This was the blog I used to keep people updated (though, unfortunately, not very thoroughly) on my semester of Bible college 2 years ago. Now, I’m going to use it to keep people updated (more regularly, I promise) on my mission work in Italy with ReachGlobal.

Right now, I’m in the process of building a ministry partnership team of prayer warriors and financial supporters. My goal for departure to the field is March, but I have to be fully funded before I can go.

I am SO excited about what God is doing to bring hearts to Him in Italy. My team is eager for my arrival and prays for me to join them soon. I can’t wait to get there and to start my Italian classes, to begin friendships with people I can invite to a house church, and to share Christ’s love with refugees, trafficking victims, expats, tourists, and everyone I meet! But I can’t get there without help. If you are interested in seeing people come to know Christ as their Savior and would like to be His hands and feet in Rome by joining my support team, please contact me for more information.

I am bursting at the seams to begin this exhilarating journey with all of you!

Love and blessings,
-Heather

First off, classes have been amazing. If I haven’t said so already, I’m in Nehemiah, Mark, and Revelation. We also are reading The Pilgrim’s Progress and have service hour assignments for M199. Then there are Chuck Tracks [sermons given by Pastor Chuck Smith]. I have about 10 per week of those to listen to and take notes on. It’s time consuming, but enjoyable. I’m learning SO much about the Old Testament. I really do love it. Sometime’s it’s hard to get everything done on the right day in the right amount of time, but that’s because I’m a procrastinator. =P It’s something I’m working on.

Another thing I’m working on are my cooking skillz. lol. I’m getting really good at pasta. Hahaha! This week, I think we’re going to venture to make pizza and calzoni on our own. It will be an exciting experiment! Gelato on the other hand is best left to the pros in my opinion and I will be content not to try to make any and just buy the wares of the experts. YUM.

Now, as for my title. Miraculously, we actually had snow on March 10th.

Ridiculous, right?! It was beautiful, melted a bit, froze, and then mostly melted away the next day. It was a nice change from the near constant rain we had the first few weeks we were here, which is actually quite out of the ordinary for this part of Italy at this time of the year. Lately, it has started to warm up and hasn’t rained for a week now. I’m SO glad. Hopefully, we will soon be able to pull out our sundresses. =]

Our second weekend here, we went to Venezia [or Venice] for the day. It was gorgeous and we had a great time. I’ll be posting a couple pictures here, but I have a BUNCH. Hopefully, I’ll get the rest up on my flickr soon, but our internet is kind of slow here, especially when there’s more than one of us using it, which is most of the time.

Lastly, for this post anyway, we went to Austria this week for Speaker’s Week. It was an amazing time of fellowship, prayer, and worship where we just let God speak to us as we had an escape from classes and homework in the midst of the Austrian Alps in the quaint little town of Millstatt. Oh, and did I mention we were at a CASTLE?! It was fabulously beautiful. Again, a few pictures, but more to come on flickr.

And today we went to Padova. It was a fun day of walking around and shopping. I got a new purse [yes, Mom, I will leave my old purse that you don't like behind ;P ] and a super cute pair of Italian leather boots. Both my shopping goals for the day accomplished. Now that it is after midnight, I must get to bed so that I can get up and get ready for church in the morn.

I’ll blog again soon. Love to all!

I have to go as my battery power is about to expire, but I’ll leave you with this request: please, keep all of us in your prayers.

Much love! Buonanotte!

Let’s see… what else? Bought groceries today. They have stracciatella yogurt here. I bought a whole tub of it. I’ll probably be having that for breakfast in the morning. X] I still need to go to the bakery to get some fresh bread, and hopefully, if I get up early enough in the morning, I’ll get to go to the market and get some fresh fruits and veggies. Yum!

For now, I must go. I’ve gotta get a shower before heading to bed. Goodnight!

Here’s my address in case any of you would like to send me letters, packages, money [jk... sort of], etc. while I’m abroad:

Heather Creamer
Via Piave 156
Montebelluna 31044 (TV)
Italia

It would be really great to hear from all of you! I’m hoping to send out some letters soon myself. =] For now, it’s time for bed. Classes start early in the morning!

Ciao!

Ok. I’m going to try to give you an update without leaving out any important parts or boring you with any dubious details about waiting in lines or going through customs or trying futilely to get sleep on airplanes. So, without further delay, I shall begin.

Early Thursday morning I went out to breakfast for one last meal with my family. I ran some last-minute errands, did some last-minute packing, and then did some last-minute re-packing. Getting my luggage down to the right poundage was a taxing series of weighing, eliminating items, and weighing again. Finally, with the help of my dear mom, I got rid of many articles of clothing, several unneeded liquids, and other weighty things that were keeping my largest suitcase over 50 pounds. After an issue with security involving my towel, my hair straightener, and one of my galoshes, I repacked my carryon and waited at my gate with mom. My first flight was SA to Houston where I had a layover for about 2 hours. Then I had my long flight. Houston to Frankfurt: 9.5 hours. It was the biggest plane I’ve ever been on. The food wasn’t bad and the bathroom was a slightly bigger than I expected. They played a couple movies, but I didn’t really watch them because I wanted to sleep. I was only able to get in a couple naps here and there, but nothing too exciting happened. During the whole flight, I felt kind of sick due to little sleep, nervousness, weird eating times, and SO much air travel. I was going back and forth the whole time between being completely terrified and extremely excited. The coolest experience was a total accident. I had closed my window when I wanted to go to sleep, but I opened it later when we were over the Atlantic just to see if I could see the ocean. When I looked out, I couldn’t see anything below, but above, the stars were incredible. It was the most amazing, beautiful sight. I’m sure that if anyone had looked over at me, they would have thought I was crazy because I sat for about 5-10 minutes trying to block out the light in the plane with my pillow, just staring at the sky. As the sun rose and we made our final descent into Frankfurt, I made two very astute observations. Germany is covered in snow. Also, their trees are very funny looking. =P Had about a three hour layover there. The airport was huge and super confusing. Part of it was really ghetto looking with pieces of the ceiling missing and really low lighting. Then, when they spat me outside of security, it looked like a freaking mall! I went through security again and walked to my gate and waited for my flight, but those details are all boring. Frankfurt to Venice seemed like the shortest flight in my life compared to my long one and, thankfully, I was soon on the ground, getting my luggage, and meeting up with folks from CCBC Italy.

One of my new housemates, Rachel, and I rode with Brian [one of the people in charge of the school] in his car to our new home in Montebelluna. There’s only six of us students this semester: 3 girls and 3 guys. Because there’s so few of us, we girls [Rachel, Victoria, and I] each get our own bedroom. Our apartment is above a store, and in the basement is our student commons with couches, study areas, ping-pong table, and internet access. Once we got in yesterday, we did some unpacking and then went to the grocery store across the street to get food for the weekend. That was a fun little adventure. =] When we got back, we ate our dinner, got our showers, and went to bed by 9:30 because we were so exhausted.

Today, I didn’t wake up until noon. Rachel and Victoria both play guitar and we found one in the commons so we had a little worship time before we started our day. We walked around the town to do some exploring and then just rested and hung out for a while. A couple hours ago we walked next door and bought our first pizza of the semester to bring back to the house for dinner. IT. WAS. GOOD. Mmmmmm.

The only thing I’m missing is my camera cord to transfer my photos to my computer. The parentals are going to ship it to me so it should be here in about a week I think. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find someone else who has something I can use before then, but if not, I’ll just have to wait to show you all what’s going on over here in Italy.

More updates to come more often, I promise.

LOVE!

But I’m taking deep breaths. This trip is all about what God is going to do in my life. He can handle my moments of freakage and show me things infinitely more wonderful than I could ever imagine. Which reminds me of a thought I had this afternoon…

I was contemplating Jeremiah 29:11 which says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” [NIV] I’ve loved this verse for a long time, but today I thought about it a little differently than I have before. Usually, we like this verse because God tells us that, ultimately, He has good things planned for us. But what if we only got the first part of this verse? “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord.” Shouldn’t we rejoice in this too?! Sometimes we get caught up in waiting for our uncomfortable situations to be over that we forget: God had a plan. What’s even better? He has a specific plan for each of us… Wow. How amazing. And I know the nature of God. If I was just given the beginning of this verse, I would know that it would NOT say, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans to make you suffer and never have any fun.” Come on now. That’s just silly. I know that whatever happens is ultimately for my good. Rough stuff is tough to get through, but it brings me closer to my Father. And when He brings me His blessings, I owe all the glory to Him.

This semester is terrifying and exhilarating, but God is bringing me to it so I know that He will bring me through it. I’m learning more and more to trust in that Big Plan He’s got. I’m guessing it’s pretty good, because He’s a good God that God. ;]

25 days.

Right now, I’m one month away from departing for this grand adventure. Actually, exactly one month from now I’ll probably be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Asleep. Most definitely. Unless I’m staring fixedly out the window at the seemingly endless expanse of saltwater. Either way, I will be en route to Italy for the greatest adventure of my life. As you can tell, I’m so incredibly excited that I’ve already created my blog a full 31 days before my departure! But don’t worry. I won’t be updating everyday leading up to February 18. Maybe just a couple times to keep everyone updated on the status of my readiness [or non-readiness] to leave home. It’s a scary scary thing, but I know that God is going to do great things through this trip. I’m leaving it all in His hands.

Your eager traveler,
-Heather