CURRENT NEWS AND PRAYER REQUESTS

JANUARY 2025

• Active promotion of La Vera Vite Bible school--over 15 people begin to sign up--but we need more students!

• A new semester of teaching in California via video. Full classes and great conversations!

• Meetings with different Italian church leaders in Chieti

• Preaching in church in Pescara

DECEMBER 2024

• Christmas with Angela's family.

• Closing a semester of teaching the Bible, philosophy, and religion in California community colleges

• Our Bible School website (LaVeraVite.org) and promotional materials were prepared

• After much prayer we finally got an agreement on a great location for our spring 2025 Bible school.

• Preached on Jesus sending us at Punto Lode church in Milan

NOVEMBER 2024

• Greg and Angela went to the Torchbearers center in Holsbybrunn, Sweden. Greg preached on Sunday on Peter walking on the water, then taught Romans through the week. We had many intense discussions with students who struggled with the idea that Christ's righteousness is given to us on a daily basis, a gift of God received by faith.

• Continued teaching of Bible at Saddleback and Santa Monica College

• Travel to Verona, Vicenza, and Bergamo to explore school sites. Worked with Torchbearers Italy team through many decisions facing us for forming a non-profit and founding an international Bible school here

• Traveled to Perugia to investigate a possible site for our first spring Bible school. Preached at Perugia church.

OCTOBER 2024

• Two weeks at Torchbearers Romania (PdF). Taught teaching NT Survey and Romans at the Bible school and spoke at a weekend Bible conference. The two week trip went VERY well. Greg taught New Testament survey and Romans to 24 eager students from all over the world and preached four times with translation to a mixed group of young people and adults at a conference on spiritual life. God used his word to change lives. All the students interacted with us intensely over the indwelling risen Christ message and after learning about baptism from Romans 6, two students were baptized soon after we left. I thought the weekend conference would be older financial supporters of their ministry. Instead it was largely young Romanians and I shifted my messages on 2 Cor 2-4 accordingly and it too went very well. So thank you for praying and thank the Lord for the good results.

• While we were in Romania we were able to interact with Ebbe Beck the European director of Torchbearers (and director of Torchbearers Romania). He was encouraging about our desire to start our work in Italy with a mini-Bible school this spring, but helped us see that we have only a few weeks to find a site for the school if it will work to give time for promotion and to develop the program.

• Introduced Bruno Barecca and Natalia Hernandez to Italian Torchbearers and invited them to work more closely with us on the Bylaws for our budding Italian non-profit.

SEPTEMBER 2024

• A few weeks of Covid kept us home, but this turned into useful time of catch-up and teaching prep!

• Happy 5th anniversary to us! Five years ago on September 21 Angela and Greg got married. We celebrated this milestone with much gratitude to God for his good gifts to us of each other!

• We came back from our five week trip to California where we visited friends in California, Oregon, and Texas! We had a wonderful time! We shared about Torchbearers with three different churches--grateful for that--and visited several of Greg's university students! Pray for growing relationships and opportunities to share about Torchbearers with young people who we see as prospective students!

• Back home after our California trip. Evangelism with our Milan church in an urban park.

AUGUST 2024

• A wonderful time in America after two years away. Seeing family and old friends and talking with church leaders about opportunities in Italy and for their young people to attend one of the many Torchbearers schools around the world.

• Continued teaching through the Bible at Punto Lode Friday night Bible studies

JULY 2024

• Meeting with Italian friends and leaders with the hope of forming an association through northern Italy including Trento, Perugia, and Ravenna

• Several international visitors

• Looking for a site for a spring Bible school

• Preached at the brethren church in Pescara and taught Genesis in our home church, Punto Lode, in Milan

June 2024

• We met with Torchbearer delegates (key leaders) of the 13 European centers at the end of June in Albania. We connected with these leaders and talked about our desire to start an international Bible school in English in northern Italy. We were approved as Field Representatives for Italy with a goal of starting a three month Bible school in Northern Italy this next spring 2025!!

• We are grateful for the month of work and ministry. Greg is teaching online over the summer. Angela is back at work. We are working on getting visas renewed in anticipation of our America visit.

May 2024

• Praise God that we have been appointed as field representatives for Torchbearers--a new title and responsibility leading to, we pray, an international Bible school in Italy.

• On May 24-30, we went to a staff conference for Torchbearers in Switzerland to meet other workers and spend time with Peter Reid, the International General Director.

• The European director of Torchbearers who will be overseeing us, Ebbe Beck, came to Italy for a weekend from May 16-20 to meet with the team and discuss and plan for our future. Significant decisions were made about how to proceed.

• Greg and Angela spent a week (May 3-10) in Romania at PdF (Purtătorii de Făclie--Torchbearers) teaching Philippians and serving with students. Many good things happened there among students.

• Sunday, May 12, Greg preached in our church in Milan with warm responses

April 2024​

• The last week of April was full of ministry! Open air evangelistic preaching in a nearby piazza, entertaining guests, and conducting a wedding for a friend's son! God provided the stamina to do it all with joy and see people consider their need for Christ!

• Preaching at a Milan church in Sesto on Sunday, April 14, went well!

• A good response to preaching at Punto Lode, our home church in Milan on April 7!

• We rejoice for our time over Easter week 2024 to stay with Angela's family. We had many opportunities to share the gospel with various relatives and pray for their salvation.

March 2024

• Good friends, Paul and Jacqui Copan, visited for a week of travel and discussion about the work in Italy. Great blessing and mutual encouragement!

• We took the March 15-17 weekend to travel to nearby Paris. Greg had never been there and we had good airline deals. Lots of fun seeing the Eiffel Tower and other sites!

• On Sat, March 9, we invited the owner of a nearby restaurant to our house for dinner! Geri and his fiancé came for several hours to get to know each other better. We pray for open hearts to Christ

• Greg met with a young man, Jeremias, who participated at the Life of Christ in You! conference and wanted to talk about his spiritual life 

• On March 6, 2024, we had a wonderful time touring Milan and talking about the spiritual need of Italy with Capernwray Torchbearer students who are visiting as part of an outreach week

• We hosted Geri and Seri, a couple we met at a nearby restaurant they own. We pray for open hearts and more opporunities to share the gospel with them

• On Sunday, March 10, we preached and sharee in an agape, a pot luck style lunch, at a church in Lissone near Milan.

FEBRUARY 2024

• We spoke at an evangelistic Valentines banquet in Venice followed by preaching at two different churches on Sunday morning and evening! Angela and I felt freedom to speak into people's lives, explain the gospel to those who had not yet heard it, counsel some hurting. One of the hightlights was seeing Fabio, an old friend I (Greg) hadn't seen in 28 years!! We praise God for these amazing new contacts and opportunities to preach and teach in different Italian churches.

• We are still rejoicing for all that he has done at "Life of Christ in Us" conference which exceeded expectations on all levels. We began with a hope that we could get 70 Italians together for a conference. In the end around 210 came from over 15 churches in northern Italy to fellowship and learn the message of the indwelling life of Christ from speaker Charles Price over three beautiful days of worship and reflection. Thank you for reading our news and keeping us in your hearts and prayers!

• We prayed for a special work of God in the lives of young and old as we focused on the message of the resurrection power of Christ available to transform our lives. Many lives were touched with the message that the Christian life can only be lived in the power that Christ gives in the believer. You can listen to the messages (in English translated into Italian) posted here,

• We pray for lasting fruit. We made and built many relationships that we want to continue to cultivate as we work toward developing a community of believers who would want to invest further in study and community--hopefully leading to a Bible school/conference center in northern Italy!

• Speaker Charles Price delivered five powerful messages translated into Italian by a new friend from Italy.

• Angelo Maugeri, a well-known full-time Italian Christian music artist led worship and performed a concert on Saturday night. We were grateful for his contribution.

• The conference personnel at the catholic center where we met mentioned later how touched they were by different conference participants that reached out to them.

• Praise God for a good preaching session on Sunday, Jan 28, at the large Chiesa Veritas in spite of food poisoning the day before so no eating for two days and little sleep! God helped give strength to preach and promote the conference.

• On Wednesday, Jan 24, Angela and Greg were interviewed on a local Christian radio program to promote ReachItaly and the Life of Christ in You conference that was first aired on Wednesday morning, Feb 31, then repeatedly for a week. At least one friend reported back that they heard and liked the sharing of our testimonies and the conference.

• Gospel tract distribution on Saturday went well with a few good conversations.

• Many good teaching and preaching moments in the past month at our home church in Milan

2023 and further!​

• Grateful for the many visitors we met with and with whom we toured Milan over the holidays. Many of these were Torchbearer students on winter break.

• We are thankful for an excellent Christmas with Angela's family in Pescara. Thank you for praying as we were able to share the gospel with her mother and other unsaved family members. Her mom just had knee replacement surgery.

• Praise God​ for a great week of teaching Romans and building relationships with students at two Torchbearer centers: Holsbybrunn in Sweden, and PdF in Romania. Greg preached and taught Romans exhorting students to be "Righteous Christians," and a survey of the New Testament and we both talked and counseled staff and students. We heard wonderful stories of lives changed and of a postive impact. Thank you for your prayers!

• We are thankful for a wonderful time with a church in Piacenza where Greg preached in Nov 12.

• Thanking God for a great trip to Bodenseehof in Germany where we met with Peter Reid, the General director of Torchbearers, and Charles Price, our conference speaker who taught there.

• Great opportunity to preach at Milan Bible Church with warm responses (Oct 22, 2023)

• Greg had an opportunity to build his own guitar in September with a Torchbearer leader, Luke Brunner, in Switzerland. It is not quite finished, but Greg had an amazing time with Luke, and two others.

• Greg shared on Genesis 1 and introduced Philippians to the youth at Punto Lode church on the weekend (Sept 29-30). A wonderful time of teaching and sharing!

• Angela gave her testimony at a church evangelistic service on Sat, Sept 16. It went really well and several unbelievers heard the gospel.

• Praise for finding a great place for our February Bible conference and forward movement. The conference is for Feb 9-11, 2024 near Milan! You too are invited!!

• Praise for successful surgery for our friend Levi who has had a tumor on his pancreas

• Thankful for a good August full of travel. Angela and I looked for several potential sites for our conference this next February and had a good break in the alps and northern region of Italy.

• Praise for a good and safe trip this past week (July 29-Aug 7) to see Angela's family and celebrate our nephew and niece's college graduation and another niece's birthday.

• Praise for a great worship service in July where Greg preached on Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis last Sunday

• Greg and Domenico had a great time at an Italian brethren church retreat on July 8-9 where many churches were represented. Our goals were simply to meet more people and church leaders who active in ministry in Italy.

• Greg taught Philippians in the first week of June at Torchbearers Romania Spring School and met with the European Director of Torchbearers, Ebbe, to solicit support and direction for our work in Italy.We are praising God for a wonderful time meeting with students and staff and teaching Philippians at the Torchbearers Romania Bible School. We discussed future ministry opportunities and discussed our plans for the coming year. Thank you for your prayers for this important time of ministry and planning.

• We helped area churches as they conducted evangelism campaigns in local parks. We made a few good contacts and had good fellowship sharing the gospel

• Praise for fruit from Greg's part-time teaching at two community colleges in California via Zoom from Italy this past spring. In addition to World Religions, I teach two Bible as Literature and two philosophy classes. It is exciting teaching the Bible and Christian perspective to the unchurched and I have many out of class opportunities to talk with students about their spiritual lives.

• Greg's academic article on Eve was just published by the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. You can find a copy to read for free here!

• Met Swiss Torchbearer ministry team at Chasa Perspectiva and discussed plans for Italy

• Several opportunities to share our faith with unsaved family members! Pray for salvation of Angela's family. 

• Praise for excellent survey trip to the Veneto and Alto Adige regions of NE Italy. We were able to connect with old friends, meet and get to know a ministry in northern Italy, and explore ideas for our future location.

• Praise for great weekend in early March with friend Domenico on the coast below Rome working with young Sikh and Hindu immigrant laborers and encouraging an Italian missionary who works with them. I preached in a church of about twenty and had unusual freedom and was encouraged. 

• Praise God for preaching opportunities in Rome and Milan including a wonderful time in a church where Greg did an internship 30 years ago.

• Praise for opportunities to meet one on one with various Italian church leaders in this past month. Greg has had over half a dozen coffee breaks or lunches to talk about the spiritual life and ministry concerns in March.

• Thank God for an encouraging time with the Torchbearers England ministry team in early March. It is exciting to help devoted young people explore their gifts and become more aware of the spiritual needs of Italy