Ministry Is Still Happening in Italy

Dearest Praying partners,

Thank you for your interest in us and the Lord’s ministry here in Northern Italy.

Like Most of you we were overwhelmed and shocked when on the 20th of February Coronavirus had its first victim here in Italy. From that moment it spread like wildfire all over northern Italy, especially Milan and surrounding towns. Our church was closed down soon after.  So, we started meeting in small groups; then we went into severe lockdown around the 8th of March.  This meant no physical contact with our daughter Elisabetta and son in law Pablo and all church members.  We are not allowed out of our small village but only to go grocery shopping at a little store nearby. We hope that on the 4th of May we will start to go back to some kind of normality, but it will be a very slow progress.  Up to now almost 24,000 people have died.  This is one of the hardest and painful moments that Italy has had to face in decades.

As far as ministry is concerned.  We have been able to set up a Zoom platform where we can have our Sunday worship service, Tuesday evening prayer meeting, Friday evening Bible Study and Saturday evening Youth Group meeting. In these meetings brothers and sisters can pray, share meditations and testimonies as well as call for hymns and worship songs.

For those members who do not have a computer, we call them personally and try to encourage them in their spiritual walk.  Mirco personally prays for everyone whom he calls.

Mirco is also involved with keeping contact with other Italian Pastors and programming the possibility to be able to teach through internet to small groups and churches that do not have leaders.

We evangelize through text messages, telephone calls and emails, plus share the Gospel with our neighbors as we make new friends (we have only been living here in Castlenovo Bariano since mid-October) when we go on our walks around our village.

Please pray that this Lockdown would bring many souls here in Italy to trust in the Lord and be joined to the local churches,

Thank you for being our partners in ministry and continue to believe in what we are doing.  This is very important to us.

God bless and keep you all safe,

Mirco and Paola Franzini.