Today we completed our last of three concerts in Italy. We performed the musical drama “Celebrate Life” - which tells the gospel story of the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus through song and narrations by characters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
One of the riches blessings on this trip has been sharing the stage with the members of the Ariccian church. The 4 narrators for the drama were Alberto (younger) Alberto (older), Christina, and Alessandra. They memorized all of their narrations and delivered stellar performances at every show. The best part was that they spoke their lines in Italian. The whole production was a beautiful bilingual blend of Italian and English.
Our first performance was Friday evening in Albano Italy. If you are traveling from Ariccia to Rome, Albano is the first town you reach after leaving Ariccia. Gabriela Lio, our host pastor in Ariccia, also pastors an ecumenical congregation in Albano. They worship in an old church that has been restored and is now a community worship center. The acoustics were incredible. We performed before a respectable Friday ngiht crowd and after our concert Gabriela collected an offering for the Italian Baptist Medical Missions program in Zimbabwe Africa. It was exciting to see how our missions efforts were being multiplied in an unexpected way to help the Italian Baptist mission work in Africa through our presentation of “Celebrate Life“.
Last night’s (Saturday) performance was at the church in Ariccia. It was a packed house (for a small church) and very hot. Our group rose to the occasion and performed a great concert. I was sure that someone would faint during the concert, but everyone made it through. The audience was so appreciative and very encouraging.
After the concert the audience was invited to a community sized meal in celebration of the birthdays of two of the congregation - Spartacus (a WWII veteran) and Aurora (a young girl 7 or 8 whose father works in the bakery next door to the church). It was an incredible feast with lots of singing, laughing, and eating.
This morning we sang at the Taylor Institute in Rome Italy. The Taylor Institute was established by David Taylor of Virginia USA after World War II to help the widows, orphans, and elderly of Rome. Today the Institute serves as a retirement home for the community. Sadly, 4 years ago, due to lack of funding they had to close their centers for the orphans and families.
We performed for the 11am worship service for the Baptist congregation that worships at the Taylor institute. The performance went very well, the best of the 3, and again money was collected for the Italian Baptist efforts in Zimbabwe.
After worship we were treated to lunch at the Taylor Institute with the members of the community. It was touching to talk to several who came to the institute 30+ years ago as orphans or widowed mothers who still leave nearby and continue to volunteer and help lead worship, activities, and programs at the institute.
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