Christmas Choir Outreach Praise

Christmas Choir Outreach Praise

This will be the last post from Blogger. From now on you can go directly to our website!

Thanks for taking time to read Out of the Box. This will now be integrated as part of our posts regarding the Adventures in Italy!

Acoustics in the Ostia Antica Theatre - Acustica all'interno del teatro di Ostia Antica

Remarkable how well you can hear form the distance!

Ostia Antica was once the port of Rome, where the Legions would arrive before stepping foot in Rome for their triumphal entries after victorious battles.

Justice Served?

Amanda Knox Guilty for Meredith Kercher Murder - ABC News

Living in Perugia, I would be amiss to not comment on the sentencing of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Every day that Melodee went to the University for Foreigners we saw the cameras, the reporters. The city has been overtaken at times by Italian and foreign reporters.
Almost every time we go to the old part of Perugia we walk by the house where the murder took place.

My Dad tried to send Amanda a Bible while she was in prison. The Bible was sent back.

"Do you think she is guilty?" is the question everyone asks of us.

The feeling I get is that the press and the judicial system made a decision before the evidence was in. In fact, it still seems like the evidence is not clear to anyone.

We grieve with Meredith's family and want justice to be served. But was justice served? It's hard to know.

Two fears cross my mind as I conclude my ramblings:
1. How just is the Italian judicial system? Are you innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent?
2. How will this murder, trial and verdict affect the spirit of "Antiamericanism", which already makes our living here challenging at times?

Picking Olives in Umbria

Here are few snapshots of life in Umbria.

One of the things that Melodee and I care the most about is loving the Umbrians and their way of life. For a few hours I had the privilege of enjoying the simple life and giving (and receiving) love to an umbrian family.

Pray that I can always show the love of Christ in all I do!

For all your shoppping needs

Cleaning just got a lot more interesting...

Cows - The Movie

Sometimes culture just "comes at you". Umbria is beautiful and even the animals are friendly at times!

Shopping in Italy

There is no place in the world I would rather live then Italy. Where could you live and make a greater difference in the lives of others, sharing the good news about Christ's free gift to all who embrace his life and death!

However there are a few times a day when I wonder what I am doing here.

For example in shopping for furniture.

We have (had) fallen in love with a favorite store where we were able to buy a few very nice items at a great price.

Last April we decided to also buy a dining room hutch, a couch and a love-seat from them.

The hutch was readily available. Part of the offer included free shipping and a discount if we payed it in full right away.

The couches needed to be ordered (we discovered this halfway through the order). We were still OK with that because for two weeks in May we were to be in Israel.

When we got back, we received a phone call from the store, stating that the couches would be a week late.

We are now practically into August. Every week we call and the tune is the same: "next week."

We went there last week and begged them to give us at least the hutch. We had friends see it with our name written all over it in bubble wrap. That's kind of embarrassing!
First the lady said she would get it to us for sure.
She was a little concerned when I said the offer inlcuded free shipping, but she said she would make sure it got to us and even got an appointment to bring it to us that Wednesday.

Then they called back and said that would not be possible because the couches "will be here next week!" They really needed to save the shipping money making one shipment.

Do you know that they don't even have a customer service number you can call to file a complaint?

People were shocked when we told them that we had already paid it in full to save money.
"You'll never get it now!!" seems to be the common chant.

There is nothing more you can do then go look for a wild boar being roasted somewhere, or a pizza with Buffalo mozzarella. All is still good...but this dumb american who grew up here hopefully has learned another good lesson. NEVER PAY AHEAD!