Safe and Sound

Ciao!

We made it! Our team has made it safe and sound to Siena, all our luggage arrived safely also. After 20 plus hours of straight traveling, we all fell into an exhausted yet restless sleep last night. The time difference here is nine hours ahead of the Pacific Northwest. I was overwhelmed when we first pulled into town here. The beauty of Siena is truely amazing. Last night we went out to dinner at a small restaurant. Sitting by candle-light, we all tried to order our food with our best attempts at pronunciation. Much laughter was had but our waiter was patient. As I sat around the long table with my team-mates, I was overwhelmed again by how blessed I was to have actually made it to Italy. In our exhausted stupor, most of us could only answer with "this is just so amazing" or "I cant believe we are actually here" when our team-leader Steve Yen, asked us how we were feeeling at the end of dinner. There are 13 of us total. 7 students from WSU, a girl from Maryland and a girl from Utah. We also have a Utah Campus Crusade staff member named Alex with us. Alex is engaged to a Stinter who has been living here for the past year. A "Stinter" is someone who lives in a city like Siena for a year long time period to help set up a campus ministry and share. Basically like what I am doing only for a year instead of 6 weeks. They were very excited to be reunited. Rounding out our group is Steve, his wife Megan and their 1 year old son Oliver.

I was woken up this morning by loud church bells ringing. It is raining in Siena this morning and will be all day. Today we are going to do a city-wide scavenger hunt to "discover" Siena. Already I am getting more and more excited to start getting out there and sharing the story and love of Jesus with the people here. Everyone is so friendly and curious about why we are here in Siena. It has already been quite easy to get into conversations.

I will be sending out updates periodically when time is available, if there is another email you would prefer these updates to be sent to, just let me know. Pray for my health (got a little sick mainly due to exhaustion) yesterday but am feeling better this morning. Pray for the hearts of the people we talk to and that God would work in us and through us while we are here in this beautiful place. Gratzie! (thank you!)

AMEN!