God loves Chiavari - Praise God for His Goodness!

Chiavari is a town of 30,000 inhabitants in the Ligurian region (from which Christopher Columbus originated) situated near the mouth of the Entella River. It lies in a fertile plain surrounded by rugged, steep hills, with the Ligurian Sea to the southwest. Known as a regional market for agricultural produce, chair making (Chiavari chairs are seen worldwide in weddings, most famously seen in the wedding of President John F. Kennedy and wife, Jacqueline), lace and silk manufacture, and slate working. With surrounding villages, there are 57,088 people in a 10-15 mile radius.  There are 3 small churches (20-30 people each, in this area of 57k), one liberal baptist church (believe in universal salvation and condone homosexuality), an Assembly of God church (don't believe in eternal salvation) and a small, pentecostal church.  Pope John Paul visited Chiavari, Sept 18, 1998, sharing that the gospel of Jesus Christ is most honored by veneration of the supposed sinless mother, Virgin Mary.

We are excited to tell you we have moved to our new home in Chiavari (Via A. Gastaldi 11/4, Chiavari, 16043, Italy) to start a new church plant and evangelism / discipleship ministry emphasis.  We are only in a temporary apartment but we can stay, if needed...it's just a bit small with one bathroom for the six of us :-)  But God has been so incredibly kind, paving the way, providing each and every thing we need, including Christian contacts in the city and surrounding area.

Some of you may not realize but this dream started earlier this year with the desire to bring a passion for evangelism and a culture of grace to Italy.  We sensed God's call away from the more legalistic, separatist experience with our last ministry (which tended to stifle God's grace) to a place where we'd have the freedom and grace to create something we believe demonstrates the lovingkindness of God (which leads men to repentance) as well as model the need for effective evangelism and discipleship to the greater church here in Italy.  We did a search for a godly, effective association and were extremely pleased to link arms with Italian Ministries.  Yet this was only the beginning of our search not the end...as we began a 4-5 month search for where God might have us serve now that we had two years of language and cultural adjustment.

Over 4,700 miles, nearly a dozen Italian churches, a bunch of evangelistic and mission activities, and at least one Italian Christian conference later -- with the ongoing insight of our church in Orlando, a board of advisers we're putting together, and direct input of our Italian Ministries Director, Jonathan Gilmore -- we packed up our family and moved 5 hours and 522 kilometers (or 322 miles) away to Chiavari.

It was the culmination of a long search for where God would have our family serve in ministry in Italy after 2 years of training.  Truly, during this search, we met many wonderful Christian leaders and others who wanted us to join them and we're so thankful...yet we just did not sense God's leading to join these existing works, some of which had some challenging cultural issues.  Whereas God kept giving us a yearning to reach the Ligurian region, where there is only about 1 church for every 30,000 people...so for just half of the region where we live the east side, s. of Genova), there are 1/2 milllion people but only about 20 churches to serve them, and half of these are either liberal or legalistic.  By God's grace, we were able to make two vision trips to the area, yet we didn't make a decision until early September which meant that we'd have to move to Chiavari by Sept 15th (the day school started for the kids).

Since then, it's been an incredible whirlwind of activity!  We have been amazed at God's provision and development of connections here on the ground.  Here are just a few of the things that have happened or are in process (remember as you read these, we had no contacts in Chiavari, no current team in Chiavari, little knowledge of how to get around, and less than perfect understanding of the culture, language, laws, etc...everything that comes are way is considered divine providence):

• The day we made our final decision at the IM conference, God divinely led us to meet the conference worship leader.  Apologizing that he couldn't allow Elijah to play his guitar (who had asked him), he became aware that we were moving to Chiavari and connected us with an 84 year old editor, Mimma, who edits the Italian equivalent of the "Daily Bread," right here in Chiavari.  Mimma has been instrumental in connecting us with local Christians and other key leaders.
• The next day, after Jeannette prayed for a sign, that if God wanted us to move to Chiavari, He'd allow find us a temporary place to live that day (after looking for a month).  Before the day was out, God provided a 3-bedroom temporary apt next to the Chiavari soccer stadium. 
• We arrived to be pleasantly surprised that though small (120 sq meters or about 1300 sq ft for a family of six), we could make it work...the one bathroom will be a challenge but always fun...but it is centrally located to everything and has its own parking for residents (very rare in Chiavari).
• God surprised us with our church in Fontanafredda providing the funds to hire a truck and a sweet couple from the church, Joe and Kelly, drove down along with Ramat, to help us move all of our stuff (we don't own furniture yet as we've not been able to afford it but we hope to soon).
• Another part of our send-off was a 50th birthday celebration for Lee with many of our Udine contacts, friends and neighbors (out of 30, there were 24 unbelievers!) and Lee gave a testimony sharing the greatest gift they could give him is to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
• Praying for a miracle (as we live on the narrowest street in all of Chiavari next to the soccer stadium) that God would provide not one, not two but three parking spaces for the moving truck (we'd not seen one space open the entire week prior!).  With less than 20 minutes to spare, when it looked like it would not happen, I walked down to speak to the stadium staff to see if we could park the car in their parking lot (not allowed usually) and to my amazement, 2 spaces opened up as I was walking down.  Then, when the truck arrived and Joe was trying to get the truck in, the third space opened up in front of him!  Praise God that He is a God who cares for the details!
• The first Sunday, we attended the local baptist church who had a guest speaker from Brazil.  90% of the congregation were Hispanic and half the service was in Spanish.  The regular pastor welcomed us but seemed at a loss to know how to display the hospitality of Christ.
• That first week, the vice president of Jacob's Art Institute (a kind of local TV personality), personally escorted us around town, showed us some of the local community centers, parks, and took us to look at a couple of possibilities for a permanent apartment.  When asked why she was being so incredibly kind to us, she said in Italian, "My cousin lives in the U.S. I love Americans."
• We met one of our first divine contacts from Mimma (the 84 year-old editor and spitfire), Ruggero Sanguineti, who has a camp for Christians within a half-hour from here and wants to work with us to put on some camps and do evangelism and discipleship.  A big teddy-bear for Jesus, at 63 years old, he's still going strong.  
• Thanks to Ruggero, we will be doing our first evangelism in Chiavari this Monday with a group of 15 youth from Switzerland.  During the rest of next week, we will be fulfilling one of my dreams to travel up and down the Ligurian coast here (Sestri Levante, Lavagna, Chiavari, Rapallo, Recco and Genova) with this group as a family to do evangelism (passing out Bible calendars, music, mimes and one-on-one evangelism).
• We have begun to put together a board of advisors as well as a full-time consultant who is devoting his time and counsel, to help us move forward on the dream of a new church plant and an evangelism and discipleship emphasis centered here in Chiavari.
• On October 4th, a supporter family of ours will arrive to spend some time in ministry with us (3-4 days) including their kids possibly performing a mini-concert (2-3 songs) and passing out tracts.
• On  November 7th, a young couple, Ricky and Michelle Simpson will be arriving with their son, Isaac, to spend a week considering the possibility of joining our church planting/ministry team (please pray for them as they're serious and she is pregnant and exp. sickness with their 2nd).
• Pray for two young ladies (23 and 20) who are seriously considering coming to join us this spring (late Jan/early Feb) to minister with us for 3 months teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) Italians in Chiavari with us. We're expecting 150-200 students this spring!

WOW!  Can you believe how good God is?  What an amazing 2 weeks!!  We  arrived only on the 14th of September!!!  God is wonderfully at work to glorify Himself in a place where the gospel of His glorious grace has been so effectively disguised and twisted by the devil!  Pray for victory in Him!!!

On a bit of a sour note, except for a sweet one-time gift from some friends/supporters to save our month, we received a total of $3,400 monthly gifts in support.  Granted, there were a few of our supporters for one reason or another did not send in a gift this month.  With the conversion rate, living on this would be the equivalent of living on $3000 for a month as a family of six.   Please help us by:

1) Praying...pray against the spiritual forces of darkness.  Darkness prevails here and the situations and trials we experience are anything but normal and routine.  Satan is NOT happy.  God's grace is about to jump off the map in this forgotten region. No more will the "romantic" idea of Italy keep the gospel from going forward in a country controlled by the deceptive, grace-killing Roman Catholic church.  But only with your help!  The gospel of grace will only go forward by serious prayer from Christians who are unwilling to be satisfied with the status quo of 99% of Italians heading for hell.

2) Give today.  Please forgive me (and I know many give very generously and have no reason to feel anything but joy for how they have given to the church, missions, etc) but when I hear of American Christians complaining because they can't fund their new $20 million dollar church building, or because they can't give to missions because they need to finance new flooring in their home or are feeling desperate cuz their 2nd car broke down, I can only think if American Christians knew how DIRE the situation is here, they'd sell their 2nd car, put off that new floor, give up the new HD LCD TV for a few more months, or cancel the new building and send the money overseas to those so much less fortunate than them. 

There are three ways you can give immediately to help us out:

1) Go to www.ItalianMinistriesUSA.org/ and select DONATE on the left-hand column or more directly, you can go to: https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=5267 and choose our name from the drop-down box.  Gifts take approximately one month to hit our account.

2) Send a gift to the ministry at Italian Ministries USA, attn: Pam Sarjent, P.O. Box 2074, Fairview, OR 97024

3) From your bill-pay option online with your bank, send a gift to the above ministry contact and address info.  This is actually the fastest way we receive funds from our donors.

NOTE: If you would like to know specific projects we are working on that you can specifically help us with, please send me an email to abandoned2Jesus@gmail.com and I'll respond right away.

Glory to God in the highest who gives His children the privilege to share His good news with the lost, the down-trodden, the sick, the hurting, the desperate.  Let us shine our light that they might see and know His grace.  Rome and Italy was there in the beginning of the church...as long as the Roman Catholic Church controls the heartbeat of 1.166 billion people worldwide, revival is stifled.

Why not have revival start here where it all began?  Paul gave his life here for the gospel (said to have chosen to hung upside down on a cross, when told he'd die this way, as not to disgrace His Lord). What would Paul think today if he knew that less than .6% (that's a bit higher than 1/2 of 1%) of Italy are probably Christians and the rest are heading for hell? Because they are without the true gospel of grace?  By God's grace, with your help, the Lord and His people are on the march with this gospel.

Thank you for all you are to us...you are our lifeline and our heartbeat.

We couldn't do it without you!  God bless you for all you do for the furtherance of the gospel of grace.

In Him,
The Walti Family