Messina, Sicily

Written: 14 January 2010. I wrote this in Word then copied and pasted but it missed the photos. Sorry...

Messina, Sicily

29th Dec - After spending the night in the airport, we got woken up by Mr Security at 0600hrs telling us to get off the floor. How rude! We were all pretty tired at that stage and our flight wasn´t until 10am or something. We flew into Trapini (West side of Sicily) and took a bus to the bus station. We almost had to camp there also as the buses had stopped for the day. It wasn´t until Andy called one of his contacts that we were then told to basically run to another part of the station and catch the bus of a friend who was leaving immediately. We got into Messina okay. Mission accomplished.

When we got to Messina (West Side) we were taken to a villa in the hill belonging to a Pastor of a church, Natale (which in English is translated “Christmas”). He is Papa Natale to us. This is the view from the Villa over Messina. You can´t see it in this photo, but where the haze is, is where Italy is. HOT SHOWER at last! Oh it felt sooo good.

We went for a walk around the area and up this hill where there were German bunkers – so cool. The view was amazing, we could see sea on all sides.
New Year´s Eve was fun. We built a huge bonfire, which Andy totally ripped off the second toe nail off. Dan went into medical mode and Ashley freaked out somewhat. It was gross but cool to see at the same time. Close your ears H&S peeps - that´s what you get for collecting wood with thongs on. The boys set off a couple of flares, loads of fireworks cause they´re legal to buy here….and I held a sparkler. The banquet of food was amazing, like a huge Christmas meal. We watched the fireworks over Messina and Italy, it was really cool. We´re so far up that they looked like sparks.

Most of the time spent in Sicily was all about church services, hanging out, sleeping and eating. It was pretty quiet during this time because of the New Year and holiday mode.

During the church services we all took turns to give testimonies and preaches. So far I´ve presented a testimony of my life based on the topic of Bondage and renewing your mind, and a preach based on making God No. 1 in our lives and our relationship with Him. I created a devotion on the victory we have in Jesus and that we´ve overcome the world. I also ran a small group discussion on the Fear of God (which is to hate sin) with some of the people from church and with our team.

We did street evangelism on 2 days. On the first day Serena, Abby and I were up until 0230hrs creating cards. We basically created 4 cards to hold up to the traffic and people saying that Jesus is the healer of broken hearts. The card idea was given to Serena and Andy in dreams. On the first day Andy saw a couple from his dream and they behaved in the same manner as in his dream. I felt this was confirmation from God that we were in the right place. I felt so much joy as I was standing there holding a card.

This is us on the second day. We started in the same spot as the first time, but I felt we should move to this one, so we did. Oh, this day Andy and Ashley said that Dan and I were to lead the day, so we did. To be honest, I felt like I was part of the group, running around singing and feeling so much joy. A couple of people stopped to talk and be prayed for, it was awesome.




So in general about time spent in Messina…
Sickness – I´ve never been so sick in my life as in those 2 weeks. I had a cold/sinus issues the whole time; tooth aches for 2 days which gave me a headache; a migraine; general headaches; ear ache for 2 days. Crazy! I don´t know if it´s like spiritual attack but man! I´m heaps better now but am being so careful what I eat and drink. I´m scared to drink pop (soft drink) or chew lollies for fear the tooth thing will happen again. I think it was a nerve thing. Whatever it was it was the hardest 2 days emotionally, spiritually (to keep a pure heart) and physically – I cried! Soooo painful.

Food – my goodness they know how to eat, and serve! Their hospitality is awesome here. A bit much at times. They gave us a whole bunch of food to cook, but no time to cook it cause they just served and served and served. They eat in courses and never mix their food. First course is generally pasta or some type of carb, then it´s salad, then meat, then dessert which is normally a Panatone cake thing. They have LATE dinners, like 10pm!

Timing – they have a Siesta in the afternoon (Western afternoon) between 1-4pm. Their afternoon starts at 5pm and evening around 8-9pm. We had to watch our communication. “Remain flexible” is the motto here in Sicily, VERY VERY flexible. It is definitely challenging my time management or lack of flexibility. You cannot plan much here, especially since you don’t know what you´re doing until 5 minutes before hand, if you´re lucky to get that warning.

Villa – what an experience. Note to self, when in Sicily do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. We only figured this out the day we were leaving the villa. The system cannot handle it and it flooded into the garage area. Only water, but smelly water. Serena and Ashley´s room got flooded we think by the washing machine (which we got for a couple of days then couldn’t use it cause of the flooding). One night I got freaked out cause it was windy and there were noises, like someone was playing around with heavy stuff. Dark, windy and away from help…eeek!

Apart from all that, I am doing fine. I´m being tested and tried with a range of different things but God really is helping me out. We have a great team and loads of different personalities. My motto “The sooner and quicker you adapt to/accept you´re environment, the more fun you´ll have.”

Ciao for now
Liz