Greetings to One and All,

He is risen! The joyful message of Easter was heard once again as we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord Jesus in both English and Italian. We celebrated Resurrection Day at Nuova Vita and then spent a quiet day just reflecting on all that the Lord has done for us lately. The weather was warm and beautiful, unlike the USA where so many of you were “frozen”!

Easter Monday, which is a holiday here, we enjoyed a picnic in the hills overlooking Bologna with our friends from the Anglican Church. What a blessing to be surrounded by so many people from all parts of the world who can share the love of Christ together.

On March 31 we celebrated our first Baptism at Bologna Christian Fellowship. Coen and Marije Von Hettinga from the Netherlands were baptized into the family of Christ in a very joyful service full of music, worship and praise. Friends from Nuova Vita, the Filipino church and the Anglican Church joined us for this special occasion and we all enjoyed a time of refreshments and fellowship afterward. We are very blessed by this young couple who are so excited about their faith. We expect that they will have a great impact on the lives of others in years to come.

We also celebrated the graduation from the University of Bologna of our sister, Minshan Lee. After 7 years of study, it was a joy to see her with the laurel wreath on her head after successfully defending her thesis. Please pray for Minshan as she waits for the Lord to open the door to her future. She will go home to Taiwan at the end of May, but hopes to be granted a work visa in order to return and teach in Bologna. She has a true evangelistic gift and a desire to work with students, and believes that her place is in Italy.

We are celebrating the fact that Cas passed the written exam for his Italian driver’s license. He has been going to school 3 hours per day for over 2 months, and studying diligently the rest of the time. The exam is very difficult and expensive. So far the school and the exams have cost over $900.00 US. However, all his hard work paid off, thanks to all who prayed for him. He still has to pass the driving test, which is relatively easy, but please be in prayer about this as well, as nothing can be taken for granted here. As with most things, it’s Italian bureaucracy at its best, and the system certainly doesn’t turn out good, safe drivers!

One other item of prayer – our stay permits expired in February and we still have not received our renewals. The process is “in tilt” (the Italian expression for “broken down”) in the entire country as the whole procedure was changed in December. There are currently more than 300,000 immigrants here waiting for their renewals. So please pray that we might receive notification soon to pick up our papers and become “legal” again. It would be nice to have them before we leave the country at the end of June!

With all the time devoted to the driving exam and our Italian language studies, we’ve had no time to do much of anything else outside of our regular ministry. Mary Jane went to a retreat for women in ministry in Italy the third weekend in March, where she met a young American woman working with a ministry in Monza. Tara came to Bologna last week to visit and we expect to see her on a fairly regular basis as there are no English speakers and no church where she lives. Mary Jane also met another young American woman at the International Women’s Forum last week. She arrived last month and is working on a master’s degree and is starved for English-speaking friends. She lives near our church and has our card, so pray that we’ll see her soon. We continue to strengthen our friendships with our Italian friends also. The first Sunday in May we will spend the day with our landlord and his wife at their mountain home. This will be our second visit with them, and they are such a blessing to us. Barbara, Giovanna and Umberto continue to be regular parts of our lives, so please remember to pray for them.

Now that Spring is here, we are expecting several guests for extended stays in May and June. It will be a joy to have these people with us and to share our home and ministry with them.

Plans for our summer in the States are beginning to take shape and we’re looking forward to seeing many of you. Currently our schedule includes time in Birmingham, South Georgia, Florida, California and the North Atlanta suburbs. We will be happy to share our ministry in your church, Sunday school or Bible study group, or just with you personally, so please contact us at our email address so we can mark our calendar.

We close with a prayer of gratitude for all that the Lord continues to do for, in and through us. And for each one of you who are so important to the continuing work of the ministry here. “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever”. (Isaiah 40:8)

Because He lives,
Cas and Mary Jane