A Walti Christmas Greeting to You

A Christmas Greeting in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

You are greatly loved and appreciated. We invite you to enjoy a little gift from us...

A photo Christmas card from the Walti Family (don't forget to click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger...and...there's a video hidden in the card as well!)

Love you and thank you for your love toward us, The Walti Family

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thanksgiving for Italians...an opportunity for God's grace to be experienced

(In order: ESL Thanksgiving meal... Lee & Italian friend, Lele and 2 ESL students...we had 112 in attendance for their very first American Thanksgiving...most also heard the gospel for the very first time with SBI student testimonies and our director who clearly presented the true gospel of grace!)



(ESL students and some church members attending Thanksgiving meal)



(ESL students attending and the SBI students ready to serve the Thanksgiving meal)



(Ladies on staff who prepared the Thanksgiving meal & one of the SBI professors who is from Moody slicing one of 5 turkeys for the 112 in attendance)



(Ready to eat and digging into the Thanksgiving meal...mmmm good)




(Our own thanksgiving meal two days later with 25 in attendance including neighbors, parents of the kids schoolmates, etc.; we had a time of sharing the original story of Thanksgiving, spending time in prayer, going around the table sharing what we were thankful for and later, singing hymns and Christmas songs. For Americans, this is all very normal and traditional; for our most of our Italian friends, it is the first time they have ever done this.)



(Boys go in the kitchen...Girls in with the adults :-) ... this is Hannah with friend, Carmen)



(Okay, the boys are cute when they stop bouncing off the walls; Singing American Christmas songs...a big hit at the Thanksgiving meal)



(Lee teaching chapel for the SBI students Sunday morning; later eating "pranza" or lunch together at the center in San Lorenzo, about 40 minutes away from our home in Udine).



(Walking around after Udine evening church service in the Piazza with all the lights; Hannah with friend Olivia ice-skating for less than 4 dollars outside!)



(Abby & Abby, daughter of other missionary family in Udine; Elijah having fun ice skating...a little too fast like much of how he goes at life!)



(Abby gets play time on a horse...so easy to be pleased when you're young; Nativity scenes are very common and popular in Italy...this one is done by lights only)



We are thankful that God has been so kind to us to give us special friends and supporters of our ministry like you. We wish you God's best in this season of thankfulness for His goodness.

Never choose the scene of your martyrdom

Oswald Chambers calls it the "supreme climb." Not sure about you, but I like to choose the time, place, reason and other details of my "sacrificial" offering. But Chambers says, "The sacrifice must be gone through in will before it is performed actually." Maybe that's why I sometimes struggle with sacrificing. I've not submitted my will first.

Sacrifice is not an easy thing. And I like to avoid it. It messes with my sympathies (for myself) and my love of comfort and ease. I have to confess I never realized how wimpy I really am until I moved to Italy. Everything in the states (and unfortunately, more than I like to admit, still often true here) regarding sacrificial living usually first went through the matrix of my comfort, ease, abilities, what others might think, etc. Chambers says, "When God spoke, Abraham did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God."

When I do this filtering process of my own sympathies, I'm often competing with and hindering my obedience to God. I don't like that I can't get much done in the U.S. with stuff (bills, etc). I don't like the time difference. I don't like that more people don't keep in touch. I don't like that stores here are closed from 1-4pm. I don't like hanging out and taking down laundry because of no dryer. I don't like if have either the dishwasher or the oven on and the washer on at the same time, the electricity shuts off. I don't like that the heat here hardly works and then its like water in some pipes in the corner of the room and you can hardly feel it. I don't like having to get up so early to get all the kids to school by 8am and pick them up by 1pm. I don't like school on Saturdays. I don't like that some teachers are mean and sometimes yell at the kids and tell them to shut-up. Or that there's a bully that keeps picking on Hannah. Or that she has to take 14 courses! Or that we are busier here than we ever were in Orlando. Or that Bethany is not with us and 45 minutes away. Or that we only have one car and it doesn't fit our family. Or that our refrigerator broke down. Or that we regularly don't understand what is being said in the Italian church service or by most everyone else! I miss a regular job. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss our wonderful church. And on and on and on. Okay, so you get the idea. I sometimes don't like the terms of my sacrifice. I want to renegotiate. Send new terms God!

Bottom Line: Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. God did. We have to guard against self-chosen service for God or else, Chambers says, our self-sacrifice may be a disease. Chambers again says, "If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time or difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom."

What? I do this all the time! I want to drink the sweet cup but pass the bitter cup on! Why should I drink? It doesn't fit my fancy! Don't give me bitter!!! I WANT SWEET, I SAID! Where's the sweet cup? Who has it? Pass it here. That's the bitter one. Give it to someone else! And when God does make me to drink the bitter one, I get mad. He could change it. He could make it better. Doesn't He still love me? Has He forgotten me down here? Doesn't He know this is hard? Come on God, the bitter one is just no fun at all.

Chambers states, "God chose the crucible for Abraham [sacrificing his son, Isaac] and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man's purpose become one."

That's really where the rubber hits the road for me. Do I really want God's purpose? Often not. Do I really want Him to conform me into the image of His Son? Well, yes, when it's comfortable and convenient and not too hard. If its the sweet cup, I'm in. Bitter cup...Pass.

I pray God will help me by His grace to accept the bitter cup of my little issues and problems more willingly (Christ was our ultimate example as He went to His own death . . . "Not my will but yours be done"). What are we here on planet earth for anyway? The gospel! So that those who are dying and heading for hell can hear the good news that can change their hearts and bring them hope and life everlasting. It's too easy for me to forget. It's way too easy to think I'm here for me. And my problems are so infinitesimally small compared to what Christ went through for me. Yet my sympathies keep rearing their ugly head ("He's God though...He could change this" and "Why take the tough road when there's an easy one available!").

Every time Christian in Pilgrim's Progress took the easy way, he found out that not only was it not so easy (even more dangerous, full of even more temptation, old unhelpful friends trying to dissuade him, new enemies trying to hurt him, etc) but most importantly, it brought him away from God, away from God's care, away from the removal of the burden of sin and away from the heavenly city. As we choose the path toward the heavenly city and we see the path that God chooses for us, I pray that we can first submit our wills to Him, especially when we find out that the path He has chosen for us includes a bitter cup (this has come from His hands). God wants me to die. But I have to remember that true life is on the other side.



Christian, on his journey to the heavenly city.


Various pictures...



Jacob & Hannah have been developing their relationship while Bethany and Hannah are trying to renew theirs with Bethany being 45 minutes away at the bible institute.



Elijah @ an Italian b-day party and Abby outside our kitchen window in Udine.



Lee visiting with an 80 year-old Venetian man in Udine and our sweet new Italian friends, Laura and Lele with their children.



Abbie Wells, Abby Walti, Jasmine (from SBI school) and Hannah watching a chalk talk being done by Bethany and Jeannette sharing with a lonely lady who she has befriended in the piazza.



Lee & Leo, a new Christian who are developing a neat relationship and the Walti and Wells families together, the two missionary families in Udine (missing, Adam Wells at college in U.S., Pete Wells at SBI, Hannah Wells probably studying for Russian language program and Bethany Walti at SBI).



In Italy, Jesus is still on the cross.

Pictures from our Italian Adventure

Abby enjoying a brioche (like a croissant).


Abby with a Lee on a walk to check out our surroundings the first week.


What we found!


A view from our temporary apartment.


Car problems for Jeannette and Hannah (Jeannette went a little too quick around a corner and put a hole in the sidewall of the tire) but help came quick! And Hannah shows her smarts!

Jacob being cool and eating the awesome Italian bread (ciabatta).

Lee cold after Italian (colder in the buildings than outside!), driving (he feels like he was especially created for Italian driving...keep your eyes open...you don't know what will happen next!), and talking to the SBI students yesterday after teaching a bible devotion to them.

Bethany, Beth H. (an R.A. for the school), the ESL girls (Becky and Ruthie) along with Hannah. Also, Sam Spatola, director of Saints Equipped to Evangelize with some of the students, Elijah, etc., just before SBI student center church service (different than the church service in Udine in the evenings).

Licia, our Italian instructor, and Becky (ESL teacher) all together with Licia.

Bethany performing King of Hearts mime skit and teaching a "chalk talk" on salvation in one of the main piazzas during ministry week this last week when all the students come into Udine after their missions and evangelism courses and do tract distribution, puppet shows at the park and skits, mimes and talk chalks in the piazzas. Hands-on experience after the classroom!

A story for the children in the piazza following the puppet show. It's amazing how the parents encourage their children to gather around in the early evening in the piazza even though they are getting to hear the gospel story of Christ's love!

Jeannette, happy with her special homewarming gift from her husband (planters with flowers outside the front window of our permanent apt) and Jeannette and Abby being cool (Abby found this old plastic skateboard and thinks she is a major cool skateboarder!)

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement over the last weeks! We have been both challenged more than ever before in our faith while at the same time, brought to tears of gratefulness for God's incredible provision for everything we need during this, our journey and adventure to reach Italians for Christ. We want to give you all the details soon...we've just been so busy. But thanks to some sweet supporter friends (thank you Bob and Kay!), we'll be sending out a prayer letter in the states quarterly, including our first one in the next few weeks to give a more extensive update on all that God has been doing so keep your eyes open for it. We're so thankful and excited that we've already begun several new relationships with Italians who are showing interest in the gospel, including a younger couple from Udine, a lonely lady that Jeannette has befriended in the piazza for the 2nd time (met her first in June) and the landlord of our permanent apartment, Anna, who, when we gave a bible to her as a present for her kindness in everything, she broke out in tears.

We really want you to know that we are SO grateful to you for everything. Your words of encouragement, your phone calls, your e-mails, and your prayers have literally kept us going. All of this ministry of our family's would not be possible if it weren't for your prayers and financial partnership! May God bless you richly for what, by His grace, we are doing together!

Love, the Walti family!