Wednesday night Bible study

Ciao!
Last night (Wednesday) some friends of mine and  I were invited to attend a Bible study at this couples apartment in the outskirts of Florence. They are an older American couple and have been doing mission work for the past twenty or so years, and they felt called to Florence and have been living here for the past two months. I was not quite sure what to expect, but I hadn't been out of the house for two days straight and I was eager to meet new people.

So I met up with my housemates at five and we walked to the train station to take the tram to the outer parts of Florence. We all got to check another mode of transportation off our traveling list. Our stop is the final stop for the tram that we took and once we finally reached it, we were the only ones left on the tram. We stepped out into the coldness of the night and waited to be picked up by the husband. Now I had been warned about the husband's infamous laugh. He was said to have a jolly, big bellied laugh that would last for munites after you were done laughing at whatever was said. But all those warning didn't do him justice. The first minute being in the car, he greeted us with this boistrous laugh that I instantly fell in love with. I knew right then that we were in good hands. He was such a sweet genuine old man.

After about a fifteen minute drive through the Florentine country side we arrive to their apartment complex. We follow him to his apartment and walk in. There we were greeted by his wife and little dog, who was very curious to see us. We sat around their living room and visited awhile becuase we were waitng on three more people to join us for the Bible study. After talking for a bit the first quest arrived. Her name is Laura and she is a local Florentine who is studying not too far from our villa. It was really cool meeting her becuase she didn't know a lot of english so I was able to practice my Italian with her. I found out where she was studying, that she was studying Speech Therapy and that she is twenty years old (like me). She was very sweet, and it was awesome meeting someone outside of the villa that I could potentially become friends with. Once she arrived the couple, the Mcgees, offered us snacks, and all of us being poor college kids were more than appreciative for the snacks. We love snacks. : ) They had tortilla chips, cookies, peach tea, and these small puffs that tasted life peanutbutter! The one thing that I crave while I am here.

Soon after delving into the snacks, the last two guest arrive. One's name is Heather and she is from Enlgand and the other's name is Sylvia, who is a local Florentine as well. Once introductions were made, we began our Bible study. We started out in a time of prayer and it was just so amazing and an enlightening to share this experience with complete strangers all over the world, sharing the same passion to be with God. It was a time where we could all share our woes and struggles and allow the Holy Spirit to come in us and for God to comfort us.

When the prayer time was done we opened our Bible to the book of Acts. We are going to study how the church was started and how the old church looked like in comparison to today's church. It was a reaslly nice study. We talked about striving to be like the early chruch in the sense of being a community and not a church building and being about living out God's love and not who's wrong and who's right.

Once we were done with the Bible study we visited some more with the family and our new friends we made. The wife went around the room trying to get ride of all the snacks and the Pepperdine group were gladly taking all we could, but at one point we tried to stop because we all knew we didn't need to be eating this junk food. Mrs. Mcgee persistently kept offering us food, especially the peanutbutter flavored puffs. Before Grace, my friend realized it, she offer to take some home with her if Mrs Mcgee would put them in a plastic bag. The moment she said that she put her hands over her mouth realizing that if she takes them with her, they will be eaten. Mrs Mcgee ended up giving us the whole bag to take with us.

After saying our goodbyes, Mr. Mcgee drove us back to the tram station. We bought our tickets and boarded the tram. We were the only ones on there the whole 30 minute ride back to Santa Maria Novella. We had a blast on the way back. We told cheesy jokes and stories all while eating the rest of the peanutbutter flavored puffs. It was a pleasant night.