Palms, Palms, Everywhere Palms

Here is Angie standing in front of one of the numerous palm trees at the hotel. 

Great Youth Sessions

Here is a picture of Angie and I with the youth we were working with at the convention. 

Gone Swimmin'

Here is the olympic size pool we enjoyed in our afternoon free time. 

Breakfast Under the Sun

This was the place where we had breakfast each morning. It was an outdoor eating area near the pool. 

Sittin on the Porch

This was the fronts of several outdoor hotel rooms, like the one we stayed in. 

First Glimpse

This is the hotel where the Christian Church convention was in Lecce (That's my shadow in the foreground). 

The Castle of Otranto (Lecce)

Here I am standing in front of a castle in Otranto ( A city near the convention). An Otranto website said the following about the castle, "The castle which we see today with its towers, bastions and walls was the work of the Princess of Aragon and was constructed after the conquest of the city by the Turks in 1481."
 

Something about an oasis...

We arrived in Lecce today after a six hour train ride. It was nice, comfortably air conditioned and a plug was in between our seats for me to plug in our laptop. We watched a couple of movies on the way to Lecce. When we arrived, Pino Neglia (an Italian pastor at the Lecce Christian Church) was there to pick us up. He drove us through Lecce, where we got to see the building for the Lecce Christian Church. He then continued on to our destination, a hotel in the town 'Torre Del Orso' (which means the bear tower). Centuries ago the southern coast of Italy was dotted with watch towers and today we saw the remains of the called 'The Tower of the Bear." This week we are in Lecce for a Convention for the Christian Church/Church of Christ churches, instrumental and non-instrumental. After we checked in the hotel and began walking towards our room, it was if we stepped into a dream. We have been so stressed the past few weeks, this weekend comes as a great refreshment. The palm trees and flowers were everywhere and we saw the olympic-size pool in the middle of the courtyard. Our 'room' is more like several cabanas tied together. Imagine one of those storage rental places, but instead of garage doors, there are front doors leading out into a small garden with plants and flowers. The room is small but adequate. We are definitely looking forward to the next few days. I may try to post a picture tomorrow.

Sunsets

I don't know why but sunsets here are just spectacular. There have been so many time since we have moved here that I am just in complete awe of God's paintbrush. It is not that Tulsa doesn't have some beautiful sunsets...it does. But there is something different here. We have tried to capture it in pictures or video and it just isn't the same. It is no wonder that great artists were born here.

Out of the Loop?

Have you ever felt out of the loop? Today starting around 5:00 pm horns started honking all over the downtown area of Ancona near our house. They kept going until around after 8:00 pm or so. For those three hours we kept wondering what in the world could be making them honk like that. It could be traffic, but three hours worth of traffic? Tomorrow is a federal holiday, in fact Independence Day. So, it could be holiday traffic, but I'm not sure if the traffic would be that bad. Another possibility is that the Ancona team could have finally won a game or even tied (as you can guess they haven't done too well this season). After all our thinking, we are left at the same place...out of the loop. In some ways, that is the way we feel alot of the time over here. Either not knowing songs all Italians have known as kid's songs growing up, whose head was on the money, where to get a residence card (they just changed it), when to use some words and why cars are honking at 6:00 pm June 1, 2004. The longer we live here, the more we understand and get in the loop. So, I guess it continues to get easier, at least in that arena. If we ever find out what they were honking about....we will let you know.