O City of God

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLE

2011-11-06T23:27:00.000+01:00

2011-10-03T22:54:00.002+02:00

September 2011

Over the past several months the Lord has begun to challenge us to take our ministry to another level virtually turning the tables and pointing us in new directions. Since we are moving into our year of new beginnings (8th year) it is only appropriate that the Lord began giving us clear directions which have required us to learn new skills that we are now attaining and utilizing to accomplish. Europe is vastly an untapped field. Once the greatest fields of His glory, they have been left short of workers to maintain them. The Lord is once again raising up and army to release the captives and blow new life into the nations of Europe.

The Lord has given us clear direction and vision and so as we are starting a new season where the doors of opportunity have begun to swing wide open for us to teach and impart what the Lord has given us for this nation. Some of those things are:
* Co-laboring with Florence Gospel International Fellowship with Ps. Maurizio & Tuula Secondi.
   www.fgfint.blogspot.com. We will be helping them with every aspect of church function.
* Outreach to various communities and inviting other churches to join us.
* Bible study in our home
* Food bank to start meeting the needs of the poor and needy in our community.
* Working with the Catholic Church in their Soup Kitchen as another way to reach out to the poor
* Prayer walking in our surrounding communities with believers from local churches joining us.
* Continued work with 24/7 Tuscany www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com,
* Continued work with local Pastors
* Building a prayer and financial base of partners
* Partnering with other organizations who have a desire to come and minister in this nation

With this new and exciting vision has also come the realization that tools that use to work don’t work here as well anymore. We have asked others who do outreach about the materials they use and they are all saying they need something fresh.    The Lord is so patiently teaching us all some new things amen. The long standing desire of the Lord to disciple the Nations is beginning to be spoken throughout this Nation as well and we are all starting to join hands to that endeavor. Guido and I on Friday learned how to use the cube in outreach as we hit one of the Parks in Florence with our dear friend Stephen Critchlow from Ireland and Guido actually led two men to the Lord, amen.

We just had another 24/7 prayer gather this past a week ago. Guido was asked to share for the first time at this event. We have as a group made a great spiritual impact into this region with many testimonies from people who say they can actually feel the atmosphere has changed. Multicultural/denominational churches working together for the end time harvest. In fact In October we will be having our first ever multicultural/denominational outreach in Tuscany. Please check out the awesome flyer on the blog page of www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com. This is so incredible and we are so excited for the opportunity to be a part of this work. We are expecting many to come to salvation, to receive healing      and come away with more fire to reach this nation amen. Please keep this in prayer.

As agreed we have moved into another apartment and out of Guido’s mom place. It is important that we honor our mothers & fathers so we can have long days and the blessing and indeed it truly has felt like a weight lifted off of us. The contract is only for 3 months and can be extended to 7 if we want.   We have almost all our things in storage and have begun selling some things to bridge the financial gap. We have dedicated our days to working totally and completely in the ministry filling our time with prayer, bible reading, studying, outreach, fellowship, etc. Still unable to find work and have come to the conclusion that this is obviously not the direction the Lord wants since no doors have opened to us. We have because of the move and being unemployed have fallen behind in our bills and have incurred some debt again but happy to report that we sold my desk and a small motorcycle all in a week and people are already making commitments to partner with us financially as well as praying amen.

It has become clear that God is taking us in a new direction of partnering and humbling ourselves before the Body of Christ. We don’t want to fall into the trap of begging for money or making anyone feel pressured to give but we must learn how to partner with others who have the same heart for this nation and do that in a manner that we all feel we are doing the Lord’s will amen.

We are asking now for you to prayerful consider becoming a monthly partner with us and helping us to continue in the direction the Lord is taking us. We are asking for 100 people to commit to $10.00 a month. We know that things have been financially tough all over the globe but we think this is a doable amount. Many won’t give because they think it is too small or an insignificant amount, just a drop in the bucket but have you seen how many Ronald McDonald houses have been built with just change and yet everyone can say they were a part, some more than others but everyone has a part. Others would rebuke us and say were not asking enough, go bigger in your asking, but the goal is not to get as much as we can while disqualifying those who don’t have much.

Prayer Points:
1. Strength as the work load continues to build, and that we would really rely on God for strength and wisdom because it’s so easy for us to look to ourselves and let it get to us, when in reality we can do nothing without Him.

2. Protection because we are traveling more and more at night.

3. We will be speaking with many youth saved and unsaved in the days to follow as well as teaching. Pray that the Lord prepare every heart in advance and that we are totally led by the Spirit for each situation, speaking the truth in love and boldness.

4. Pray for the leaders in this country that they may have their hearts united for the cause of seeing the gospel preached to every person possible. That they set aside their differences, offenses, traditions and religious legalism in all areas of their life to work with one another to present Christ and His freedom among the lost.

Finally, we would like to thank you again for your prayers and financial support for without it we would not still be here. We are truly honored. Our God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory….

Guido & Joyce Bassi
Montecatini Terme Italy

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If any of you would like to partner with us in prayer please send us an email.

If you want to partner with us financially and you don’t need or want a tax deduction hit the donate to the right and donate through paypal. If you need or want a tax deduction make checks payable to:

New Life Christian Church    (Please put on a separate piece of paper or sticky note as follows: For the support of Italy Missionaries)
20394 San Miguel Ave.
Castro Valley, CA 94541
510-889-1304

PRAISE REPORT

2011-07-17T10:52:00.001+02:00

Well I just want to thank the 6 or so people who wrote us like immediately with the same theme of not giving up, moving forward, adjusting our faith talk and to start working with others more, partnering with them so to speak. So with that I would like to report aht we have bought our very first car in Italy. An Alpha Romeo to be exact. Extreme step of faith but the Lord has opened the door and we are walking through it. As it turns out the car will be in Anna's name, and for those of you who remember, she was the gal who lived with us for 10 months as an exchange student in California about 10 years ago. She has her fathers low rate of insurance and so that alone saves us about 700 euros a year in insurance. Her father has offered to pay the insurance up front and we can pay him in 2 payments, amen. They have agreed to this for 2 years and at that time we will switch the car into our name but because it will be considered a classic in Italy the insurance will only be 170 a year, which is a blessing since this is our first car in Italy (motorcycle doesn't count) and we would have to start at category 14, the highest and with this we by-pass that very large insurance payment. Yeah can you imagine 1400 a year for a car that is 18 years old and only covered at the bare minimums?

This afternoon we are going over to look at an apartment which has all the utilities included and is only rented for no more than 6 months at a time. No deposit is necessary, fully furnished and centrally located. Our stuff will stay in storage and this will allow us time to regroup. Guido has also gone to get the packet to take his truck license test as there are lots of driving jobs and it appears the young don't like to do it so mostly guys Guido's age are hired. In fact a woman from his last job called him with a driving job with her boyfriends company but without the license no job. We are looking for people to sow into that avenue of retraining, so please if you feel the Lord asking you to partner with us in that please let us know ASAP so he can reserve a spot in the class. It is a total of 950. Euro. Again Guido already has this license in the USA but the license isn't transfirable. He possible can save a little money since he won't have to do the school part, but the taxes and cost of the tests and the truck and the doctor exam and, and and, and, add up. Keeping Guido & I in jobs serves 2 purposes, it lessens the need for financial support and it keeps us in the work force where we have contact with the people of this nation, which we have always felt is the most important. Many pastors work and pastor so even if we were to become part of a new church plant we still would want to work and to be honest, it has been the best source of meeting people and learning the culture and keeps us in touch with what the people are going through. It is better to be a part of their lives in all aspects, not just on Sunday.

And last but not least, I just finished filing my taxes in the USA and even though we filed a 1099 for work we have done online in the States, we are getting a tax refund which covers the payment to Social Security but pays for the other 1/2 of the car. We bought in faith and found out the other 1/2 was covered. Again we are stepping out in faith with this apartment which become available 1st of September and praising the Lord for His provision to keep us in the land. We are called here and the circumstances are going to be like this up and down, everyone goes through it, we are not special, but our Lord is ALWAYS faithful, you just have to get out of the boat even if your dialog sounds a bit like this:

Jesus: Get out of the boat, walk over here
Us: Have you seen those waves, they have to be at least 20 ft. tall
Jesus: There not that tall, besides I said come over here
Us: I think that was the Lord telling us to come over there, obviously He didn't hear us say the waves were at least 30 ft.
Jesus: They aren't even waves, their boogie board waves and your being dramatic, yes your are overeacting and yes you heard me, get over here
Us: really, I'm sure He isn't talking to us, surely he see's the waves are well over 40 ft.
Jesus: get out of the boat and see what happens, don't you trust me?
Us: Aaagggh why does he always use the trust card? Ok, were getting out, even though these 50 ft. tall waves are going to kill us and we don't want to, we will trust you, you haven't failed us yet
Jesus: Finally! Quit making me resort to using the trust card, aaagghhh, testi duri (hard heads)
Us: hey, what happend to the waves? We put our feet down and the 100 ft wave flattened out like glass
Jesus: told you so, now in the future could you just do this first instead of having to go through all the drama, really, we have so many more important things to do than debate my faithfulness and love for you guys. Stop listening to the lies, your fears, the circumstances and above all the enemy. You know you can always tell the waves to be still.
Us: How come this always takes us so long to figure out? Geez, you'd think we would be pro's at walking on the water by now.

Thank you everyone who prayed for us, it was felt. Thank you for being patient and thank you to the ones who responded with the most encouraging and fun responses to date. We love you guys.

To Him be ALL the Glory
Guido and Joyce

P.S. We also are selling the motorcycle so pray that a buyer comes soon, again this is all money to put back into insurance & housing as well until Guido gets work. Once I settle I have a jobs already lined up for twice a week and hope to secure more days with more clients

May - July

2011-07-12T08:57:00.000+02:00

In everything give thanks unto the Lord. This would pretty much be all that we can do at this point as since March to now has been very intense for us. 2 of these months being in the Hotel in Verona. It was exciting, frustrating, awesome, tiring, exhilarating, challenging, joyful, & painful all in a short amount of time. It was never boring that is for sure, however after only a few months it was decided that we were not needed in the capacity that they needed us in, actually that they needed me in so we both returned to Montecatini. Although it was sad we believe that it served a purpose with eternal value and is not to us to question the ways of the Lord and His timing. It was a great experience and we were so blessed to be a part of it. We know the Lord has a great purpose for this family regarding Italy and can hardly wait for their kids to get back from Toronto.

The downside is Guido filed for Unemployment and found that the job he had worked at for the past 9 months didn’t pay into the unemployment fund so he is unable to collect anything. So the months of work are void. Who would have known? So in the next few months we have to find work, a house to live as Guido’s mom is arriving sometime in August and wants to come to a vacant apartment. We have found storage for our things with a friend and have started putting the stuff in his warehouse. I’m kind of leaning towards giving it all away as it is becoming a hassle toting everything around but some clothes and a blow up mattress, ha ha.

So with all this said you can see that we are in need of some things and are seeking God about them: 1) Jobs or more financial support or both 2) a car (for 1000 we can buy a car that uses Propane and gets about 300kg. for 20 euro's as good as the motorcycle but safer & better in the rain) 3) A place to live, doesn't have to be big, 4) or airline tickets back to the states, game over. Right now to get into a 360 sq. ft. apartment we need $1500. If we can find a private owner if not 2000 to go through an agency.

To top everything else off Guido could have sworn he heard the Lord tell him the other day it was time to open a church. Yeah for those of you who rolled your eyes or said "yeah right", I'm with you, however we certainly have the prophetic to support that but in our present condition it is almost like Sarah having a baby when she is old, I can see why she laughed, it seems so upsurd and so like God. We did a 4 day church planting course with DCPI (www.dcpi.org) from California and by their chart we have what it takes (all the characteristics including the call) to plant a church but just haven't done it yet.

Blain Pacini from California (www.blazingfire.org/ktssm.htm) was here at Vigna della Signore and taught for 4 nights on the Love of the Father, Knowing your Identity and looking at Italy with God’s eyes. We went up for prayer because we were feeling pretty beat up and discouraged and he started speaking prophetically into us. In fact he said it was if someone put a heave cloak on me made of lead and that I just needed to shake it off. He said I needed to swing my sword more & that the Lord was very proud of us. He confirmed a lot of our prophetic as did Trevor Baker back in March. He also had a men’s round table which Guido went to & helped with translation. When there were differences in opinions Blaine was able to bring them to a core agreement. This is vital here because many people (churches) won’t affiliate together because of these differences. He gave them building blocks for working together. The men were really encouraged and want to continue to meet together more often.

We went to a baptism last weekend which was held at a home church in the area. It was really nice to see a woman who Ps. Dennis lead to the Lord a few years ago getting baptized. It takes forever to get them to that point. In a culture where everyone is baptized at birth, it really is hard to convince them to do as Jesus did and do it while you’re an adult. While she was in the water I shared further on the message she had received about doing it out of obedience by giving her 2 more points to why she was doing it. I pointed out that it is the death of our old man and being resurrected into new life by the same power which God raised Jesus from the dead and that they would be free. This added truth pushed another woman who had been vacillating on the issue of baptism to go ahead and do it. She has been saved for many years and in fact attended the same DCPI training as us but had never been baptized. Well she wasn’t only baptized, she came out totally under the power of the Holy Spirit, crying, shaking and set free. It was totally awesome.

Tom & Monica from a church in Woodbridge Canada came for a vacation to Italy and were directed by our friend Bruno Iurello from TACF in Toronto to hook up with us. Can we just say they were a giant blessing to us? A cool drink of water for thirsty souls as us. They totally blessed us and we know that the Lord is going to be doing something with them and us in the future regarding Italy. All of their families are Italian and they are first generation Canadians like Guido so this was a really fun visit for us. They rented a car and after meeting them in Florence and walking around there we took them to San Gimignano, Venice & Pisa and back to Florence. They prayed for us and for this nation and just encouraged us to press on. If any of you are interested in their ministry you can find them at www.unveilinglife.ca

Today we found a car in just the price range we wanted. Runs on GPL gas so it costs like 18-20 euros for 300-350 km. And the previous owner is a Christian who we talked to about the condition of the car. Another brother from the church who is a mechanic met us at the dealership and said it was a great buy and his counsel was to buy the car. The price is only 700 and the cost to change it into our name is 300. We are seeking out the cost of insurance, etc. to see if this is something we really can handle buying. It seems strange to get a car without having a place to live, but with a car it opens up the possibility to find places to live outside of Montecatini which are less expensive. Also employment and ministry opportunities are expanded The train is great, but it only runs certain hours and no night time work as it stops at about 10:30. We also can take Chloe & Jami to church with us because for some reason they won’t let us put 4 people on a scooter, something about not living in Napoli or Sicily ha ha. Please keep this in prayer as we desperately need to have the Lords will in this stuff. We received ½ the money for the car but really this is like a dive off a cliff for us or as we always say a great leap of faith.

To be honest we are pretty done, the cycle continues like this every 9 months, we have work, we don’t have work, look for work, spend 6-9 months looking for work, limited by transportation. To top it off the law just changed that now Guido has to have a license to drive a forklift so he had to pay and take a course to get it. Now it seems the driving jobs take a special license to drive the delivery trucks which he has but they don’t recognize so that is another 1000 euro to get. Laws change and people have to take more courses and get more certifications. If your employed when it happens, the employer pays, if not you are out of pocket paying to be able to work in your own field of expertise. Now to pay rent, have a car and take more courses makes the need for increased faith even more. As I shared with my friend in Africa, so much effort for so little fruit, or at least fruit we can see. We have been told we connect people here and network and it blesses us to get an email thanking us for introducing them to someone that led them to go to school in Redding but maybe we could do this from the States with a fax and a phone.

We realize it isn’t the same as being here, building the relationships, praying in the land or being here to actually lay hands on people but for the amount of hardships that we go through personally were just not sure we should continue.So the questions is does Father God really want us to continue and push through and will He provide or is He saying time to come back, well done good and faithful servants. Many doors of ministry opportunity have opened for us however right now everything is hinged to each other and we must really hear the Lord clearly.

Thank you again for your continued support to us in all manners that we have needed it and at just the right times. Our gains certainly have been because of it. If any of you feel led to sow financially into this work please go to our hit the donate button or send your checks to:

New life Christian Church
20394 San Miguel Ave.
Castro Valley, CA 94546

We send you all our love and our sincere gratitude for standing alongside of us for these past 7 years. Yes July 8th was 7 years. Wow where has the time gone. May the Lord double bless you for all you have done for us and this Nation. Guido & Joyce

Acts 20:24 I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

January - April 2011

2011-04-30T08:42:00.000+02:00

January-March 2011

Well we are off and running for the New Year with many new and exciting changes. We had a wonderful time with Ben and Bruno from Toronto in February who were here for a few weeks ministering at various churches. We were privileged to go with them to a few in our area and help them minister. As usual we are totally blown away at how receptive the Italians are becoming to being ministered to by the Holy Spirit and their desperation to know the Father and to push into our Saviour with their whole heart. It is so encouraging for us to see so many young people just hungry and with a go for broke attitude. What was really fun about this was that we met Ben in Toronto when he was 10 years old and actually spent Christmas with his family in 1995. He had no idea we were here in Italy and when he walked into the church and saw us here, it was cool. It is so fun to be part of the family of God and exciting to see these young men and women rise up and take their places in ministry and be able to be a part of it together. Wow.

I also came with Bruno up to Verona to join back up with the students from the School of Ministry from Toronto. I really felt that I should go, it was so spontaneous and not at all in my planned day, in fact I woke up with the thought in my mind but had to run off to work. I called Bruno and asked if they could wait for me and bring me up. I also asked if I could leave early and my employer said yes and joined me in cleaning her house. 3 hours later I’m stepping into our future. It is 4 days of unbelievable time in the Holy Spirit. The Lord showed up and ministered through these young adults in such a powerful way that lives will never be the same. Guido came up early Sunday (2:00am) and we had the most incredible time in prayer together, blessing one another and the nations. Being that there were so many European nations represented in the room there was time of repentance and reconciliation and releasing the chains that past events have put on them. Some were specially touched when we released them to have warrior Spirits, something which some felt they couldn’t have because of the war that took place over 60 years ago. Our fight is not against flesh and blood but is Spiritual and we are warriors.

We then went up to the centre of the small town they are in (San Pietro di Cariano) and prayed that the Lord would take possession of this town and establish his Kingdom. It was really powerful and the group was just in total sync with all of us having multiple visions and prophetic.

That evening for the service the group decided they wanted to speak prophetic words over everyone in attendance (about 60 people). They broke up into 3 groups and needed 3 interpreters so you guessed it; I had to do translation that really looked more like charades, pantomime and sign language all rolled into one. I have basic Italian but that was way over my ability but Holy Spirit showed up and everyone seemed to understand so in the end everyone was really ministered to and touched. You’ve read in the scripture where it talks about the times that the Word of the Lord was scarce in the land, well that is what it is like here for many so this was like a long cool drink of water. I love that the Lord ministered to them in such personal and intimate ways, giving just the right amount of encouragement and hope and confirmation in their hearts to things they already felt the Lord was directing them to do or commenting on things they’ve already been doing.

During this 3 days it became known to Guido and I that Brenno & Celeste (The children of Ps. Lorenzo & Mary) wanted to go to the next School of Ministry in Toronto which started in March but couldn’t really leave to go for 6 months because their family runs a hotel. Me and Guido volunteered our time and services to the family. They of course thought we were just saying it to be nice but they didn’t realise we were absolutely serious. They just really couldn’t believe that we would be willing to move up and live in the Hotel. Why not, it’s perfect and answers many prayers that we have had regarding our next steps in Italy. They have a wonderful fellowship that is in the basement of the Hotel www.senza-confini.it with many new believers and many very established and with the heart to see the Nation transformed and changed. We were excited to do this not just for them but also for us.

A week later Trevor & Sharon Baker from Dudley England came for a conference in Florence & Senza Confini Comunita Cristiana (Brenno & others) came to do the worship for the event. There was incredible time of worship, prophetic, releasing and equipping the Italians for what the Lord is preparing to do in the earth in these days. A youth group came up from the Amalfi Coast area that also did worship and wow did they ever do a good job translating Kim Walker and Jesus Culture into Italian. The anointing was incredible and they just were encouraged to
dance and dance they did. They said afterwards that they didn’t dance in their church but they were never going to stop after this day. Guido had a prophetic for them, just one word “Revolution”. When he told it to the group they all starting crying. It turns out that they had started going out into the streets in Sorrento and were evangelising and playing music and they wanted to name their band “Revolution” but were waiting on the Lord to be sure it was His desire and not just theirs. The Lord is just so loving on the Italians, being a Father to them, it is so tender and incredible to watch.

We had been praying that the Lord would remove all the barriers for Celeste & Brenno so they could go to School. So Brenno told Guido that after we left Verona (midnight Sunday) the very next day someone came to the Hotel and gave their parents €10,000 so they could go to school. The giver didn’t want the children to know who gave the money. In just a matter of a few days the Lord had laid in their heart a desire to go, and opened all the doors so miraculously that there was no way to deny that it was what the Lord wanted for them. Their parents also informed us that they would like us to come and help them and so it was decided that on March 19th a few days after we got back from Ireland we would arrive in the Hotel. In the interim there was much to be done.

Just so you know, this really does not happen very often. Money is an issue, parents can’t just go to the bank and take out a loan and raising funds like YWAMers do is pretty non existent. Vows of poverty are very ingrained in this culture and getting money out of people to support you in a school somewhere just doesn’t happen. There are less than 6 bible schools in this country Rhema & the Apostolic are the only ones I know of for sure. There are some small Churches that have started some Bible Training and courses on the Holy Spirit movement but usually if there is, you belong to the church. I know of only 6 young adults who have left here to go to Bible school in places like Toronto, Kansas City or even Redding and their stories are all miraculous in nature. Recently YWAM put a DTS in Milano but with the exception of a few Italians, mostly just Americans & Canadians have attended. This is a new thing and needs our prayers. We need to get the Italian kids up to speed with the youth movements that are happening around the world and we need to get them trained and establish more centres for them to train in here in their own country.

The day after the conference we went to Ps. Alessandro & Katias where Trevor spoke and after the service he called me and Guido up and gave a prophetic over us that basically had us completely in tears. He had no clue the events that were unfolding but spoke right into them as confirmation that we weren’t just being nice, but in fact were moving in the Lords direction. He said the Lord wanted us to keep doing what we have been doing, don’t change a thing. But like the apostles who fished all night and caught nothing, when Jesus told them to move the nets to the other side of the boat they did and there were so many fish that they had to call for help. So that is what this move is, a net moving time. There were other things but they all were about the future and the direction and
fulfilment of the things the Lord has sent us here to do.

In the midst of all this Jami transferred into a new location (again) closer to our apartment and in need of lots of work, so we were pretty occupied tearing out old ducting, hanging sheetrock, patching & preparing walls for painting, painting, cleaning and laying flooring. It was a very huge task but as usual we all pulled it off as if we were pro’s, although our aching bodies remind us that were not.

We spent about 3 weeks doing this and when we were almost finished we headed back up to the Hotel to be with Celeste & Brenno the last Sunday they were in their church together. We laid hands on them and as a church we sent them to go and to get filled up and to bring it back. We felt lead to open the mic. to have the people in the church speak into them and although they were a little shy at first, it gave each an opportunity to be a part of what the Lord is doing among them and here in Italy. This is true community and this is entirely the heart of this congregation, to be a family together amen.

Then Guido went down to Orvieto to help Yan & Millie put a foundation into another building they will be using for their ministry there while I stayed back and helped Jami with the finishing touches of the gym. So much was accomplished in just a month’s time it was so amazing. Almost shocking, but when the Lord has a mandate of things in place, they somehow get down really quickly, which is so exciting for us since we live in a country of the perpetually never finishing anything right away, ha ha.

Than it was off to Ireland. What a fantastic time we had, perfect timing as it turned out. You think you’re in control of your life and yet you see how the Lord has been orchestrating everything perfectly. Again thanks to all of you who made this possible, it was the best birthday present ever. We needed the time away to recoup and be refreshed and hang out with Ros & Stephen Critchlow who have since returned to Ireland. They in turned introduced us to a really incredible couple (Dawn & Rob) who are working in London Derry doing a fantastic work in the community and who took us along the Coast for some fantastic Ocean views and laughs were non stop. We’ll have to tell you the furry pony story sometime.

We have had our hearts stolen by this Nation. We think the Lord has something up his sleeve. Hey I think I remember someone at New Life speaking something about that prophetically now that I’m typing this letter, it makes total sense now. I thought when I did the prayer walk in 2008 that was it, but Guido was really smitten and his heart longs to go back so time will tell if Jehovah sneaky is at it again, tugging on our heart strings for yet another nation to settle in.

We got back to Italy on the 17th, packed and drove to Verona on the 20th to a beautiful apartment that they provided for us beside the hotel. We were all packed and ready for 6 months in a hotel room, so this was over and beyond and such an awesome surprise. There were a lot of heart desires that the Lord met in this apartment, sun, space, privacy, even a violet bed cover. He really is the lover of our souls and into the small details of our lives just as well as the great and grand miraculous.

Of course when we arrived the music playing in the Hotel is Irish right since were in Italy. They were having Irish night in a few weeks including Guinness on tap and Guido is like in Heaven. Than arrives a group of students from Ireland and just a few weeks after that a young girl travelling through Europe ends up stuck because of a huge Wine faire they are having in the area. All the hostels & hotels in Verona were booked solid. I have no clue how she found us as we are quite a ways away from Verona and she was taking buses. She came out and stayed the night but the next night we had no space so she stayed with us in the apartment. Yes I invited a total stranger from Ireland to stay in our house. As it turns out Antonia is a Christian and she has invited us to come and speak to their home group sometime. It was so fun hanging out and chatting.

I was able to share a testimony with her about my father and his dying and coming back to life that settled some issues in her heart about the Love of the Father and a God who would send so many people to hell. I showed her that Jesus even in death, came to my father in his moment of death when he realised he wasn’t going to heaven and cried out “Jesus help me”. That is how great the Love of the Father is that even in death he will take us at the very last second if we will just cry out. Really when you think about it who wouldn’t cry out when they are staring truth in the eyes? I know this will shake some of your theology but my dad was there, it was his story and I believe him, he came back to life and served the Lord for 5 years and than went home. I however recommend that people don’t wait till the last moment; life is too short to waste it being unsaved.

April 2nd they launched the 2nd year of 24/7 in Tuscany and we have finished our 1-year commitment and passed the baton to others in Ps. Marco’s church. It was such a blessing to be a part of this project and to see the Lord knit together so many different denominations, and groups. We weren’t sure if it would have enough steam to do another year but everyone wanted to continue again with very few dropping off the list of prayer and others stepping into the administration. So we know that it was truly the timing of the Lord and again we thank Stephen & Ros Critchlow for coming and spending a year and a half getting this thing up and running and building and knitting people together. People truly feel and see the difference it has made in the area spiritually and now churches are doing things together (outreaches, etc). Wow…

So now we have been here a little over a month and we went back to Montecatini for a few days for our 16th Anniversary and to see our Grand daughter who was very much in need of her grandparents and Jami in need of a little break. Off to the beach and even an Easter Egg hunt. Then it was back to more learning and growing.

We hope to be a blessing to the Ps. & his wife as they push forward in their vision for the church and to help them with the building up of this Hotel www.hotelvalpolicella.net. & Restaurant which they have been running for just over a year now. We are all in a large learning curve as no one here has ever done this before. However looking from the outside in, we can see things from a different vantagepoint. Guido with his years of restaurant experience has been able to share with them some helpful tips. Of course being brothers and sisters in Christ we can be a support and encouragement to them, hopefully give them some Godly advice as they press on in the visions and prophetic that the Lord has placed in their heart. It truly is great to be in the moments of the Lord and in His perfect timing.

Again we would like to thank those of you who have been praying for us and financially providing for us. We are not being paid to be here, this is truly a love offering, but since we have no rent, no utilities and eat in the restaurant we are able to actually maintain and provide for the personal extras that we need thanks to your continued faithfulness. We will be here for sure until August and after that we do not know, but are confident that the Lord will make it very clear regarding His desires for this nation and us.

Blessings & Love

Italy Report 2011 - 2010

2011-01-19T23:38:00.003+01:00

Lets start at Now and than walk down memory lane together….

New Years Eve – We wanted to start our New Year in the presence of the Lord and surrounded by our brothers & sisters in Christ so we went to the Big Tent where we ate and ate and ate and ate some more. We had some awesome time of worship & fellowship and left about 20 till midnight to head down the road to the Vigna with Ps. Guido & Lorraine’s group.

Got there at 6 minutes till midnight, just in time to bring in the New Year. It is always so much fun to hang out with the people at this church. We feel so loved and so welcomed. Oh and did I mention worship is awesome here.

Ps. Maurizio & Tuula asked if we had found a car yet and then invited us to their home around 1:30am to see a car they wanted to give us and stay with them instead of driving all the way back home (1 hour away). WOW. So at 2:00am we arrive at their home, to find a really cute, clean Fiat Punto that belonged to a missionary couple who had to return to the USA.

I told Guido besides not having any clothes except what was on our back, that all that we needed now was toothbrushes and directions to Jan & Millie’s house for the next day. Comes a knock on the door of the room and there is Ps. Maurizio with toothbrushes. Prophetic proclamation is born in my heart at that moment, really, or I should say confirmation of what the Lord was already saying to us.

We wake the next day to making plans for the future in church planting, helping Ps. Maurizio & Tuula with their work in Florence and an email from Jan & Millie with directions to their house. So after a big breakfast and lunch we start off to Fabro (about 2 ½ hours away) with no Tom Tom and my slight recollection of how to get there from my last visit.

We spent the next 24 hours with a couple sharing hearts, vision, worship, prayer, testimonies & hospitality. We arrive home around 9:00pm on the 2nd having nothing more than the clothes on our backs and donated toothbrushes and decide we are never ever going back to business as usual. God has totally wrecked us for the normal status quo of life and we are so excited and encouraged for our future in this nation and the nations of the world. The Holy Spirit is on the move and we are moving with Him as our Lord directs and we believe it is going to be packed with His business in the earth.

Christmas was with Jami & Chloe here at home. Thank you Jesus for grandchildren, it is so awesome to be a grandparent, even if we are probably the youngest grandparents in Italy. Most are having their 2nd child at this age, can you imagine that.

December we had Ps. Santhosh & Mani with us from India for a few days. He was a contact from our friends Ps. Pedro & Mary of Washington State. We had to give them a special letter so they could obtain a Visa to come as He felt the Lord was calling them specifically to Italy & Norway. They were with us a few days and spoke at Vigna Della Signore (Ps. Guido & Lorrie) and then we drove them up to Varese to Ps. David Ben Joseph & Lube (awesome prayer warrior). For 10 days they went all over Northern Italy meeting various other Ps. from Milan to Verona and beyond.

We spent Thanksgiving under the Big Tent of Cristo e la Risposta and brought Chloe with us. Dinner, which included Turkey, Gravy, mash potatoes, peas & pumpkin pie also included a time of testimony and a play from the children. It was so much fun and the first time that we have had dinner together with so many people. It is really hard for us sometimes since we are not around all our natural family, but it is such a blessing to be part of the family of God and it has helped us tremendously over these past 6 ½ years to still celebrate. We miss you Barbutti Family as well.

We went down to Rome to meet up with Karen Dunham of Living Bread International Church from Jerusalem. If anyone is interested in their ministry in Jerusalem check out their website. www.livingbreadchurch.com. There were joined by our friend Lida Lockard from Bread & Wine Ministries out of Modesto, Rev. Edna Overstreet with Reach the World International Ministries also of Modesto, Janiece Peppers from GA (not sure what ministry she is with) and many others who we met only briefly. They came with a prayer mandate for Rome. As we shared about our prayer walk in 2005, some of the same proclamations we spoke then were the same ones that the Lord was having them speak now. Prophetic dreams and visions were shared that were identical to what was seen back in 2005 with Steve Lowton & his team. We found it so cool that as Steve Lowton’s team came from London to Rome and then onto Jerusalem, this team was doing in reverse. They prayed at many locations as the Lord lead but one particular area was the 7 hills of Rome. They split into 7 groups, which included Ps. Lippi from Florence, & Ps. Montecchi of Milan along with others I do not know and at the same time blew the shofars and spoke prophetically into the nation. We were not there for that event as Guido was working, however we did make the connection for their next visit sometime in 2011 where we will meet up and pray at various locations around Rome and possibly other locations in Italy as the Lord leads.

November – I put out a letter to people on our newsletter for Guido’s 50th birthday. I did something I didn’t feel quite comfortable with, which was ask for finances for something as trivial as a birthday. I really felt strongly impressed by the Lord to do it despite my feelings and I just want to thank all of you who blessed Guido over and above. Guido not only got his knife & oven, which he uses all the time, we also have booked ourselves for Ireland in March for 9 days.

Wow I am so glad that I listened to the Lord and I apologize if I made anyone feel uncomfortable or caused some of you to question our calling here in Italy. We are called to sacrifice and give up some of the normal comforts of life as did the apostles and others called to the mission field. I must however learn to listen to the Lord and put my pride aside in these matters regarding finances or what others might think.

It isn’t easy to live by faith and it isn’t easy to receive. I would much rather take care of myself and my family and give the shirt off my own back as it is how I was raised. It is humbling to ask for anything specially something that isn’t at all necessary for living. Thank you again for all of you who blessed us and showed us that it is truly better to be obedient.

Pastor Dennis McNally was also here and we had a few meetings, one being at our Church with Ps. Marco in Monsummano. Ps. Dennis talked about the importance of the 5-fold ministry like a basketball team was essential for the church and explained about prophecy to bring clarity from the year before when he prophesied over some. Encouraged and uplifted them as they press on in the things that the Lord is revealing for them to do. Then it was off to Empoli in the afternoon to the Worship Center of Guido & Lorraine Foccardi for some awesome worship & ministry time. Ps. Dennis was able to give some insight and direction to the leadership as they transition into a Church with the Worship Center being a ministry of the Church.

The next afternoon I set up a place to go and baptize some of the leadership in a local swimming pool by Dennis. You can NEVER get anything done here in Italy on short notice and from the time they called to the time we were standing in the pool were only a few hours, it really truly was a God thing.

September 2010 -- Official time to start the year again after the summer and time to re-evaluate where we were concerning the 24/7 Prayer movement During the summer we lost 4 churches and had nearly 50 hours that were uncovered. I managed to shuffle many in the Church of Monsummano over to hours that were uncovered to bring it down to about 21. I have to say, this little church is like the Who’s in Whoville in the scheme of the whole world, but let me tell you, when we shout, “We are here” God hears us and the enemy has had to take notice. Ps. Marco has continued to reinforce the need to pray and the church has willingly taken up the challenge to stand in the gap for this Nation.

Our Ministry Calling

1. Plant churches
2. Apostolic anointing
3. Prophetic Intercession
4. Helping and equipping leaders
5. Assisting with 24/7
6. Building a Christian network among the European nations
7. Serving the Body of Christ in whatever way possible.

Ministry Needs

1. Car is on loan to us for 4 months, insurance is €400 for that time
2. We have to move into another place before July at the request of Guido’s mom. Current Rental rates are 350-500 for about 450sq. ft.
3. Really seeking the Lord as to whether we are still suppose to be here in Italy and if so what is our next steps for this year..
4. Prayer Partners

WE SEND ALL OUR LOVE AND BLESSINGS.
THANK YOU!!!! GUIDO & JOYCE BASSI
YOUR MISSIONARIES IN ITALY & EUROPE

If you would like to support our ministry you can send Check or Money Orders to:

New Life Christian Church
20394 San Miguel Avenue
Castro Valley, CA 94546 or

click the DONATE button on this page

Incredible Praise Report

2010-07-13T19:29:00.001+02:00

Did I not say it was time for Italy? Actually God told me it was time and He was not speaking in the distant future, He was speaking NOW. When we think of the incredible amount of work and engineering and connections that it took for this week to occur, were floored. We had a group from Iceland, Switzerland and the USA who have all been in Redding at the School of the Supernatural for the past 2 years and Josh Albillo who is actually on staff from Redding with us.

We set up as many meetings as were possible for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which isn’t easy now because it is July, very hot over 94-104 with humidity of 80% so it is beach and mountain time for the Italians. 5 meetings full to overflowing and all wanting to hear something from the Lord. All in waiting expectations for the things the Lord wants to do in this Nation. People who have prayed for unity within the body and for the glory to fall in this Nation. For miracles, signs and wonders to come once again to rest on this Nation. The Lord confirmed time and time again His great love for them, promises that were in their heart were spoken out for all to hear, healing’s, forgiveness, and the sweet sweet presence of the Lord all around us. We broke out in praise and worship & dance.
Many asked us how this all came to be and the bottom line is obedience. The Lord urged us to come back to California, we thought for one thing but a California connection we made while in Israel in 2008 (again we went in obedience) contacted us a few days after we arrived and felt they were to invite us and pay for a conference for us to attend which connected us to Don Pirozok & his awesome wife Cheryl from Spokane Washington who was having some training seminars around the Bay Area, Sacramento and South bay, and in that we met Rosario (thank you oh mighty woman of God for your obedience) who put us in touch with this group who have felt a calling for Italy. From 2008 to 2010 the Lord was weaving His plan specifically for us here in Italy.
Last year we went to Switzerland to meet up with our friends Giancarlo & Katherine from the UK to come and be part of a seminar (we need experience in ministry) and there we met David & Isabella who connected us before we came to California with a group from Germany who also have a heart for Italy and a call for this Nation. When we came back in January we went back to this group in Germany for a conference with Emerson & Ana Mendez Ferrel, (who by the way is Italian, with family from Florence, yes born in Mexico but Italian, wow) and there we met up again with David & Isabella who told us about some missionaries they met from Italy.

Mark & Thomas

I contacted them, Marc & Denine King about 2 weeks before the group was to arrive here to minister to us and he brought down his family and his cell group of pretty much all new young on fire converts. It was awesome as the group from Redding pulled them into ministry and allowing them to ministry and move in the gifting’s that the Lord has on them all. We are family, we are to be a place safe to train the next generation in the moving’s and gifting of the Lord. If we don’t let them practice and use what they have, church they won’t just be ready when they are older. They have to get behind the wheel and be allowed to try and drive with someone who loves them and can watch over them as they perfect hearing the voice of the Lord amen.

I know it is lots of names of people you know and don’t know but my letter is to encourage you to “GO FOR IT”. When you feel that jump in your Spirit, don’t just say, “oh it’s my flesh”, “oh that couldn’t be God”, “I can’t do that”; “It’s such short notice, I need time to think about it and pray”, just GO FOR IT. Yes some things you need to pray about, obvious, however had Moses told everyone to sit down and pray about touching the rod to the water well, we wouldn’t be even having this discussion would we, they would all be dead. You have to trust and believe the Lord is ever active and present in your life moving you on and forward in His will for you and others. He is not just some passive bystander in your life just waiting for an opportunity to intervene, but ever active in your life at all times.

satan doesn’t have all power over you and your life, you are the children of the Living God, the God who raised Jesus from the dead and that same Spirit lives in you. We are His holy ones and we are consumed by Him. What we saw happen this weekend took nothing more then our obedience and faith that the Lord was in control and we were following Him no matter how weird it seemed or how spontaneous and last minute or irresponsible it seemed, our Spirit testified it was right while all our natural man screamed (and satan), we were blowing it.

We will never ever be the same, and those who came will never be the same. We are going forward more and more in love with the Lord and with each other. We were set freer and we are going out to set others in the world free. We are walking in His given authority to set the captives free, open blind eyes, raise the dead and proclaim that He is Risen, He is alive and He is the King over the whole earth and Father God loves them so much and Holy Spirit will equip them to live a live full of His glory until He arrives to gather us.

Just “GO FOR IT”.

Thank you and double portion to you Thomas & Maria, Josh, Solveig, Oskvear, Natalie & Catherine & Team Asti. Marc you rock as an interpretor & Denine you are awesome.

Grazie Jami, Ps. Alessandro & Katia, Marco & Chrissie, Guido & Lorraine, Ps. Marco & Nunzia per aprire la vostra stanze, chiesa, casa per noi. Ancora Signore, siamo pronti.......

June 2010

2010-06-16T17:21:00.012+02:00

Where has the time gone, 6 months into the year and wow what a great start it has been? So much has happened. Well lets just start with March 28^th, when we started our first ever 24/7 in the Florence area. This isn’t just a few days or a whole month as others have done in the past here around Italy, but a whole year. We gathered in the Nuova Mercato in Florence with about 10 or so churches with different denominations represented.

We currently have a little over 280 people praying around the clock for the glory of the Lord to fall upon us here in Italy. It’s really pretty exciting to be able to be in on the beginning of new things and reaping fruit from areas that others have toiled for years to bring about.

Stephen & Ros are now hoping along with Ps. Giovanni Targetti to spread this to Perugia, Bologna etc. We can be found on Facebook as Preghiera Continua or at the new blog site me and & Guido put together to add new ways to extend our prayer project at www.preghieracontinua.blogspot.com .

What is really neat about all this are the testimonies. Many people took 1 hour and have reported that once they started they were praying even longer and with ease and some have even taken a second time slot. When it is the Lord it is easy. We are starting to see more of a hunger for prayer that even includes the young who in our church have been taking the midnight to 3 shifts.

At the end of April a group from YWAM Hawaii came over to the church in Empoli to the church in Empoli and did some all night prayer & worship meetings. We went on the 12th for about 6 hours of prayer & worship. How awesome it is to worship in your own language and they incorporated it with Italian worship as well.

We volunteered to drive them 1200 km. to Herrnhut Germany. They rented 2 vans which me and Guido drove up & back. It was the cheapest form of transportation. They were like 13 people total, 1 in a wheelchair & 1 small toddler and tons of back packs, instruments, stroller, car seat, etc. Europe is not cheap for this many people taking a train or a plane. 1 way rental had a 1000 drop off fee so that is why we offered. Left on a Thursday at 4:30pm, arrived Herrnhut, yes that is the famous 100 year prayer place of Count Zinzendorf & the Moravians, and now a YWAM base sits in the village.

I even saw my first deer ever in Europe after 12 years. Not like the deer we seen in California in the first few days grazing along the freeway in Pleasanton. Go figure. Arrived at 5:30am, got everyone into their different sleeping quarters (3 places) our awesome American hosts treated us to some incredible pastries from a family bakery that was opened in like in 1841 and Paul gave Guido a message and poured us into bed by 7am.

Our hosts were Jean & Paul Wemmer of Washington State and Paul who was born in Germany but after the war went to the USA, just recently translated from the old German language 2 books on the life of Count Zinzendorf, 1 that was written 100 years after and the other 200 years after he died. He gave us a copy which I have read and if anyone is interested you can contact them at Paul14120@gmail.com apparently he is giving them away and what an awesome book it is. Anyhow we were then up by noon for some awesome Germany hamburgers (round like baseballs), potato salad and the best bread and deserts ever and back on the road by about 3:00, and made it until just inside the Italian boarder at 1:00am Saturday morning and we had to pull over & sleep. We woke up about 3:00 and arrived home 6:00am, to bed, up by 10 to return the vans.

Yes we are crazy but we will do just about anything for the body of Christ. We didn’t get to site see but as usual the Lord had some divine connections and I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about those in the months and years to come amen.

Now the next day Sunday May 23^rd and stemming from this 24/7 prayer came the Global Day of Prayer where incredibly we had our first ever (as in historically ever) meeting in the Florence area under the tent www.cristoelarisposta.it . From this was also a simultaneous meeting of about 8 churches in the Prato region with 5 of those being Italian, 1 Chinese, 1 Nigerian and groups of Africans from the Ivory coast, Pakistani’s and various other ethnic groups together crying out to the Lord. Again Prato is the first for Global Day of Prayer on this scale. We danced, we sang, we prayed in unity with the rest of the world.

For us it truly was a joy to see something that started back in 2005 helping Ps. Montecchi In Milan to get the info out, fast forward 5 years later and seeing large groups coming together to cry out and seek the Lord’s face together.

Italians pray, don’t get me wrong, they have been praying for years for their country, but there is something very powerful and dynamic when the body of Christ gets together corporately and does it. There is power in the unity of the body and that is what we are rejoicing in at this time for we know as we do this, repenting, crying out and seeking the face of the Lord that He is going to hear us and heal this land amen.

On May 26^th we met with Stephen & Ros and a group of people they gathered together to introduce the Alpha course. Guido actually prepared a very nice dinner before hand and a gentleman from England came over, actually he was here on vacation and Stephen & Ros appropriated some of his time to impart into Italy, just like us, your here to visit and we use you for building up the kingdom, not a bad exchange really, pasta for ministry work, ha ha. He was glad to tell this group of various people about the program, how it is used specially among the Catholics in England and how even some churches in the past have used it here. We shall see as this looks like a great tool, thank you Keith Hazell for the suggestion from like 3 years back. Finally we have the resources to begin.

Praise Reports

Many of you know about our battle with the pension board here in Italy, and the new battle that ensued when we got back in January regarding our employee. It seems like another agency (there are 2 different government pension boards here) got involved, made one phone call and now has written us a letter that should release us from that issue and may actually cause the original to crumble as well. Now our original case has been sent to yet another person who told us he can not understand how our case was sent to collections when it hasn’t even come back from review. Hmmm I wonder how that happened. He said it is impossible to send them to collections without final review from Rome and yet it was. In fact they put a lien against the motorcycle last month so we could not drive them. We decided to transfer them out of our name into a Non Profit Ministry here just so we could continue to have a something to drive. They can’t out right take the bike, however if we get stopped on a random street check there is a €500-2500 fine and the police take the bike, so we sprung for the €60 euros & transferred them for now. All in all I have faith that the Lord will bring this to a favorable end, we just have to let patience work its way in us through the process amen. Now I know why everyone has everything in their grandma’s or children’s name, its crazy how one mistake on someone else’s part can take years to unravel.

July 8^th is our 6^th year anniversary living in Italy. WOW, we can’t believe everything that the Lord is and has been doing. No clue when were coming back, but we know that we are where were suppose to be for this moment. Also in July a group from Redding is coming to minister in some of the local churches. Please keep that in prayer that they will be led of the Lord to give to the Italians exactly what the Lord wants for this time and hour and that the Italians will have open hearts to hear what the Lord is trying to say to them. This contact was made while in California with Rosario (thanks bunches) who introduced me to Catherine who just graduated from the Ministry school in Redding along with her parents Thomas & Maria Stankiewicz. They had been prior 10 years in Reykjavik Iceland as church planters and feel that they have a call for Italy. They are bringing with them a team from Bethel including Josh Albillio and all who have a heart specifically for Italy. Amen, Lord send the workers for the harvest. So we are very very excited for the contact and their heart of teaching the Fathers Love, which has been our theme for many years since our time in Toronto. We currently have them set up for 4 churches in 3 days and hope that we can squeeze in another 2 to fill up their 5 days with us.

Jami & Chloe are currently back with us. Here engagement is over after 5 years, so please keep her and Chloe in prayer and that she will see this as God’s hand to draw her back to him in a mighty and powerful way. It is really hard to be young these days and it is even harder to be young and Christian in this country. There are not many youth groups like in the USA or programs in our area. Our youth at the church now have just come into their own in the last few years after Jami left and are really about 5 years younger then her so it wasn’t really her crowd and there is not many young mothers in this country either. Her work is going well and Chloe is excelling in school. She just finished 1^st grade and already reads and writes in cursive. She usually had 1 or 2 hours of homework a day after being there 8 hours and even has homework for the summer. It is rough but she is smart as a whip and it keeps her very stimulated and she is the type of child who needs this. I’m impressed but now she is loosing the English so guess what I’m doing this summer? You got it “Hooked on Phonics”. It will be easy, she is a great student and I’m not bias.

As four our finances we truly are learning the way of faith more and more. On paper we are coming up about short about €100 euro a month and yet our debt is not increasing so I’m not sure how that is working out. Money in vs. money out is for sure short but there is always enough so we just believe that it will continue. Of course all extra’s no longer exist for us, only necessities and we are alternating utility bills for payment, but I hear many Italians saying the same so we are not alone. Guido still has not found work and not for a lack of trying. He gets discouraged at times because he certainly is qualified, but the age thing is a factor when it comes to employers paying the contributions. He is only going to be 50 in November but here it is a death sentence for work. I continue to work on-line with Kaylyn in California and that has really blessed me and given me something to do.

Thank you specially Don and Faith you have really been the major contributors to us since we got back and for it not been this way, we really could not have stayed. Thank you Bernabe family for your faithful sowing into our ministry for the past 4 years or so. Thank you Land & Sea for not forgetting about us. Thank you to all you anonymous givers who give to us through New Life Christian Church, truly it is a work that could not be done without your support. Europe is expensive. A recent trip we made to Germany for some ministry contacts for the future (not Herrnhut) cost us €300 for gas, tolls & car. We have had to turn down invites because we simply don’t have the finances to say yes. When invited we usually minister even though we are not the speakers so we are not reimbursed for these things and many times the smaller places give offerings which generally cover what you spent, but we don’t have it to even get there. Maybe it is a lack of faith and we have lost the will to go out for fear of not being able to replace it if we missed God, or wisdom however we are in a learning curve so please please pray for us to really hear the Lord clearly and to be obedient even if it means going to the train station with no money in hand believing a ticket will be there if He says go, amen.

For His Glory Alone

Guido & Joyce Bassi

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Can God heal Cancer?

2010-04-11T22:59:00.001+02:00

Hello Again,

Well I had such a great response with the last praise report I thought I would share this one. We've actually been keeping it under raps for the last 3 weeks, but now that we have a testimony I thought it was time. March 28th a young man named Lorenzo came up for prayer, and when I saw him coming, I really felt he needed to be anointed with oil. Well the Pastor prayed for him for a long time and than the young man went back and sat and I turned to Guido and said we really need to anoint him with oil. So Guido & I along with our friends Emily & Erik from the States who came to visit us went to pray for him. He has lymphoma and had just found out 3 days before (on his 21'st birthday). We'll we anointed him and laid hands on him and there was such burning in our hands. 3 times my hand on his back seized up and 3 times I shook my hand off. At one point Guido turned to Emily and said "I think you have something for him, do you?". She said, well I kinda felt like the Lord wanted me to punch him. We told Lorenzo what she felt the Lord told her to do and he said ok. We of course thought she was going to give him this little symbolic punch but she just popped him really hard right in the center of his chest. We were all kind of like shocked, she really punched him. She said that after she did she saw something explode inside him in that area and things falling off of him.

This young man could barely stand up, he was swaying all over the place and after about 20 minutes we stopped praying for him. He said he felt his whole body on fire and he was actually sweating. When his sister came up after wards she told us that they found it in his chest, in the exact spot Emily punched. We were all after wards laughing about her punching him and she said she had never ever punched anyone so she didn't even know how to gauge how hard or soft it would be. We told her husband that he better watch out. Anyhow later that night Lorenzo brought us to Florence for the start of the 24/7 Prayer in Italy and we learned a little bit more about this incredible young man. He has only been saved a very short time, in fact his sister & brother-in-law are very strong Christians (14 yrs older than him) and they brought him to England where he went to Hillsong and received the Lord. In October he was baptized, we were there at the time but I didn't remember him in particularly. He however had not yet been filled with the Holy Spirit, so we told him that we would have him and his lovely girlfriend over for lunch in the near future and pray with them. Thought it might be too dangerous while driving on the rode, and we got home very late after the very fantastic meeting in Florence.

So today they came over for lunch and he shared that when he found out he had cancer, that he had the incurable Hodgekins type, they told him basically he was going to die, however after he received prayer he went back for more tests and now they tell him he not only has a different form of lymphoma but one of the most curable ones. Praise the Lord. No it isn't a total healing as of yet, however he feels very secure in what the Lord is doing in his life. He is very on fire and we were so incredible blessed to pray with both of them to receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit. We loaded them up with worship music and a book on the Holy Spirit.

On another note they also took the prayer time on our list from 3-4 am and were a little worried about whether they could wake up and pray and maybe an hour would be too long, but in fact they said it was super easy. We had the same experience taking the 1-2am and in fact our first night we felt such a presence of the Lord starting around the time our group went on it's shift for prayer at 4pm that when we arrived at our time to pray, we both felt such a presence of the Holy Spirit we prayed a little longer and the time just flew by. When we got up to go to bed, Guido told me to look back into the room, it actually looked foggy, but I thought it might be the candles we burn, but Guido's said it wasn't possible because we burn them every night and it doesn't get cloudy? This past week the same thing happened minus the fog and we actually prayed for 2 hours and it was effortless. We believe and this it what we shared with them, that it is a result of corporate prayer, praying in the spirit of Unity and it just being God's timing for our nation and He is enabling us to pray and cry out. When the Lord calls for a work, He also equips us, we just need be obedient.

That's it, we're so excited, we had to call Emily and tell her were going to start sending people to her house for a good punching who need healing, ha ha. Can we start the church of the punch. It's probably better than spitting in the mud or laying on top of them, imagine what people would say. Ok all jokes aside. The Lord is awesome and so good and we are so excited to be a part of something so much bigger than we could have ever hoped for or imagined. What a blessing and an honor to pray for people and to see the Lord working and moving and changing lives. Thank you so very much for praying for us and sharing with us in the fruits of this labor.

2010-04-11T22:56:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that regarding the giant bill from the Pension Board that we got we we returned to Italy, we went to talk with them and they said there was nothing we could do, we had to repay for our employee even though we had already paid it to another agency. They said they would not get that other agency to pay it but it was our responsibility to get the money back. So from there we went to Florence to request that they return the 4000,00 euro so we could pay the correct Agency and the man informed us that under the law we had in fact paid the correct agency and that they would not give us the money back and asked for the phone number of the person in charge of the file at the other Government agency.

Ok I thought go ahead and call, nothing will happen, but he called her right there while were were in the office and told her that they were outside of the law and were not entitled to any monies and that according to a law from 2005 they were to suspend all the collections for this amount and after dropping several names (nobody we know) the woman from the other Agency agreed and said that all collections would be stopped. Wow we fight with them for months and months and in 3 minutes this man brought to an end 1 battle but with this battle and the law from 2005 we should be able with the documentation he will be sending us to completely close out the other battle regarding our personal pension and the 28,000 euro they say we owe.

So just wanted all of you who have been praying for this to know that a small victory was won, but we believe it will be the catalyst to win the war

Guess who we saw today?

2010-03-28T17:56:00.002+02:00

Today we went to San Gimignano with some friends and as we were meandering through the shops we stopped to wait for our friends when a very nice looking man starts coming towards me and my brain in the matter of seconds is processing that I know this person and how attractive they are even though they are kind of scruffy and as that thought is passing out of my brain as I'm on to a new thoughts about being in this beautiful city I realize this person is looking me straight in the eyes as he passes me, literally shoulder to shoulder and that he seems to have a look like "does she recognize me or is she going to talk to me" and it hits me when I really see the eyes, and I turn around to Guido and say, wow that guy looks just like George Clooney. than our whole group turns to look at him and he has now stopped and turned back to face us as he seems to be waiting for someone and I look and he seems way to tanned, and now I'm looking at another lady who seemed to be looking at him, but wasn't and I turned back to keep walking and my friend says "That is totally George Clooney", and I think now they are just making fun of me and than I hear Guido yell " Hey George" really loud and I'm like totally mortified that Guido is calling to a guy who looks like George. Than Guido say's yeah it was George Clooney, now I really think these guys are just pulling my leg, but Guido say's "no really". Apparently George was going into a store, when he hears Guido call his name and he stops pops his head out and smiles and waves. Now if it wasn't George, it was a really good look alike who is very use to responding to his name when called.

2010-03-10T19:05:00.005+01:00

March 2010

Well we have been back just over a month and of course right back into a legal battle. Within 2 days of our return, another letter from the Government arrived stating that we owe another 4000 for our employee. Please pray as it seems that we bought a red car but the Pension Board (there are 2 in Italy) wants to make it blue (allegorically speaking since it was a gym we opened and they say we opened a rehab center) so they can collect money we do not owe them. If we are proven to be correct that the car was in fact really red, they will write a letter which we must present to a judge (at our own expense) and than we will be released from this now 42,000 + interest & fines debt ($57,000). Please pray for us to have strength & wisdom to proceed, as this is so time consuming, expensive and frustrating and which keeps trying to pull us from our true call of the lost and broken in the land, not erroneous debts that some government office decides to invent.

On that news however our time in the United States was very fruitful and we returned totally encouraged and recharged for the tasks that the Lord has called us to. We would like to thank all of you who put into our lives emotional, physically, spiritually and financially during our stay. What we came to the USA to do turned out to be totally different than what the Lord did. As usual He had His way and changed our lives in ways we could have never imagined and we came away so much more equipped for the tasks at hand. We met so many new people and ministries and were so totally blessed by them.

We spoke at Land & Sea Missions in Vallejo just before we returned to Italy and were totally blown away by their love, encouragement and generosity. Even had 1 brother write us an encouraging word and sing over us, WOW. We even picked up a few intercessors. In fact the Lord has made it very clear that we need people who will commit to intercede specifically for us while we are here so if you feel you are one of these people, please email us ASAP so we can start to send you specific prayer needs amen.

As usual it is always nice to return to our Church at New Life and see old friends and to make new ones and to keep the fires of friendship alive, encouraging one another and sharing in the daily challenges and visions to which the Lord is inviting us into amen. We were also very blessed to be grafted into another family of believers in Modesto at Destiny Church with Ps. Hank & Linda. It was such a blessing to see so many people moving forward with the Lord and pressing into the things He wants to do in this hour.

One common thread that we kept hearing from people from the many churches we visited was that many of them have had calls in their lives in regards to Europe or even Italy specifically. This was pretty amazing as we see that over the past 20 years or so, the focus of the universal Body of Christ has been the 10/40 window and ironically those nations which the Body has been sowing into are now sending missionaries into Europe. Wow the Lord has a plan and He is now calling those who have had a call to Europe from 20/30 years ago. God’s timing is so amazing.

Another great link for us was the ministry of Don & Cheryl Pirozok from Spokane Washington who is in the Bay Area/Valley/Sac., hooking people up, teaching, training, equipping, releasing people into their destinies regarding California and the role it has for the USA & the Nations. From that initial meeting came so many other divine appointments of people who have direct links/calls/hearts to Italy. The Lord told us this time that He was going to put together a team and it wouldn’t be long and boy he wasn’t kidding.

Upon our return we were introduced to Joan & Marco Caiani from the New York area that has been in Florence for the past 3 years and Stephen & Rose Critchlow from UK who have been here 3 months just down the road about 20 minutes in Prato. These are people the Lord has sent here for a specific work in Italy. In fact Stephen & Rose came to help set up 24/7 prayer and have begun to network from out of the Florence area with many different denominations to pray for Italy for one year starting March 24^th, 2010-2011. Just so you know this has never happened here in Italy before that we are aware of crossing so many denominational boundaries and with such earnest for “Such a Time as This” moment. Obviously there has been 24 hour prayer as the convents and monasteries are full of little prayer warriors dedicated to prayer, however this is a prayer movement that includes EVERYONE to pray for this nation.

Stephen & Rose will be at Ps. Marco’s church in Monsummano (the church we attend) presenting this challenge on Sunday and hopefully we can fill our day (Wednesday/Thursday 4 pm to 4 am (or 7am to 7pm California time). Guido & I in faith took this shift in hopes of filling our 12 blocks of 1 hour with at least 10 other people, if not me and Guido will be praying a long time on Wednesday/Thursday. In fact if any of you would like to commit with us to pray for Italy on these times, please email us back ASAP. Just a foot note, 24/7 prayer in the UK will on March 26^th start a 6 month prayer vigil for Europe and their theme is “It is Time for Europe”. How true this call is for this day and this hour as that is exactly what the Lord told me last year at the beginning and continues to ring in my ear.

We have heard that there will be a few teams coming from Redding into Italy in the months to follow and we are so excited about that and possibly being able to hook them up with churches & Pastors that we have meet over the years. Can you believe it will be 6 years in July that we have been here and we have made a great little network among the believers here in Italy & Europe? It is by no accident that the Lord is beginning to send teams now. He has been making a way and it is time.

We went this weekend and checked in on our little gal Laura in Rome and although she is doing better, she is still in need of a full deliverance/healing. We were able to meet her grandparents and found that grandma is a Charismatic Christian, amen. The Lord is doing a great work in this family and we absolutely believe that Laura will be healed 110% amen. Fabio came by the day we returned home from the States and since he was baptized and continues in the faith has seen him healed to about 90% and that is without medication, amen.

We leave Saturday for Germany to hook up with an awesome group in Konstance and to finally meet Ana Mendez Ferrel & her husband Emerson and strategize & pray for the area of Germany and Italy. The Lord is giving strategic plans for taking these Nations back for His glory and we feel so blessed to be a part of what the Lord is doing here. There is such anticipation among the believers that we sensed happening before we left but upon returning seems to have blossomed into great expectation, joy and hopefulness that we had not seen before. It truly is a great time to be alive in Christ amen.

We are enclosing a little map of Italy that shows the regions and the number of Evangelical churches per capita in each. I don’t believe this chart represents the many Catholic Churches which labor among the communities. For example our city has 25,000 people in it and as far as we know there is only 1 Evangelical church and it is Nigerian, English speaking and 4 Catholic (non-Charismatic) and I think 1 Mormon. Not good for 25,000 people. Please pray that the Lord will send workers into the harvest because it is ready but there is no place to put them or enough people to care for them.

As far as finances, we are still looking for work, however as there is a crisis in the USA so the crisis is here and jobs are very scarce Guido is still trying to get unemployment in the intirm and reimbursed by Workers Comp for his hands. Rome wasn’t built in a day, is a phrase we are all too aware of as everything takes so long to accomplish here and yet the bills continue to roll in. We want to thank those of you who have poured into us financially for the work here in Italy as it helps us to get to the places we need to be. Please remember we aren’t on a vacation here and although at times seems glamorous, it is work and comes at great cost to us emotionally, but to obey is better than sacrifice and so we press on knowing that we are not running our race in vain. To all of you who share in this sacrifice at whatever level, you too will reap our rewards at the end of time when we stand before our Lord in Glory amen and He shows us what those sacrifices reaped in terms of the lives redeemed unto Him amen.

On a very personal note, our time back so far has been marked with incredible personal struggle as it took nearly a month to recoup from the time difference. Long cold days of rain, wind and snow have added to the sense of despair amidst the extreme joy of having had our Grand daughter Chloe for most of this time while Jami moved into a new place. Mixed with all the excitement of what the Lord is doing the task of trying to make ends meet and get a vehicle as we find a motorcycle very limiting in the winter months for movement. The attack has been heavy and the emotions all over the chart from one extreme to the other and yet peace and we can feel when people are praying for us as we are blasted by waves of His Glory. Tears and laughter has been our cup upon return and yet peace has reigned.

All our love

For His Glory Alone

Joyce & Guido Bassi

If you would like to help us here in the ministry please send your checks to:

New Life Christian Church

20394 San Miguel Ave.

Castro Valley, CA 94546 (write on your check “For Italy”)

Click the donate button up at the left hand side and donate directly

Preghiera 24/7

2010-02-13T00:34:00.007+01:00

Cari Fratelli: PER FAVOR GUARDA IL FILM SOTTO

Questa sono le nostre amiche Stephen & Sue Critchlow dall'inghilterra che ora abitano a Prato. Dio le ha mandate qui con un grande progetto per l'Italia.
Siamo molto contenti perché abbiamo visto come questo tipo di programma di preghiera funziona in altri paesi per la restaurazione e guarigione della terra e del popolo. Crediamo che sia giunto il tempo per Dio, Gesù & lo Spirito Santo di portare un fiume di risveglio e un fuoco di rinascita.

" 2 Cronache 7:14 Se il Mio popolo, sul quale è invocato il mio nome, si umilia, prega, cerca la mia faccia e torna indietro dalle sue vie malvagie, io ascolterò dal cielo, perdonerò il suo peccato e guarirò il suo paese."

Ora se tutti si aggiungono in preghiera, altri pregheranno per questo progetto. Abbiamo bisogno disperatamente del Signore in questo tempo affinché la sua faccia brilli sopra di noi e possiamo essere una luce per questa nazione. . Per favore passate questa e-mail a tutti fratelli in Italia o ai fratelli che hanno una cuore per Italia.”

Per la Gloria di Dio

Final Days

2010-01-15T19:18:00.005+01:00

Only 12 more days and were back to Italy. Being here these past several months has been such a wonderful time of reconnecting with the body, meeting and making new friends and being refreshed and recharged for the tasks at hand that we feel the Lord is calling us into. We spent Christmas with our boys and my parents in La Quinta and though it was short it was we believe a time of reconnection and healing.

We were blessed to go along in a group with Pastor Dennis to Pastor Lhong Phon of the Vietnamese Church in Fremont where we went to pray for a group of new believers to receive the Holy Spirit and saw a whole family come to the Lord Jesus. Wow. Our time here has been full of divine appointments like Cheryl & Don Pirozok of New Generation Ministries out of Seattle who has blessed our life beyond the ability to write it all. Let's just say we will never ever be the same. Their meeting has opened the door to many more meetings with people who have such a heart for Italy and who consequently have such a heart for California and seeing her move into her destiny and fulfill her calling and mandate from the Lord to be a light to this nation. Don't count her out, pray for California and ask God to have mercy on her. Remember "If my people who are called by my name will turn & repent, I will heal the land". It is our job as the Christians to call out for the Lord, not the unsaved and lost of California.

The names, faces and the events surrounding those divine encounters are too many to share on this blog but you know who you are and we have been so blessed by your entrance into our lives. 2010 is going to be a year that rocks and the Lord is going to do things we have been waiting for and dreaming that He would do in the areas we have been seeking Him for. Last year the Lord told me it was time, and it was the theme throughout everywhere we turned, on sermons, songs, billboards, other ministries and I kept saying "time for what Lord". Well it is pretty obvious now that it was a time of preparation. I keep hearing the Lord say to us now that It is time to begin. We are so excited as we really believe we have come into a time with new boldness, purpose and power to share the gospel, set the captives free, love on people, it has been a privilege beyond words already and we are only in January.

Thank you all so very much for your prayers, support and friendship. We look forward to another great and awesome year in our Lord together.

Will you partner with us for Italy & Europe

2009-12-10T06:26:00.014+01:00

Finally we have put together a video so that you can show it to all your pastors and youth leaders. The goal is to get as many people possible excited about what the Lord is doing in Italy & Europe and to gather workers to the harvest. The Lord told us we would have a team, people are now starting to ask us where is our team so we believe it is time for His words to form legs. Please take a look at the video, if you have any suggestions or even photos of us to add, please leave us a comment. These are great days we live in and they are only getting better as the Lord begins to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. Thank you all in advance for your continued love and support, there is too many of you to add on this video but we know who you are and continue to give thanks to the Lord always for your kindness and love.

God is Faithful all the time

2009-11-24T00:04:00.008+01:00

We have been here in California for 1 month on Tuesday and already the Lord is doing great and might things in our lives. It is our greatest joy to announce that we will be returning to Italy on January 26, 2010 and will not be staying here the 8-12 months that we thought. We have been able to hook up with old friends, make new friends and basically reestablish our connection to the church body. We are always truly amazed at how awesome the body of believers is and the love we have for one another. We are also so blown away at the connections we made in Israel last year and how those connections have led to other connections (divine appointments) for the future of Italy and Europe. The Lord really is rising up a heart for Italy and Europe where just 5 years ago everyone was asking “why are you going to there”. The Lord truly loves the nations and has heard the cry of the people. Yes they had their season but amen in the Lord He will always come back around to capture the hearts and minds of the next generation.

We currently are looking for work so that we are doing something besides promoting the missions and have been a little taken back about how impersonal the hiring process has become. You can’t just walk in the door and talk to someone until you have filled out an application online and some of those can take up to an hour or more to fill out. Our society has grown away from personal contact for a more stream lined, safe procedure of hiring. What ever happened to being hired because someone liked you when they met you and sometimes even if you weren’t qualified for the job because they felt they could work with you? It truly is a crisis and frankly I think these new hiring practices aren’t helping the situation. Our brethren who have been dislocated in this shifting economy need our prayer for patience and that the Lord would push pass the overly complicated process and grant them favor, placing them in jobs that He wants and not what some 3 hour psych. Test on drug use or anger issues dictates they should get amen.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner on Thursday and we want to extend our love and gratitude to all you our friends. We will be at New Life in the morning till noon helping them feed those in need. Salvation Army has supplied all the cooked food and we will dish it up and bless those among us who have fallen on hard times. We are believing that the Lord will be glorified and people will be blessed and touch by His great love and affection for them. From there we are off to friends and will be picking up Kyle who will be coming up for a few days. Please keep Guido & Kyle in prayer as they work through all the normal dad, son issues that they haven’t been able to properly do, due to the distance that separates them (Italy/Cal). We had a great time with him at Disneyland and were thankful for the Lords provision for the time. We made our way from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara via Greyhound bus where we picked up a car from our son. It is a 23 year old car but has been a very faithful blessing for our time here. Our son was afraid it wouldn’t make it up here but it has been plowing away without all the problems he said it had. Hmmm, I wonder what happened to all those problems? Thank you Jesus you make all things new, even old cars.

Anyhow we send you all our blessings and our love and thank you for your continued support and prayers. We are literally here without jobs and/or money as Guido was sent a letter before we left that he would not be getting any unemployment and just last week they informed us his injury was not qualified as a work injury. We have been living here in Tracy with our friend Tom who has opened his home to us without any obligation and people keep handing us money, total strangers whom we have just met who have no clue of our needs. We want you to know that the Lord is mindful of all your needs and will not ever fail you. We serve a living God who loves us and watches over our lives at every turn. Be encouraged and don’t lose faith He really is able no matter the circumstance.

For His Glory Alone
Joyce & Guido…

Don & Faith from Modesto whom we met in Israel last year. They took us to a conference here and our lives were transformed. We met other people who are friends of some of our friends. Never look at a chance meeting as being a chance, it is usually divine and with a purpose. Ask the Lord and He will make it clear.

We are here , we are we are here!!!!

2009-11-05T16:27:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone, well we finally made it to California after a pretty uneventful plane ride, unless you call dropping 12,000 ft. in about 30 seconds and I started crying uneventful. The pilots hit a pocket of turbulence and they being the professionals did an awesome job dropping us below the stuff but I left my stomach up there. Never have seen the stewardesses drop to the floor and have the passengers hold them their either. United Airlines is a really awesome airlines. Finally arrived in SFo and got our rental car and finally made it out to Tracy to Tom Amato's home.

Wow cars have come a long way in such a short time. This thing was loaded (Kia Soul), you could even plug in your mp3 player, computer and something else I'm not sure of however, it drank gas even though it was the economy model. So the next day we drove back to a rental agencyin the area to get a smaller car. So different than Europe where an economy car is a Fiat Panda that gets about 50 mpg. We still ended up with a midsize car but it gets 32 vs 24. This thing is manual everything, doors, windows, squeeks and pulls hard to the right. It's a total bucket however, compared to driving around Italy with a scooter anything is an upgrade.

Sunday we went to New Life Christian Church to see our church family. So many new faces, so many new opportunities to make new friends. Always a blessing. Pastor DuBuyonne asked us to get up and share a little and do the communion. It was such an awesome time to share about our Lord and His love and to encourage one another in the faith and to break bread and remember the awesome love and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus and to thank Him for setting us free. We are so excited to be here for 3 months because this time, not like the others we will have so much more time to see everyone and hang out. We started with hanging out with Tina and Herm. I forgot how much food comes on a plate in America. And how many different types of plates you can order, I couldn't decide. In Italy it is pretty simple, menus don't vary much from ristorante to ristorante and you never feel like you have over eaten when you leave. It is a little different when you go to family dinners, there they stuff you until you can't walk, but that is like our Thanksgiving day meal.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, it is just right around the corner. Still don't know what we are doing as we have been invited to many places. Can't clone ourselves so were going to put your names in a hat and draw them out. Just kidding. Really we probably will house hop and see who has the best pumpkin pie, ha ha. This is such an awesome opportunity for us to volunteer and feed some homeless. We can't do that in Italy, just open up the doors at the church and feed people off the street unless you become licensed to do it (not a simple as filling out forms) . No handing out sandwiches in the park or setting up a barbecue and feeding the passerby's. New Life is doing such an awsome job at this, reaching out to their community and touching those in need and making a difference in the lives of others.

We went up and saw Nick and Lisa Cruz and had dinner and just an awesome time of fellowship. They wanted to bless us with warm friendship , and apologize for not being email persons. We just want you all to know that when we send out emails, newsletters, blogs and share with you our life and our needs that you our friends always cover us. We are all different and we all have different gifts, strenghts and abilities and even if you don't respond or just send a one liner saying your praying, we never ever feel that we aren't being cared for, loved on or provided for. People are busy, have lives and you let us into those spaces of your life and we so appreciate it. All of it goes towards sowing into the lost of Europe and reminds us always that the Lord is at the center of all of it. We appreciate all you have done, all you will do and all that that you are required by the Lord to do in regards to us and this work. Please never let the enemy keep you away from us because you feel you haven't done enough becuase it isn't true.

As you know we are off to Disneyland tomorrow for 4 days (We won this trip, all expense paid). What you don't know is that I've been flat on my back for the 2nd day with a bum hip. Can't even bend down and put on my shoes. I'm off to the Chiropractor today and hoping to putting that hip back in place will help, if not I'll be seeing Disney through a wheel chair. Yes it is that bad. Faith & Don Gerlach from Modesto called yesterday and prayed for me and it was an awesome time of prayer however I have not been healed YET however the pain has dimished and I can sit now in the chair but long lines of standing people isn't going to be possible. We met Faith & Don when we went to Israel a few years ago and they called to invite us to a conference next weekend and then to their church on Sunday. This is part of that network of people that have come alongside of us and pray and bless us. It is truely awesome to have family everywhere.

Well we will sign off for now and we will keep you all posted as to our where abouts, and adventures. Again we need you to let your Pastors know that we are in town and should any of them want us to come and share about Italy and Europe and the needs there we would love to come and share. You can call us on our cell, I have posted that number on your email and facebook. If you need it again please send us a message and I will resond. Love you all.

Joyce & Guido

2009-09-04T11:02:00.002+02:00

Well we have some good news and not so good news on this blog. I will start with the not so good news or at least it is sad news. Our friend Sergio from San Gimignano past away a few weeks ago. We have prayed for him to be healed and Pastor Dennis in March prayed with him as well. He went to the USA for a genetic cure but it didn't work. We spoke with him last month and he said he was too sick to visit so we went this past weekend and found his wife busy working away at the ristorante where she broke the news to us. We had to leave so we wouldn't all break down in tears. We returned after 30 minutes and had a nice lunch together. Patrizia said it was a miracle he lived for 8 years after he was diagnosed and was thankful for that time together. He also leaves behind two daughters 14 & 16, he will missed as he was such an awesome husband, father and friend.

As for other news, I suppose good because it is in line with the direction we feel the Lord is taking, we have our tickets and will be back on October 27th to the USA. We have no clue now where we will be going as the job fell through and might or might not open back up in a few months. We aren't concerned though because we know that we have many other opportunities. We are sad to leave because we leave behind Jami & Chloe and our bunny and all our new friends as well as all our possessions, which isn't much these days but about a closet full of boxes, ha ha. We know the time will pass by fast though as 5 years have already gone by and it seems like just yesterday that we arrived.

2 weeks ago we went to Switzerland to meet back up with David & Isabella and what an awesome time we had. We were able to meet up with a group in Constance Germany who we truly believe are key to what the Lord is doing in Europe and specially here in Italy. We are looking forward to the next several years as the Lord enfolds his plans and purposes and are truly convinced that this is the European network that the Lord wanting to build us into. Johannes & his wife have an awesome home church movement going on and have been key in praying and have many awesome and strategic plans from the Lord for the future.

We were surprized by Pastor Freidl of Dave & Isabella's church who invited us to speak at the Sunday Service. Not just speak, but actually do the service. We were going to say no because well hey that isn't our thing yet, but we figured if you don't start you never learn. Guido spoke for the first 15 minutes and I followed up. We both spoke on the Fathers love and had a ministry time before (during worship) and after we spoke. Well I think we did pretty well, many said it was a new message and were touched and they needed it. David said I should have shared something from my life, but I was afraid that if I started talking about my life it would eat up the 15 minutes and more. Next time I will ask the Lord for a specific since it seems my life has been a mini series haha.

What was wild was that they paid us which basically paid for us to go and come back. The Lord is good all the time. Not only does He call you to something that you may or may not be qualified to do, but than he equips you as well. This has been the most awesome on the job training program ever, and certainly the most expensive, but hey He owns the cattle on a 1000 hills so if the military can spend 100s of 1000s of dollars making our service people top notch warriors, the Lord too will spare no expense or resourses to do the same in His kingdom.

We are off to Croatia on Monday and will be back in a week. This will be our last European vacation for a while. We are going to miss being able to fly somewhere for 30 euro's roundtrip for 2 people, yeah that's right 15 euro's each after taxes. How crazy is that, we can't even get a train from here to Rome (2.5 hours) for less than 160 rountrip and yet we can get to a friends house in Croatia for 30. Southwest Airlines has NEVER been this low. A week of laying around at the beach and making our lists and plans for leaving here and getting there is the order of business. It actually serves another purpose as Guido is on medical leave due to his hands.

After many visits to various doctors it appears that Guido has tendonites in one hand, extreme amounts of liqued in both hands inside the joints which is causeing all the pain and swelling and onset of Ostio as well. It appears that all the work in the freezer at -18 has done this. The warm water will go a long way in the cure, which is why they approved this trip be covered. If they don't get this under control and back to normal it can lead to arthritis. Wow you would think a Canadian who was born and raised in this kind of weather would have no problems working in a freezer. Go figure. Although they aren't sure if that was the cause or not. Of course we are asking the Lord for a total and complete healing, hands are needed for everthing, not just to work with.

This bring me to our next request from you our friends and family. We have no more travel miles to use for free ticets and the standby tickets we had offered to us fell through since there are no seats available until after the 1st of the year so we had to buy tickets and unfortunately they aren't 30 euros. The total cost for the tickets came to 1539. which we squezzed onto a credit card that has to be paid within 30 days. If you so feel led to contriubute, please do so by hitting the donate button on the upper left hand side of the page or send your checks to New Life Christian Church with a note with our names on it. If you don't have the address please email me and I will send it to you.

Ciao Tutti
Bye all

Love ya
Joyce & Guido

Our God is an Awesome God

2009-08-17T13:41:00.002+02:00

Just wanted to give you an update of what we have been up to these past few weeks. As we are making our plans to leave this country we are still very active keeping our lines of communication open. Checking on our friends and contacts to make sure they are ok, in need of love and fellowship or prayer and still continuing to make contacts that will we know be beneficial in the future for bringing Italy closer and closer to Jesus.

This past weekend we went to Rome to see our very good friends Alessandro and Kristin along with their children Andrea and Gabriella. It is a chance for us to catch up, vent, share and grow in this friendship. They have been here for 3 1/2 years and have found themselves at the boiling point in regards to living here in Italy. Italy is not an easy country to make a living in and many families have to make huge sacrifices to find work, sometimes leaving them all week and coming home only on the weekends. You have to be so careful at times or find yourself in debt and nothing is worse than that, as you can most times just get by. We were able to share with them the things we have gone through and encourage them to really work together as a team and to push forward. It's so great to know that in the 5 years we have been here, we really did learn something experience wise and can pass it on. Isn't that what it is all about, helping one another to the next level, never leaving anyone behind.

Than on Sunday we went to see Laura. If you all remember Laura is the young lady we prayed with last year when we went to the church to meet Christa from Israel. In that connection we met Sorpressa Sithole from Africa, Clint from California and Brian from California as well. These have all developed into awesome friendships that we have actually been able to hook up with again since that time (except Clint because he is in a country I can't name now, but we keep in touch and pray and encourage each other with posts and music and stuff from time to time. Him more than me because he is awesome at blogging and posting).

Anyhow Laura is the young lady who from the age of 15 till 20 didn't talk due to some traumatic things that happened to her and than at 20 she started speaking in multiple voices but none were hers. We all prayed for her, who we had just met as well for the first time (talk about making first impressions, Hi I'm Clint, come out in the name Jesus, where are you from, Father set her free, wow how cool your from California as well, ) at a church that all of us had been at for the first time including Laura. After 2 1/2 hours of prayer and counseling her mom about taking spiritual authority, fasting, praying, etc. and more prayer and her mom getting filled with the Holy Spirit and more prayer, Laura finally spoke but for only about a minute or two and than went back to the voices. Well to say the least her mom broke out crying saying she hadn't heard her daugher's voice in 10 years.

Anyhow her mom called us about month after this to give her testimony that Laura no longer was on medication, was no longer screaming all night and was now sleeping. We sent her a Bible on cassette in Italian and told her to play them all the time and to throw out all the idols in her home, which she gladly did since they weren't hers and had been brought to the house by the grandmother.

She calls us about every 3 or 4 months and finally we were able to go to their house and hang out with them. As soon as we saw Laura we didn't recognize her, she was smiling and Laura was there, present, talking. She still has a ways to go as it seem in the past 3 or 4 weeks she is lapsing back into the voices and she hasn't fully gained back all her speech or mental sharpness but her recovery to this point has made somewhat of an impression on her father who is an Agnostic. Basically if we can prove that their is a God he will believe. I asked him what he's going to doing when she is totally healed and he is walking her down the isle at her wedding. He said he would go to church twice a day. I told him that wouldn't be necessary, just his heart given to the Lord would be sufficient.

We spent 7 awesome hours with this family talking and sharing. After a time I went in with Paola the mother and Guido hung out with Dario the father and we both just shared liberally and openly about the Lord. Paola is so hungry for the Lord and the truth and a relationship and it seems that she has yet to find a fellowship home. Guido shot from the hip as usual and walked away feeling like Dario was an awesome righteous and just man who just needed the Lord to reveal himself to him. Kind, generous and loving is this family. At the end we took communion (not Dario, but he hung out and watched us pray together for the communion, over his daughter who kept trying to leave the room (the other voices were a bit agitated for sure) but he kept lovingly pulling her back for prayer. This is a man who has exhausted every avenue and has found no cure for his daughter. He asked Guido what he ever did to Jesus that He would do this to his daughter and Guido was able to explain that he didn't do anything and Jesus didn't do this to her. He even took her to an American doctor who ran ever possible test and this doctor said there is nothing medically wrong with his daughter, they haven't even diagnosed her as mentally ill, so Dario indeed is a man who is stumped by the fact that he doesn't believe and yet everything is pointing to this being something spiritual and in need of a spiritual cure.

Paola grew up with some pretty hard core guilt, fear and hypocrisy in regards to religion. It is religion mixed with superstition and pagan traditions and Dario wants nothing to do with that if that is what people say is God. Paola wants to be free to know this loving God, this saving Jesus, this powerful Holy Spirit and so everything we share with her from the Bible she just soaks up like a sponge. Even Dario noticed that she is more calmer when she has to deal with the grandmother of Laura who keeps bringing prayer idols into the house. She just throws them away. She asked about pictures, books, devotions, even the music, if it was good or bad. She wanted to know how she would know it was really God speaking do her and not the devil. They shared their hearts with such openess and honesty it was pretty humbling for me and Guido.

Than to top off the whole awesome time, they told their part of the story about the church we met at last March. It seems her mother heard that there was going to be a guest speaker (Sorpresa Sithole) at this church and she wanted to go and see him and asked Paola to come with her. It is a charasmatic Catholic church (which Paola said the Vatican has recently shut it down. I will check that to see if that is in fact the case) t and I guess when she got in there and saw all these little nuns dancing around, singing Jesus is risen, and just having a awesome Holy Ghost time, she wanted to split. So they (Paola, her mom and Laura) went to the car to leave and the car wouldn't start. So they called Dario who said he would come over and check it out and pick them up if necessary. They came back into the church where I guess Laura started manifesting and she was taken into a room for prayer (enter Brian, Clint & us into this story as Christa who knows all of us asked us all to come and pray. Don't know where Grandma was because only Paola and Laura were in the room with us. Dario than called Paola to tell her that his brand new tire was flat and that he couldn't come. Than as this thing went on and on she told him to wait and after the 2 1/2 hours she went back to the car which started back up. Now that Dario knows the whole story and not piece by piece, he has some thinking to do.

So Thursday we are off to Switzerland again to meet up with Bella and David whom we met at the conference back in June. They are going to put us in contact with a group from I think he said Argentina who has started a whole home church in the area of Lake Constance. They recently told Bella (Italian born in Switzerland) that they had a real heart for Italy and would probably be doing some prayer stuff there in the near future. They contacted us shortly after to let us know and I felt we needed to hook up with them before we left Italy to insure that we leave no loose ends and that possibly a connection for prayer (very specific, strategic prayer walks, warfare, etc) in future is established amen.

We still are looking to do our prayer walk of the Gothic line but as the Lord is starting to unravel this, it seems a bit big for us to just knock out in a few weekends. We did pray the one end of it several months back and we are going to the other end which is near us to pray as well, but we may have to wait till we get back to really pray into the communities that were impacted by the last assult by the allied troops in Italy. August 10th and 11th I was in Cesena with Emily and Eric and had the most awesome priviledge of watching their son while they worked. He was awesome and I got to read almost 1/2 of Frank Viola's book "From Eternity to Here". If you haven't you should read this book. Awesome. Anyhow when I spoke with Guido I told him I though that the City were were staying at was on the map as one of the Cities we needed to pray in, I mean it is 300 km. of area we are talking here and so many cities start with a C I couldn't be sure. So he said pray anyway while your there, it can't hurt.

So when I came back to the room after lunch it was raining and while Zick played I started praying. As the rain came down I just said Lord, use this water to wash away all the blood that was spilt her, heal all the wounds, just flood this area with your presence. Than it starting raining really hard. So I brought Zick to the open window to watch it because he was a little frightened of the thunder and the sound of the rain which was so forceful. We watched as some people had arrived and the women wouldn't get out of the car because the rain was big drops now and heavy. The man with them ran with his umbrella to the room but he was soaked just in the few minutes he was standing there trying to get them to come out of the car. Normally it just rains a few minutes and than stop. All of the sudden a huge wind like a downward blast came blew the bathroom window shut, picked up a chair and blew it accross the yard next to the park car. Than another giant strong downward gust and another. This chair I was for sure was going to slam into the car. Zick now is really crying and I decide I'm going to run out there and get that chair but the wind is so hard I can't open the door and than I think I'm going get soaked and Zik is going to freak out if I run out of the room. It looked like a tornado wind wind pushing down huge gusts for 20 minutes and than stop, calm.

When I got home I checked our map and not only was this a city but this was a German occupied stronghold city and this city took huge casulties. They said it was a freak storm. I just found it interesting . I took a train back to Montecatini that afternoon, which I missed by a few seconds again, but the next one I waited for got me there at about the same time as the train I missed so it totally made up for the 5 hours train diaster from my trip to Amsterdam. Thank you again Emily and Erik for your generousity to us and your love and your friendship and for bringing Chloe all those Golden books.

Amsterdam with Debby at the end of July was awesome. I love that woman, what a woman of God. Keep her in your prayers for those of you who know her as this is a real time of change and she really needs the Lords healing and direction and for those of you who don't, pray anyway, because the Lord knows how to have you pray for her amen. Who would have though french fries and maynoise could be so good. Yeah I know it is totally un American but hey when in Holland do as the Dutch. I loved it, it was beautiful and the only sad part was that it was so short. We will be back for sure. Met some awesome people, Cory you know who you are, ha ha. Visited Debs church where I was invited to come down and introduce myself (first time they asked a new visitor to come and introduce themselves, I always seem to be the first at something new and than churches end up setting a standard after that. That's a ha ha Ps. Dennis if you get my drift.

Mr. Guido is at the middle of a bunch of tests on his hands. He seems to have something really wrong happening since he started working in the freezers. He has had and x-ray, electro magnetic, he will have in a few weeks some sort of hand imaging done and a meeting with the Rheumatologist. Pray that they get the source of the problem as he is in intense pain 24/7 and his hands are swollen. We already had to have his wedding ring enlarged once and it is getting tight again. He didn't wear it for 3 months because he hoped it would go down and resized it because he has never not had it on since we were married. Yeah he's a sap but I love him for it. Yeah I know some of you other guys out there like that, you know who you are Dean and.......

Love you guys, keep us in prayer as we do lots and lots of travel. Pray for an open time slot to catch a plane that we will be taking it looks like on standby from Frankfurt. Dave B. has gotton us some passes but it has to be from Germany and he said we might have to wait a few days. Pray the Lord directs us to the right time so we don't have to wait to long. Target is still end of October if the creek doesn't rise or the Lord pulls off that financial miracle were waiting for. Should we go fishing?

2009-07-29T03:09:00.002+02:00

Hello Everybody

We just want to let you know that Guido and I have decided that due to our debt and the incredibly difficult task of paying it back, are going back to the United States for about 8-12 months. Don't know where we will land for work yet, but Guido has a job offer in Santa Barbara . If something opens in the Bay Area we might come back there. It has become increasingly hard to make ends meet and continue to pay the debt on the loan. We do not feel that it would be a witness nor do we feel good about filing bankruptcy even though the debt is basically attached to the club, and it is no longer open. Right now even though the economy is a little rough, there stil is work to be had in California and that might not be the case another year or 2 from now.

Please put this situation in your prayers for us as we make our plans and the Lord directs our path. We don't feel grieved about this decision and in fact feel It is time to do something to take control of the finances. We are praying for a financial release or miracle to be exact. Basically the debt averages out to about a 450. euro a month shortage of the 1500 Euro (not including what it cost us to float our business that was about another 500-1500 a month) necessary to have lived in Europe for the past 60 months. Our monthly support has basically averaged out to about 150 a month for the past 60 so you see we pretty much have payed out of our own pocket to have a business and to do ministry work and to live, pockets which the Lord liberally filled for us to come to Italy in the first place so we are thankful we were able to sow ALL our finances into this work and than some. We believe that He will open another door either with generous giving from you our friends and family or with jobs when we return or both. Remember you can always use the donate button on this page if you want or send the money to our church, which is than put into our account

Guido's work contract ends in September, and than we have on our schedule a trip to Croatia and London in October so that would put us back in the States in November. Again we will keep you posted if that changes. We have a few prayer walks we need to finish up here in August & September as well, which we will post on our blog and we need to go down to Rome and check on our first convert Daniel and our little gal who hasn't spoken in 5 years. Her mom said since we prayed she has been free of all medication, sleeps through the night and no longer has screaming fits. Oddly enough we can go to London and back on a plane for less than renting a car, gas and tolls to Rome. Her mom is willing to pay us to go, but we don't want to charge for services rendered, although normal, it is also offensive to them as well.

Let us know what you think or feel about what we have shared, as we only see in part and having others examine our lives keeps us transparent, in safety and from error.

Love you all

Joyce & Guido

P.S. Just so you know, we are not stressed out about finances, we just want to deal responsible with a debt that left to our resources in Italy will become a huge problem that will cause us some grief and stress in the very near future

2009-06-21T16:06:00.020+02:00

Friday June 19th we went to Switzerland to be with Giancarlo & Catherine Elia of Light to the Nation Ministries while they did a conference for the Revival Tr aining Center. This is an awesome ministry as every year they take students who are leaders from different countries and train them further for their leadership roles . This is no small task as they have 3 children, homeschool, church and many conferences where they bring in speakers from all over the world and travel to some of these countries as well. When we arrived at nearly 11:00pm the school had just finished a meeting and so we went off to stay in their music center where they have a few very comfortable guest rooms, kitchen and bath. The next day we were off to Pastor Tom & Lisa's home where they have a training center and church. Giancarlo had an awesome message and then ministry time with the students. We were so blessed with the countries represented in this school. 3 African men, Martin from Uganda, Martin from Zimbabwe and John from Kenya, Ellora & Rita from India, Bella & David from Switzerland and a few others as well. It really was an International school. The students have only to get there and the training center pays for everything else for the next 3 months. They rely on the Lord and His people to financially support them as well as sell puppies, and whatever else is needed for this endeavor. We were really quite impressed with the whole ministry. Then we all sat down and had a very nice meal together, packed up and went to a Christian Retre at up in the mountains. This is when the conference began and families from Germany, Austria and Switzerland came together to worship and hear about the Fathers love. There were lots of fun things to do as well, swimming (too cold for me), ping pong, hiking, etc. It really was a beautiful building that once belonged to the Salvation Army but was bought by a private party and Reviv al Training Center has made an offer to buy it. This would be a great facility for the work they are doing in this region. There are rooms for singles, married couples, bathrooms, showers, large industrial kitchen, dining hall, conference rooms, etc. If any of you feel so lead to give into this adventure, please contact Tom & Lisa. This second link is in German but you can read some things in English. They also do speak English if you wish to contact them. So Friday evening we started the conference on the Love of the Father. Giancarlo has such a heart of the Father and delivers the message in such a loving and tender manner that makes you want to know this God. He is humorous, loving, tender, kind and powerful when he speaks. You are completely wrecked when he is done sharing. You want more and more and you see as ministry time starts that people's hearts are open for the love to be poured into them. Saturday we started with 3 meetings stopping for lunch and dinner but after each message the people were going deeper and deeper into the river of love. There were many who cried, laughed, soaked and were healed emotionally. By Sunday we were really beginning to feel the effects of being so emotional involved with people in ministry. The Holy Spirit just broke our hearts as people came with their pains, their confessions, their desire for more, their repentance, regrets and the Father and the Lord just melted away all the past with Mercy, Grace and Love. It is for sure no one will ever be the same, I know we won't. It was such an honor to be a part of this work that was done in the region. People were encouraged, inspired, released, healed, loved, equipped and confirmed. As Guido put it "God showed up and all love broke out". Pastor David thanked us for coming and loving on the people, which for us isn't too hard since we love the body of believers and believe they are our gift and treasure. Pastor Martin from Zimbabwe said he wanted us to come and give this love away because he said they need this in Africa. He is setting it up for Feb/Mar. when they have their leadership conference and he wants to take us around to where all their churches are. How exciting. We are always so blessed that people see our hearts and know we aren't here for us but truly really for them to bless them, however we walk away so much more touched ourselves and convinced that this, mixed with discipleship would set the world on fire for the Glory of the Lord and would indeed set the captives free, open blind eyes and raise the dead and be a true witness to the world that the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit are alive and love them. We made some awesome contacts and made new friends that we are sure will open other doors in the future. We have such an awesome body of believers, this family that we so often take for granted. Yes we are a little quirky at times, I think peculiar was the word the Bible uses and sometimes obstinate and hard headed (stiff necked) but we are also the representation of Christ Jesus on the earth. It is such an awesome thing to meet up with total strangers and yet be as close as if you were raised together in only a matter of hours simply because you both share the bond of love given to us by our Father and paid for by our Lord Jesus on the cross. We can pray for one another, encourage, love and just hang out together. We have so much to give and so much to get from one another because we are all tapped into different aspects of our Lord. He is many faceted and we only see in part but when we get together we can see so much more. We are ever learning and growing and changing and where better than among fellow brethren. As for me and my household we will serve the Lord because in doing so we inherit such treasures, we inherit you. Even though some did not speak English, the language of love is understood. Turns out that many of them could speak some Italian, how funny is that. We met Bella & her husband David. She is Italian but was born and raised in Switzerland but you wouldn't know that by talking to her or the way she is dressed. She is cento per cento (100%) Italian. David is from the UK and they are students at the school. They received prayer and words over their lives for various things, one being for a baby so we are believing along with them that next year they will be three. This couple is up and coming in the Kingdom and we believe they are going to play a very vital role here in Europe and abroad. We have invited them to come and stay with us as they are currently in transition from the school and awaiting the Lord's direction for the future and we felt led to bless them and refresh them. Her sister Daniela came to the conference and we are believing for a Godly man to come into her life. It is so exciting for us to meet other Italians since our love and passion is to the Italians so these are our people, it's like meeting extended family and even more so Christian extended family. Giancarlo & Catherine are just a blessing to us and we feel so privileged to have met them back in 2002 when we went up to Toronto to meet John & Yvonne Pressdee about doing a prayer walk in Italy. Giancarlo was born and raised in Italy, was an attorney who went to work in London, got saved and then met and feel madly in love with Catherine who is Irish from a very large family and speaks 4 or more languages. The two of them travel extensively in the world bringing the Fathers love and are a testament that you are never too old to get started in ministry. They were in their late 40's. They have some of the most awesome testimonies and experiences that you could ever want to hear and all because they said "Yes Lord give me more". They make serving the Lord fun and possible because of their simplicity. They love the Lord and they love people.

PRAISE REPORT

2009-06-19T21:41:00.002+02:00

I just wanted to send this little praise report out while I remembered. In our blog talking about praying in the Valdineivole you'll remember that we met a young man named Daniel who we prayed for and lead to the Lord at the City Gate of Montcatini Alto. You also remember that after 3 days he left and didn't want to give us his contact information.

This was our first person that we lead to the Lord in Italy, our first baby. We have prayed for people to be healed, to received the infilling of the Holy Spirit and other things but this was our first true baby. Anyhow we pray for him always that he will do well and that the Lord would continue to work in his life but since May 1st we didn't know where he was. Everyday I pass by a parking lot where his car was parked and I think where are you Daniel.

Today I said out loud to the Lord, where is Daniel, where is the baby we birthed, our first in this country, he is all alone without us, please have him call us. That was about 3:30 as I was on my way to pick up my grand daughter at school. About 4:30 Daniel called us, can you believe it. He sounded good, clear of mind and now we have a contact and will keep in touch with him and will for sure go and see him. He said that he is reading his Bible and the material I gave him when he has time.

Guido said see, ask for parking spots, financial blessings phone calls, etc. Father God delights to answer us. Ok parking spots versus souls, I try not to bother him with trivial stuff but after today I'm going start asking for a lot more regarding the lives of the people here because He is listening.

Love Oxford

2009-06-16T23:53:00.013+02:00

May 15th we went to Oxford to see Heidi Baker. She came to St. Aldates for the Love Oxford event. For those of you who don't know, this is the church where Gordon Hickson is a vicar. Him and his wife Rachel Hickson of Heart Cry Ministries are dear friends of ours and we had the awesome privilege of staying at their home while we attended the many festivities of the church. Unfortunately Rachel was in the USA so we didn't get to see her, but Gordon treated us with special sit down dinners at their home even though he was extremely busy with all the events. Frankly I don't know where that couple gets all the energy to do all the things they do. We must pick up the pace. Also Rachel has another few books out that you might want to pick up and read. Check out her web page for all the info.

We spent the first day passing out fliers to a free barbecue that St. Aldates was having in the center square where worship and ministry was going on and also fliers for the Love Oxford event in South Park. That night Heidi spoke on orphans and adoption. It was a very powerful and inspirational challenge to draw closer to our Father who adopted us.

The next day was Love Oxford where many of the local churches got together for corporate worship and prayer for Oxford. The gathering was quite impressive and the weather held quite nicely as it had been raining on and off for a few days. We were joined by our good friends Lorenza from Italy who is in London for studies and her fiancee Peter. Peter and Lorenza were just engaged the day before. They make a lovely couple. Talk about people who have given their all for Jesus, spending all of their youth following the course the Lord has laid out for them to finally in their midlife find each other. What a awesome testimony of the Lords perfect timing. Check out Peter's blog, he is a wealth of information with quite a testimony. It truly is a blessing to have brethren in all parts of the world. It blesses us to be a part of the body with the same goal, to see Jesus high and lifted up and all men saved.

2009-06-07T18:32:00.012+02:00

Wow time is flying by, can you believe it is already June? We put out a newsletter in March and since then so much has happened. We started our prayer sites in the Valdinievole area of Tuscany. This was quite exciting as we felt really led of the Lord to go to the old water sources (wells) from the Medieval times and pray that healing waters would flow into the communities. As many of you may or may not know, this region since the beginning has been fought over by the surrounding territories. Some of these communities have their start as far back as 1100 AD, so that is a long history of fighting and many years of wounds and unforgiveness. Some of these communities have only in the past 100 years been released from rival territories to be their own governed communities. Then you have the very fresh wounds from World War II. So off we went to the 11 communities starting with the furthest.

This region use to be under water or marshland, in fact you could sail a ship from Larciano which is inland about 60 km. from the sea on the waterways and all communities were on the hilltops until the very powerful Medici family started the waterways projects which dried up the marshes and allowed communities to move into the valleys. Pretty amazing, so finding these wells was quite the adventure, it isn't like they have a map showing where these are. So doing what works the best for gaining information we went to the local bar (cafes) and asked the elderly gentleman (over 70) where they were. Amazing the conversations that are started among them and the directions and stories we got. In case you didn't know, older retired gentleman congregate at the bar and just hang out, talk, play cards and basically stay away from the older woman at home.

We would find these old wells some still working, others had been capped off, some communities didn't have them anymore, others had cisterns where water was stored since they were on rock, others were hidden around the corner and up the hill, but they were all there. Some communities had several where others only had 1. We went to all and prayed and made the proclamation that healing water would flow into the communities, some the Lord gave us scriptures to speak over them (PS. 24). We poured oil and wine over the spots and then took communion together. We just finished Tuesday which was Italy's day of the Republic.
One story we want to share that was just so awesome for us was on another Italian Holiday, Liberation Day. It has been raining here since October and since we are on a scooter we really have to go and pray when the weather is not a downpour and when we are not at work and those weren't lining up to well. This Saturday was perfect, we had already prayed at 5 communities and we were now at ours. We went up to Montecatini Alto and when we past the old gates. I really felt we should stop and pray but decided to go up to the top, to the fort and church and pray, which we did, there was a few wells up there.

Than coming down we passed the gates again and I felt we should stop and told Guido to turn around. There was a water source (all communities have them, water spout coming out of a wall or something). I turned on the water to see if it was working and a young man saw me and asked if the water was drinkable, which it is. He than came over and filled a bottle and Guido told him we were there praying over the water and that just opened up a whole conversation and the long and short of it we lead him to the Lord, prayed for him to receive the Holy Spirit, called a friend and got him a place to stay for a few days, took him to church the next day, or should I say he drove us to church since it was pouring rain. This is one liberation day this young man will never forget.

For 3 days we ministered to him and poured love, encouragement, prayer and teaching into him and than he disappeared. We know that a seed was planted into a young man who came here from Rome for refuge got more than he was looking for. He not only got refuge, he got set free and although he isn't totally out of the prison, at least the chains were broken. He has some work to do but he has our number, he has a bible, he has some teaching and he has the Holy Spirit and we know that the Lord found him. Now were off to pray the Green Line.

We were in Rimini a few weeks ago at a conference and went over to Fano which is the start of the Green Line, which for you war buffs was a supply line for the Germans against the allied forces that stretched from Coast to Coast in Italy, over 300 km. The locals told us that the bridge in their city was the first that the Germans blew up to prevent anyone from crossing. It was bombed also by the allied forces. The Germans destroyed a lot of it when they left. We walked across the new bridge which has a memorial on all 4 sides and prayed and asked that the Lord would send His healing across this land and that a spiritual gateway to Italy would be open and that any doorways of death and unforgiveness would be closed.

Across this 300 km. stretch was the most intense fighting outside of France to occur. Allied forces from many nations, America, Canada, Poland, etc. fought and died along with the Italian Resistance Army who opposed the Germans. It was a blood bath and many innocent non military people were killed during this time. In fact this is a very fresh wound in this region. Many wonder if this isn't the reason for so much spiritual death in the Tuscany and Emilio Romagna zone. Churches just can't seem to take hold here and find so much resistance.

We actually tripped over this information when getting a map at a local bookstore for the Tuscan region as we felt the Lord was leading us to pray in specific areas. This lone map on the battle fields of Italy peaked Guido's curiosity and he bought it and brought it home. We have never ever seen this map before or ever heard about this information. Apparently it is part of the history that many want to forget, but some of the locals have been reviving some of the old history by monuments to the dead, museums and websites so that others might be aware and remember and pray for the healing in this land. If you have information regarding this Green Line (Gothic Line) or know of anyplace we can get more please email us.

it's been a while

2009-05-03T09:43:00.000+02:00

wow it's been active over here aside from our own personel stuff ie family, finances and work.

God has really started to shake the natives in our neck of the woods, local church has reponded to the holy spirit and to teachings. it brings me to tears to see people being freed from chains

i'm not as chatty as joyce but just thought to relay this to you

2009-01-17T18:25:00.000+01:00

Well by now many of you know that we made it back from California where we were for Christmas and New Year. It was a great trip and it allowed us time to hang out with family and friends. We were able to re-touch base with our church family at New Life Christian Church and were extremely blessed by their outstretched arms of love and support. Our friend Tina M. organized a pot-luck calling in friends of ours from the past and present and New Life also extended us a financial blessing during their Change of Heart program where they bring all the change they have collected for the month for missions. Wow did they have a lot of change. We established new contacts and new people were able to put a face to all their prayers. This was an awesome time and we are so grateful for all the love and support. Unfortunately we didn't get out a Christmas or New Years letter as we only had a few opportunities to get on the web and the time I tried to send a nice letter it didn't go. Please know that you are all in our hearts and prayers and we look forward to another awesome year in the Lord. In fact the Lord has shared with us that "It Is Time in 2009", so we are excited for what this year has to offer in terms of the things the Lord wants to do here in Italy. We appreciate all of you so very much and look forward to another year of serving the the Lord in Italy together as we take the land for His Glory.

O my aching body....

2008-12-15T01:21:00.000+01:00

Wow this little update project has turned into quite a lot of work. I spent 2 full days floating, sanding, cleaning and painting the whole entire kitchen by myself while Guido worked and Chloe was in school. I'm not as young as I used to be but I can still do an awesome job with a paintbrush. We still have to install a cabinet beside the frig and are waiting on a few face plates and a cabinet door, but basically we are finished with the kitchen. Guido did such an awesome job, much of it very frustrating and laborious but we have so much more space and function ability. I hope Guido's mom and sister like it. The fotos say it all. Well I'm off to bed as it is 2:00 am and we leave for California in a few days. I will add more fotos of the apartment next time. Now all we have left to do is Jami & Chloe's room and were done with the whole place, just in time to start our prayer walks in the New Year. Oh and by the way I just felt like the Lord said "It's Time in 2009". Amen and goodnight.

2008-11-27T09:48:00.000+01:00

Sending all of you our dear friends and family our love and blessings on this greatest of days. A day to gather and reflect on the many great and awesome things in our lives. We love you and pray that your day is full to overflowing with love, peace, joy, health and turkey too.

Guido, Joyce, Jami & Chloe

November 25th 2008

2008-11-25T00:23:00.000+01:00

Wow where does the time go. Well slowly but surely Guido & I make our way to the finish line of the kitchen. By now many of you have read the newsletter and know that we started out on a small adventure to put the very large hot water heater on the balcony, move the frig, install a new sink and dishwasher and add a little counter space. What many of you might not know is that small adventures in Italy turn into very large projects which grow all by themselves into a life of their own. We are now into new tiles, opening walls, moving pipes, electrical outlets, venting, floating walls and moving and reinstalling the existing kitchen every weekend. Hopefully we will be done before our trip to California in 23 days.

Did I mention we had a major computer crash that I spent 2 whole days trying to fix and than a 3rd reinstalling windows and reloading programs. Every day His mercies are new, because we need them to be. Anyhow We just wanted to extend to everyone a very blessed Thanksgiving. This will be our first Thanksgiving ever that we don't celebrate in the traditional manner. One family we invited is going back to America in a few days and the other couple is having morning sickness all day long. Also the tile guy arrives on Thursday along with a cabinet and some doors. So we will be working on the kitchen and getting ready to paint instead of pigging out on all our favorite foods. Our thoughts and prayers will be with you all as we think about the pumpkin pie, Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, fruit salad, football, family and friends. All our love from our family to yours. Bon appetite

November 7, 2008

2008-11-07T11:22:00.000+01:00

Well here it is our first blog page. If your reading this you probably got our newsletter directing you to this page. In the future our blog will be our newsletter as we can regularly post and you will be up to date with our actions. Let me take this opportunity to say congrats on the historical new President, now it is time to pray, pray, pray for him and His family. He may be pro-choice and too liberal for you but he is young and the Lord can change his mind. A lot of christians were sounding an alarm because of our fight against abortion but the Lord can still move if we hold this man up and pray and prophecy over him. I think we stand as Lou Engle says as a hinge in history, may we swing in a direction which is pleasing to the Lord and brings blessing upon our country and the nations. May we raise up to the occasion and seize every opportunity to be a witness and a light in dark times. For those of you who stumble upon this blog you are probably wondering why we would call it O City of God, well it is the proclamation that the Lord had us proclaim over our City. We thought it was strange but I went on Anne Mendez's site (www.voiceofthelight.com) and see she just returned from Amesterdam where they are now calling it City of Glory. It appears that the Lord is having us start to speak life and truth, His truth over our cities and nations instead of the things that we see, or what people say about us. God loves to change names, He loves to make things new, He loves to reclaim lands and set the captives free. We speak over our city Montecatini O City of God and extend this over Italy.