The Great Redeemer

When we got home last night, I made vegan cupcakes to celebrate my 3rd weekiversary of being in Catania! They seemed to be a big hit! You can see their pictures here. Some of them got a little out of hand in the oven. I had forgotten that they grow in there. Thanks for the recipe, Mom!
You can also see pictures from the Sicilian country side and St. Agatha lights there. Sorry for the poor quality. I was in a moving car.

Well, the Festival of St. Agatha has arrived! The whole city looks like a fairground, complete with cotton candy and balloons! It's very crowded and noisy...especially at night. The traffic is crazy. It is important for you to understand that the traffic here is crazy anyway. Most of the intersections don't have traffic lights OR stop signs. People just go. You think I'm kidding. People literally just pull out into the intersection and honk at each other until someone goes. This happens at each intersection all day long. So, you can only imagine how crazy it is now.

Once a week, we bring Chinese take out home for lunch. While we are waiting for our food, Brandon and Chad talk to the ladies at the restaurant about their experiences in China. They are very friendly and have gotten used to us coming in. Today, one of the ladies said that she is going to send some of her friends to us for English lessons!!

The English songbooks and Xin's Bible arrived today! Thank you to EVERYone who was involved in getting those items here! Xin was SO excited, and very appreciative. We used the English songbooks tonight in our singing service. We would sing a song in Italian, followed by the same song in English. It went really well! It is neat to hear the Italians all singing in English. My favorite was "The Great Redeemer." It was really cute :)
The songbooks will be delivered to Paterno on Sunday.

Etta's family has arrived in Catania! She brought them to the singing night. Her two sons are 15 and 8.

By the way, there is a Friday the 13th this month AND next month.
So...get ready.