First Trip to Florence

On Sunday, we awoke to complete another busy schedule. We went to church on Sunday morning-half of it was in Italian and the other in English. It was a unique experience to be among others who worshiped God with their songs and prayers in another language. The church was friendly and even the kids went to a "children's church" with the other Italian kids.

After church, the group walked down the block to eat two courses of pasta and meat. The Italians always eat a first course of pasta, then the second course is a meat, vegetable and/or salad greens (skip the ranch). Dessert has typically been fruit (dipped in Nutella if you like). They also eat lunch later - lunch at the villa is served at 1:30. Our stomachs have definitely had to adjust to different meal times!

After our meal, we boarded a chartered bus to be delivered to a lookout point over Florence at the church of San Miniato al Monte. We went inside this beautiful church which is said to have the bones of St. Minias and sat down and sang two or three songs. The acoustics were beautiful and it was very moving.

Later we walked down the Arno River to the Ponte Vecchio and then to the Duomo.

It was again a full day. We are still adjusting to a new time zone and schedule. The kids are also in that transition as well. Grant is struggling a bit more with behavior, but we've been fervently praying for improvement and continued adjustment for him. They have both been troopers though and I'm blessed to be sharing this journey with them!

Next blog will be about our trip to the Duomo and Baptistery and the start of classes.