Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. (‭Acts of the Apostles‬ ‭2‬:‭3-4‬ NLT)

When We Come Alive by Switchfoot
The sun goes down like a photograph
You try to stop time in the aftermath
But it’s gone, gone

Yesterday reads like a tragedy
I try not to lose what’s left of me
But it’s gone
Yeah, but we carry on

‘Cause we are fire
Burning brightly
You and I

We light the sky
When we ignite, yeah, yeah
When we come alive
When we come alive

It feels like I could get lost today
The winds in my mind get swept away
And I’m gone, gone

And it’s one last time to the wishing well
I throw down the change and I wish them well
But they’re gone
Yeah, but we’ll carry on

We are souls on fire
We are reaching higher
We are souls on fire
When we come alive
When we come alive

Strength, heart, soul

Some have asked me to write about my time in Italy, but I don’t even know where to begin! This song above was on our playlist while we traveled around Italy. This song expresses deep nostalgia and gratitude for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Recently, we watched a live performance of it on TV which brought memories after memories…

Woke up this morning feeling a deep nostalgia as summer comes to an end. Nostalgia has definitely been a theme in our readings this week. Lately, Kenny has been reading the Book of Acts as I make my way into the Book of Genesis. Every day we like to share what God has been teaching us through our readings and we realize how the Lord has used each word to teach us very similar lessons of faith. Kenny is becoming a very passionate teacher of the Word and I look forward to hearing his illustrations and his applications to every day life.

As my feelings of nostalgia deepened, I couldn’t stop thinking about the disciples after losing Jesus to the cross. Confusion, disbelief, perhaps even deception? They probably wondered if they had just woken up from a long dream and if the years of ministry were nothing but an illusion. Despite their imperfections, they loved Jesus and they knew they were unconditionally loved by Him. But Jesus was …gone? Did they doubt? Were they disillusioned that their time with Him was over?

As the story continues in Acts, Jesus eventually comes back with a gift. The gift of the Holy Spirit that every believer receives the moment they place their faith in Him.

A gift that we continually take for granted.

I look back to my time spent in Italy and I realized the times I’ve taken my family, my friends, and even my faith for granted. I’ve thought of times I’ve been taken for granted. It hurts. Yet we don’t stop reciprocating hurt. It’s true when they say “Hurt people hurt people,” like an ugly disease we pass the indifference and our deepest hurts on to others. What if the disciples decided to keep their experiences to themselves? What if instead of love, they only preached their hurts and their disdain for humanity in how they treated their Savior? Instead, they preached the grace of their Savior and took it to places that they weren’t even welcomed. They told people they were forgiven of their sins. What’s their secret we ask?

They knew that it’s not about “me.” They genuinely care for the salvation of others. They avoided gossip among their fellow brothers and sisters. Gossip. A common murderer in the church these days.

This time I said, I wouldn’t take my Italian family for granted. This time, the language barrier wasn’t going to be an excuse…

In June, I took Kenny across the Atlantic for his first time to meet my other half, mia famiglia! Last time I visited was 8 years ago!

Well… a lot has happened in 8 years and although I have yet to master the Italian language, I’ve always felt a deep connection to all things Italian. Kenny and I have been married 3 years this August, but there was a small part of me I haven’t shared with him. Traveling to meet my family became a mission to introduce him to this burning desire in my heart that can’t be described with words but only with experience. A love that can be felt there and a love that transcends languages. The deep love for family. Eight years ago I had visited Italy for 6 weeks with the mission of sharing the Gospel in Florence, and family welcomed me and received me with arms wide open. Visiting them was always a treat because they made me feel like time, distance and language weren’t enough reasons to separate home and family. This became my home away from home. This time, however, I was introducing one love to my other love. I honestly didn’t know what to expect…except every evening being in company of a loving family and a delicious house-made Italian meal! I remember my first time in Italy and that’s the biggest souvenir I took with me: the memory of being unconditionally loved by people who barely knew me. We fellowshipped around a table with amazing food and my Zia would make me house-made chicken nuggets because that’s all I wanted to eat then!- and that’s my biggest sin there!

Fast forward 14 years since my first visit and not once did I eat chicken nuggets!

Needless to say, there’s simply love.

We never had a bad meal or moment, except when we weren’t with family! After arriving in Rome, we stayed with family in Viterbo, a beautiful and historical town two hours north of Rome. We were given a cell phone, a walking GPS and we took the train to Florence from Orte.

Everything in the center of Florence is at walking distance, but that didn’t stop us from getting lost! The moment we stepped out of the train, we gave into something familiar, a McDonalds! We went in for the WiFi, but the curiosity of an Italian McDonalds made Kenny want to eat there. Still…no chicken nuggets! After our sinful non-Italian lunch, we headed towards our bed & breakfast. With an Italian GPS guiding us, we got lost. The bed & breakfast was supposed to be a mile away from the train station, but that wasn’t the case. As the GPS kept losing us, I stopped at a store and with my broken Italian, we were given directions. We followed the kind lady’s advice and walked towards the Fortalezza. The GPS kept telling us to go straight and promised us we were near. We had no choice but to follow the GPS again and then to our surprise we arrived to our destination, or so according to the GPS. Only problem is, everything around us looked residential! I finally gave in and called the hotel. A friendly voice answered in Italian. She claimed we were “here,” but in my broken Italian I kept insisting we are lost. She kept saying that we were right there, which puzzled us even more. I was staring at uneven numbers across the street and I was looking for the very even building #8. So I plopped down and I gave up as the waterworks followed! I started to apologize to Kenny for a horrible vacation. I felt like Florence was the one city I couldn’t get lost in because I lived there for a whole summer! As pedestrians stared at me, an upset crying woman, then they chose to look at Kenny with a disappointing look. Kenny begged me to get up because I’m making him look like a horrible person. Little did we know, right behind where I was sitting and crying was the bed & breakfast we were looking for with a big sign and my name was on it!

To avoid getting lost, we used Il Duomo to guide us for the rest of our time, our new GPS there

Note to self: never eat in a tourist-packed restaurant ever again… The piazza is beautiful and it’s nice to look at the sights while eating, but the food is not authentic!

Then there was our day in Venice: We woke up one morning in Florence and randomly decided to take a train to Venice. Let’s just say that even the gentleman behind the ticket counter thought we were nuts, I mean, who goes to Venice for 6 hours?

We were also assigned separate seats. It took Kenny to convince a lady sitting next to him to switch seats with me. Then came a beautiful Middle-Eastern family from England and they sat across our seats. A mom trying to calm her 2-year old while dad was cracking jokes and being the life of the very silent train. We found them delightful and before we knew it, we were in Venice. After we said our goodbyes, we realized that we should have exchanged numbers or something, but it was too late. That’s the mystery of life, we meet people for a second then they are gone. But somehow we left a thread that still connect us to them and to others around the globe, even if we never see them again.

After arriving, we realized that the quickest way to see Venice is through a 3-hour tour, which would give us time to get back to our 7pm train. We bought the tour which included a not-so-romantic gondola ride and we took the water bus to Piazza San Marco. Oh did I mention that we almost missed our non-refundable tour because the water bus took longer than we expected? Let’s just say, it was Florence all over again! Kenny had never seen me run into groups and groups of Asian tourists like that. He couldn’t even catch up!

After walking the streets of Venice and learning a little bit about the history, we hung out at the famous Piazza San Marco and ate a delicious panini. It was close to 5pm and that was our first meal of the day. We were so in awe by the beauty of this city that it felt like it was all a dream. A dream that ended too soon!

We headed back to Florence for one more day of exploring there.

On our last day in Florence, we got lost again. But this time we just kept walking and eventually found ourselves in front if Il Duomo again. Finally, we headed down to one of the most popular art galleries, the Uffizi gallery. We recognized a lot of the art and we admired a lot of the (naked) statues. But we were hunting for the one naked statue, the David. When we reached the end of the exhibition, we asked an employee if she knew where David was. She looked at us like we were trippin’ but still answered our question. The David is actually in the Accademmia, another gallery in Florence. We felt like the stereotypical dumb Americans that Europeans mock. We smiled and walked away knowing that we would never see her again! Our train was leaving in an hour and we headed back to the hotel to get our bags and we left Florence without visiting David.

When we arrived to Viterbo that night, Zia had this amazing dinner made for us. Of course, she made it sound like it was the easiest thing to cook, but at 10pm after a long trip, it was a pleasure being home again. Nothing says “Welcome Home” like a simple home-cooked dinner.

The next day, we headed to Vatican City by train. When we arrived, we literally got lost in the crowd. There was an immensely amount of people there and we couldn’t understand why because St.Peter’s Basilica was closed! Some random tour guide offered us a deal to get into the Vatican museum and we said yes. Now, normally we wouldn’t accept a “deal” by a random person but we were so overwhelmed with pushing and shoving of people, the “deal” was our ticket out of there.

After our museum and Sistine Chapel tour, we decided to head back to the train station. The crowd once again called our attention. This time, however, it was an organized crowd and they were all listening to someone speak. Well, that someone happened to be Pope Francis speaking about the importance of sports in church ministry as a tool to spread the Gospel. Now, put your beliefs aside, this is a historical and spiritual figure of the Church. We had to stay.

For dinner, our family took us to this hole in the wall restaurant in Viterbo, where we finally had authentic Italian food outside of home. The best part of the night was witnessing Kenny open up to my family and calling them his. The mission was almost accomplished.

The next day, Zio and Zia drove us to Rome for a quick tour before we boarded the train to Calabria, Southern Italy.

My highlight that day was visiting St.Paul’s Basilica which is where Paul was buried after he was martyred. Goosebumps!

Our time in Italy was coming to an end, but we couldn’t leave without visiting more family. My Zio Rino and his lovely family were expecting us and had a whole itinerary planned for us. They welcomed us with a delightful Southern Italian dinner before going to bed. The next day, they took us to Praia a Mare, where there is the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen and it’s right by their house.

After our delicious seafood lunch, Zio took us to see one of the churches he pastors. Then we went up to see the Christ Redeemer of Maratea. What a sight! I wish I could post all of our pictures, but they don’t even do justice to what we really experienced that day… Brazil, eat your heart out!

Our last day in Calabria, Zio and family took us to meet more family in Cosenza where we had a picnic on top of the Sila mountain. An all-familiar sight, the last time I visited there I was a boy-band-obsessed teen with no appreciation of culture. This was a long ride, but the sights were overwhelmingly beautiful. After getting there, we never stopped eating….eating….eating. Kenny promised he would never eat again as our family kept filling our plates with more Italian delicacies.

We didn’t have dinner, we couldn’t! Saying good bye to our Southern family was really difficult as there’s not just that blood relation, but there’s also that spiritual bond, it is Christ who unites us. One of my aunts also gave me the best gift I’ve ever received, a plate with a flower design that belonged to my nonna, whom I never had the pleasure to meet. My eyes welled up with tears and the bus ride back to Rome was a highly emotional one. In my hands, I held a valuable that belonged to my grandmother. She was a lovely lady who suffered a lot in life, all I know of her is the stories I’ve been told by my dad. I wish I had met her. She died too soon.

That night would be our last sunset in Italy, until next summer. Our journey was better than expected, but family made it spectacular. And then, there was Lupo…

So as a I write this with deep nostalgia, as “When We Come Alive,” plays loudly on the iPad, I think of the gifts that God has granted us through the Holy Spirit.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. (‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭13‬ NLT)