and saw her—or saw her white shoes. “Even now, whenever a group of girls walks past, I always say, ‘The cutest one is the one in the white shoes,’ and everyone looks to see who’s wearing them,” he said. He wanted me to take him to Oklahoma with me so he could be a cowboy and ride a horse and eat beans, and said he already had the hat.

- Augusto and Norris, a Venezualan couple we had over for an “American” supper of pancakes and bacon and eggs. “American women are the most beautiful in the world,” she said, “because they have a bottom—not like the Italian women who are all straight up. American women are like the Latin women!” We laughed.

- Laughing hysterically for very little reason, just because we felt free to.

- Staying up late every night talking about God and His goodness.

It was beautiful.