Fred and I left Italy at the end of February with a brutal schedule which included reporting in supporting churches every weekend except one ending the 5th of November when we fly back to Italy. We would be traveling from California to New York to Ohio to New York to Houston to Saint Louis, Missouri to Chicago to Edmonton, Canada to Richmond Virginia to New York where we would speak in the majority of our supporting churches. We made it as far as Ohio when most states were shut down and our friends allowed us to quarantine in their basement apartment for 50 days. 

Our tenth furlough is the first one in which we have had a “long restful time”. But we soon realized we needed to redeem the time and find useful things to do. We were able to continue our contact with the church in Italy through the internet and have lovely prayer times on Wednesdays with different members. They too are only allowed to worship through the internet. Fred began spending an hour a day studying his Hebrew course but what could I do? Would retirement look like this? Would I no longer have a way to touch the lives of our precious nation of Italy? 

After a few weeks, I was contacted by a man who had asked me in our furlough of 2016 to translate a booklet that could be used to help Sunday School teachers and parents present the Gospel to the children in Italy. This booklet will now be distributed in Italy on kindle and they wanted the translation of the revised version. Yeah. I could take on this project. The booklet is, Helping Children to Understand the Gospel by Sally Michael, Jill Nelson, and Bud Burk. Why am I so passionate about getting this booklet into the hands of our folks? I am convinced that in many churches and in many Christian families children are encouraged to say a prayer to “accept Christ” before they have understood the Gospel. As adults, though they have never loved God nor obeyed him they feel safe from eternal damnation for the prayer said.

I am an example of that kind of evangelism. I only understood and came to know God during my second semester of Bible college. God made me realize during prayer meetings as I listened to people conversing with the God they loved and served that I had never truly been born again.
I highly recommend purchasing Helping Children Understand the Gospel through the organization Truth:78