Today we met with a guy born in NZ but living in Italy, having done missions here for the last 20 years. We met at the train station and over lunch talked about his work here in Rome with the migrants, very interesting and loads of good information for us. 😊 The migrants in Rome are mainly from Bangladesh & Senegal. He says these people groups are very hard to work with but they have set up a migrants centre on the outskirts of Rome, we took the train out to the centre and the outskirts of Rome reminded us so much of the outskirts of Kampala! The centre was closed because of summer holiday break but the work they do with the migrants is teaching them Italian so they can live and communicate here in Rome, helping by learning, building relationships and sharing God’s love & hope. Many refuse to accept Jesus Christ because they have so many barriers with family, friends and religions. One young man converted to Christianity and because his father was high in leadership in his previous religion, he was banished from his family & if he returned home they would kill him! He speaks Bengali, Italian & English - he has decided to live and minister to his fellow migrants in Italy.
We came away from hearing all these stories and realising how protected our life in NZ is!
We navigated our way back to Rome city centre on the train and headed out for dinner. of course, when in Rome....... even tho we are not Pasta eaters ....... we thought we can't leave Rome with eating something local, so we indulged in a spaghetti pasta meal followed by Italian tiramisu!!!! Wahooo we are now converted to real Italian pasta only !!!!
