Prayer Partner Update josh on 14 Jan 2006
14 January 2006
It took two hours to take the trash out this afternoon. The dumpster is just at the end of my street, but it just took that long to get back to my apartment. On my way to the dumpster, Orfeo and his girlfriend Alessia, stuck their heads out of their apartment window and said, “Hey Josh, you want some coffee?” I turned around and looked up and said, “Sure, I’ll be up in a second.”
After I threw the trash out, I went up to Orfeo and Alessia’s apartment. I had never been up there before; I had just known them from talking with them and Bruno in the piazza at night, this last summer. We have exchanged greetings in passing, but nothing beyond that in conversation. They left the door open so I would know which apartment was theirs, and I was greeted warmly into their house. We sat around their kitchen table and drank the typical after-lunch espresso, making friendly conversation. After we were done with our coffee, Orfeo left the kitchen for a second, and returned with a huge article that he plopped down in front of me on the table. The first thing I noticed about the article was that it was about ‘stomach worms’ and that it was in English. He told me that he and his girlfriend needed to understand this article for some research they were doing for their doctorates in veterinary parasitology. He asked if I would be willing to help them learn English and in return, they would help me with my Italian studies. I assured them that I was not up to date on my veterinarian terminology, but I would be glad to help them out. Orfeo said that would be no problem because they were familiar with the lingo.
Within the following TWO HOURS, I met their pet lovebird, Pedro—who was a pretty flighty character. They felt pretty open to discuss matters that I was always told were not polite to talk about: religion and politics. They had a lot of questions about what “my religion” believed in comparison to that of Catholicism. Their theological understanding went as far as Dan Brown (author of the Da Vinci Code) could take them and they had questions about Jesus’ relationship with Magdalene, the formation/authorship of the New Testament and its relationship to the “hidden gospels” of the apocrypha. I was quite surprised at their openness and such questions, but I felt comfortable to speak freely about Jesus’ love for people and willingness to be with people that weren’t valuable to society. I shared with them that I thought Magdalene may have been of ill-repute, but that they were friends and not lovers (as Dan Brown suggests the opposite). They asked if “my religion” was under the pope or if we had something like a pope. I got to explain a bit about our churches freedom to operate without papal authority and how I really liked John Paul II. On further topics of authority, they inquired about my feelings about Bush and the U.S. involvement in Iraq. I shared that I felt that war was not a good thing and that the American people are good people, but that the government tends to take a Machiavellian approach to its self-preservation. I shared how I felt that the philosophy of “the ends justifies the means” does not better humanity but often destroys it and that I have no hope in politics. The conversation slowly died down and they told me they had to get groceries before the store closed. Orfeo showed me out and contentedly said, “We agree with all you have said.” We scheduled a time at the end of January to get back together and practice English and Italian while saying our goodbyes.
Someone must have said a prayer for me this morning. Normally, I am not able to carry on a conversation in Italian for two hours straight, but we somehow managed to communicate. After living here for several months, today really showed me how far I have been able to come with the language, and how God uses us in everyday situations. I hope to share further with Orfeo and Alessia as I finish up my last few months here in Perugia. But I would really appreciate your prayers for guidance and for more opportunities like this. I still have to connect back up with Bruno, but he wasn’t home this afternoon. Who would have thought that taking out your trash could be so eventful?

