Back in US of A (briefly)

Before I left Italy I was invited into the sculpture school for a tour with Elia a good friend & sculptor who is so encouraging in His love for Jesus. Here are a couple photos:

Anyway after waking up at 4 am walking a mile with my bags from my new apartment to the train station...riding the train to Milan...riding a shuttle to the airport...catching flight #1 to Newark...flight #2 to Houston...getting a ride home with Huan (my former roommate)...visiting NASA...and catching the Greyhound bus to Austin...I am back in the US of A!

But I am not here for long...though I did not know that until just recently; I will be departing on March 18th to head back to Torino until it is time to submit my university VISA application to the Italian Consulate in Houston (probably in late April or May).

In the mean time I running around trying to get the documents prepared...ready for another longwinded list (in one big deep breath). With my ORIGINAL High School Diploma (yeah right...I got and lost that thing 10 years ago) I have to...find it...send it to the high school so they can write a statement physically on the diploma stating it is authentic...have it witnessed by a notary...I have to then send it to the secretary of state of Michigan for the Notary's signature to be authenticated...then it comes back to me to be translated into Italian and is send to the Italian Consulate in Michigan for the translation to be certified...then it is sent to me again to be submitted with my application packet to the Italian Consulate in Houston (ok, exhale). And that is just one of the documents I have to do this with!

But I am excited because it all does seem very doable and it also looks like God is really opening up a great door for me to do ministry at Politecnico from the inside out...which I think will be better than what we could have envisioned. He's pretty crazy how things do look very bleak...but right at the end are worked out.

I am off to sleep!
Ciao!
Ben