Dear Family and Friends,

“Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” (Colossians 4:6)

We pretty much take this verse literally, as we live our lives in a foreign country. We walk throughout our community almost on a daily basis, either for leisure or in the course of running errands and shopping. Many people see us and as time goes by, more greet us with a smile and a “good morning.” We have already invited some of them to our Thanksgiving Dinner (see below).

As we have probably told you before, there are 80,000 students at the University of Bologna, and there is no Christian ministry at all. Not one single person, group, activity, or meeting place. Cas walks the university district once a week, posting signs advertising our fellowship, and talking to students. He also puts signs on the bulletin boards at University of California and Johns Hopkins. He’s met several students who speak English and asked for information, but so far none of them has attended our service. Mary Jane has been attending the International Womens’ Forum coffee group on Wednesdays and has made several good contacts. A couple of the women have expressed a desire to attend on Saturday nights, and have received a map with directions to the church. Please pray that these people will want to attend our fellowship and will take the first step to do so.

We continue to minister to our flock and their various needs during the week, sharing time, meals, phone calls, and other opportunities as they arise. Last night we were encouraged as there were 15 in attendance at our weekly Bible study.

Today we attended our second Baby Dedication as guests of our Filipino church. As always we are humbled by the love for the Lord that is so apparent in their lives and on their faces. It was a joyous celebration and another great feast was enjoyed by everyone.

This week we are going to Milan to spend a couple days with Jim and Linda Kutnow. Jim pastors the Milan Bible Church and is a DTS grad, so we are looking forward to fellowshipping with them.

Our Italian instruction has intensified! We have begun a free year-long course offered by our community for foreign residents. The class meets two nights per week, for 4 hours each night. Only Italian is spoken, since there are people from many countries and there is no other common language. Our teacher, Patrizia, is excellent and she makes it all quite enjoyable. Already, we have noticed that we understand more of what is said, and can communicate a little more. We continue our weekly private lessons with Barbara as well, and she now has us writing short essays and working on past and future tenses. So we continue to be encouraged as we make linguistic progress.

An Italian Thanksgiving - The entire concept of thanking God for our Nation and all the ways He’s blessed us is completely foreign to Italians, so presenting the history of the pilgrims and their desire for freedom to worship is an awesome responsibility. Perhaps we Americans need to pause for a moment and remember that because of those few brave souls we have the privilege to live in the nation that grew out of their faith. We are unique in all the world because of this. How would you start to explain that to someone in another country whose history has been filled with nothing but war and conquest over so many centuries? Whose religion consists mostly of icons and traditions that are no longer relevant to their daily lives, and is therefore mostly ignored by them?

Our missionary group has finalized plans for the annual Thanksgiving Dinner outreach, which will take place November 16 and 17. We will serve 200 traditional turkey dinners to Italian non-believers, present a play about the origins of the holiday, and conclude with a gospel message and invitation. As you can imagine, this is a huge operation, involving costumes, decorations, cooking, baking, serving, transportation, etc. There are just 7 of us here and 5 coming from the States to do all of this, so please pray that the Lord will enable us to honor Him on these 2 nights. The cost is not covered by the ticket sales, so if anyone cares to donate funds to help us out, please make your check payable to East Cherokee Community Church, and designate it: BBCI/Casablancas - Thanksgiving. The mailing address is shown below. We thank the Lord for all your faithful support of the many aspects of our ministry here. Please remember us in your prayers as well, that all of us will have the energy, strength and health for everything that need to be done, for housing our USA guests, and all the other logistics that will entail two very intense weeks of work. And pray that we will reap a rich harvest as a result of this very special event.

We continue to enjoy beautiful Fall weather with cool nights, warm, sunny days, and the changing colors of the trees around us. We’re seeing crops harvested, fields plowed and another crop planted as the seasons rotate. To quote King Solomon: “To everything there is a season, and a time for everything under the heavens…” (Eccl. 3:1). As you enjoy the autumn beauty around you, may you remember the Creator of it all, and give thanks to the only Wise God, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Serving Him with you,
Cas and Mary Jane