No. 3December2015
The Bridge
Newsletter of
Ponte Sant’Angelo
Methodist Church Rome
“I look upon all the world as my parish.” John Wesley
Dear friends,
Given the wealth of material flooding in for this edition of The Bridge, I will confine myself to a brief word commending all that is going on in the life of the Church as we enter into our 60th anniversary year and wishing you all well for the approaching Christmas season.
We will be welcoming back those who had their home here for some years. Homecomings are occasions for looking back, mindful that the places we knew won’t look or feel the same as when we were there last. That’s the nature of change as we adjust to changing situations, noting with sadness those who have moved on.
We continue to be a welcoming church to those who choose to become part of our fellowship. Lindsay’s piece is a reminder how important this ministry of welcome is. And Jenny’s article reminds us of how we offer what we have as a resource here at PSA for those who are only slowly putting down roots in a new country and need to be equipped as well as made to feel welcome.
Jesus was a stranger born in borrowed surroundings in a part of the country where Mary and Joseph did not belong. The cruelty of King Herod and his forced exile to Egypt is mirrored by the experience of thousands in Europe today to whom we offer welcome and shelter.
But Jesus goes home to Nazareth and has the security of parents who loved and cared for him. We offer to all a safe place to encounter the Living God who deigns to dwell with us in Jesus, God with us, to offer us new life.
Angela and I extend to you warm greetings for a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
Yours in Christ, Pastor Tim
WORSHIP
Forthcoming services:
Worship at 1030am on Sundays will be led by
6th DecemberPastor Tim to include Holy Communion
13thDecemberKassim Conteh and Dr Valdo Bertalot
20th DecemberPastor Tim All Age Worship involvingthe Sunday School. Pot Luck Lunch to follow.
27th DecemberPastor Tim to include Birthday Basket
3rd JanuaryPastor Tim leading our Covenant Communion Service at the beginning of the New Year
10th JanuaryRev Dr Trevor Hoggard with Pot Luck Lunch to follow
17th JanuaryPastor Tim
24th JanuaryThe Ven. Jonathan Boardman for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
31st JanuaryPastor Tim to include Holy Communion and Birthday Basket
7th FebruaryKassim Conteh
14th FebruaryPastor Tim
21stFebruaryPastor Tim
28th FebruaryPastor Tim followed by Church Council
Introduction to visiting preachers:
• Valdo Bertalotis General Secretary of the Bible Society in Italy
• Trevor Hoggard was minister at PSA 2006-2011. He presently holds an appointment in the Church in New Zealand and serves on the Methodist/Roman Catholic International Dialogue.
• Jonathan BoardmanisChaplain at All Saintsand Archdeacon of Italy and Malta in the Anglican Diocese of Europe. This year All Saints celebrates 200 years of Anglicanism in Rome.
• Kassim Conteh is a student at the Facoltà assigned to us for his practical ministry experience this year. He writes of himself:
My name is Kassim and I’m from the Methodist Church of Milan (Via Porro Lambertenghi, 28). I’m originally from Sierra Leone, but in Italy since 1998 (17 years now). I’m 25 years old and it’s 3 years that I’ve been studying in the Waldensian Faculty of Theology to become, by God’s grace, a Minister of the Word. I grew up in a Methodist family. My grandmother was a reverend down in my country. It’s even thanks to her that I recognized my vocation. As a child, differently from my companions, in addition to Sunday school, I was receiving every day at home lessons in the Bible. I admit that as a child it was a bit a torture, but she and all the small / great events in my life, collaborate to form the Kassim today. I realize, though, that I still have a lot to learn, and I’m asking the Lord to help me to grow every day, to become not what I want, but what He wants so that I can carry out for him a good service.
Many thanks to Pastor Tim and your community for being available to accompanying me in my growth. Besides learning new things from you, I hope and pray I can also leave something nice for your community, which I have in my small store of experience.
God bless you!Kassim
Other events and worship elsewhere
13th December Concert at All Saints with the New Chamber Singers
19thAlternative Worship at All Saints
20th Carol Service at 6-00pm at All Saints
11th Jan Art Exhibition on Reconciliation at the Anglican Centre from 6-8pm
25th January at 530pm Ecumenical Vespers at St Paul’s without the Walls
4th March World Day of Prayer at IV Novembre
CHURCH FAMILY NEWS:
Rome = Home?Reflections by Lindsay Twomlow
What is home? Where is home?
In isolation should these be easy questions to answer?For the consummate expat such questions raise much soul searching.
It is 16 years since we as a family left the UK and embarked on our life–changing adventure.
I sometimes use the expression ‘going home’ for the UK only because my Father still lives in the house in which I was born and raised. This was my home and still is my home. It is very familiar to me. Over the years there have been a few changes, some home improvements but fundamentally it is a place where I can function ‘on auto-pilot’ and things are more or less where I would expect to find them!
So, where is home really?My quick answer is:“home is where my pillow lies”!
Think for a moment about your relationship with your pillow: it is quite intimate. If you have your own pillow, wherever you may be, it automatically creates a feeling of comfort and maybe a smell that you barely even notice is there – unless it is taken away, and then you immediately miss it.
Is Rome home for me?
I believe that when you relocate and in particular to a new country, becoming home is very much a process with many factors falling together. It can be likened to building a jigsaw puzzle.
After almost 15 months in Rome the answer is a compelling “YES” and once again we have achieved “home status” in a foreign land. We have so much to be grateful for and almost everyday, without exception, I give thanks for the incredible opportunities that have come our way. Rome via Zimbabwe (almost 9 years) and Kenya (almost 6 years)!
I find that reflection with growth, learning and understanding can be such a valuable tool, but being conscious of not jumping on the hindsight bandwagon! We are all enrolled in that club at some point in our lives!
When did Rome become home?It is a fair and interesting question.
On the last Sunday in September of 2014 I walked into Ponte Sant’Angelo for the first time. Within just a few minutes I immediately felt at home. I am a Methodist born and bred so the familiar hymns, format of the service and the style of singing were and continue to be very familiar. I vividly remember the smiles and greetings, with Tim introducing himself before the service started, and I registered that he seemed visibly happy that I was not just a tourist! To qualify, before I offend tourists: many of them pass through the church and I was a little more unique in revealing that we had just moved to Rome!
We live in a beautiful apartment in San Saba (close to Circo Massimo and Colosseo), but after many years of living in Africa in mansions of typical expat style, it was a big adjustment! For the first few weeks we ‘camped out’ with the bare minimum of possessions to get us through those first few weeks. The dog, aged 11 years, arrived before the household goods but the presence of that animal helped to normalise life!
As always there is great excitement when the shipment arrives, 10 weeks or so since we had waved the container goodbye in Nairobi, with that niggle in the back of our minds: “Would we ever see our things again?”
As Christians we are taught not to hold too much attachment to our possessions and for most of day-to-day living I can achieve that status quo.
Let me tell you, however, when that container arrives and those ‘things’ start to fill the apartment – the familiar ornaments, our own beds, that comfortable chair, my cooking/baking/preparing gadgets and other kitchen items – it is really difficult not to get excited and give far too much emphasis to these material ‘things’. It is precisely these items that almost immediately transform that empty, echoing apartment into a home!
The story does not, thankfully, end there so I can be forgiven the mere mention of our ‘junk’ that has travelled the high seas!
Home is much more than an apartment filled with familiar African artwork, comfortable furniture, cosy bedding and photographs of loved ones adorning the walls.
Home is:
-being able to communicate and making myself understood, very difficult at first when I spoke NO Italian!;
-going out into the neighbourhood and seeing familiar faces;
-talking to the local greengrocer about football – he always asks me, in Italian: “How are Manchester City doing?”
-going to the market and having a discussion about how to prepare anchovies or relaxing at the hairdressers and chatting about the weather and the family, all in Italian!
-NOT having that glazed look because I haven’t got a clue what is being said to me!
-NOTwanderingaroundthesupermarket desperately looking for a familiar brand!
– And probably the most amusing: the local flower seller calling to my husband offering to help carry me up the stairs (54 stairs and no elevator in our building!) when he saw us arrive from the hospital, me with a cast on my left leg! At this point I explained, in Italian, that the physiotherapist had taught me how to cope with the stairs!!
Home is all these things and many more, BUT the most important and fundamental element that makes a home after the family is FRIENDS! For an expat, friends are your family.
I recently I had surgery on my foot and ankle, following a fall many years ago which more recently had led to chronic pain.
I was immobile for a time with first a cast, as referred to previously, and then an orthopaedic boot, using two crutches, then down to one and finally onto a walking stick!
I could not drive and relied on my husband for a time.He could not stay away from work forever so of course I had to start and manage some regular tasks. That said, I did inevitably suffer from a temporary loss of independence.The feeling of home was very much the phone calls, texts and e-mails asking after my progress and offers of help.
Home is the knowledge that I could call someone if I had a problem, which is one of the most comforting feelings you can have when you are still settling down in a new place.
So I want to close with a big THANK-YOU to everyone for caring, showing concern, visiting and offering help.
Thank you for being part of my “Home Sweet Rome”.
Lindsay Twomlow
CHURCH COUNCIL NEWS
Excerpts from the recent meeting:
– We plan to have a pot luck lunch those Sundays when we have visiting preachers during our anniversary year;
– We discussed the possibility of supporting a project to help disabled people in Ghana as part of our anniversary year;
– We noted the improvements to our rooms, the painting and lighting. We hope to purchase 50 new chairs for the gallery once improvements to the flooring are made. These will cost around 50 euros each. If you would like to contribute towards the cost of one of these perhaps you could have a special bake or fundraising effort of some sort to contribute. And if you are not a member of our Envelope scheme, contributing on a regular basis to PSA, please see Marcello Marinelli for details;
– We hope to have a church outing to Ecumene at Pentecost on May 15th.
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
Sunday School:
Sandra Mi reports that we have a good Sunday School group with regular attendance by four or five young people of ages ranging between 6 and 16! Quite a challenge from the point of view of teaching, but the youngsters are all very patient with each other and enjoy taking part in activities at different levels. We are now using teaching material which is based on the weekly lectionary so the lessons follow the Bible readings used in church each Sunday. The children sometimes pin their work on the notice board in the social hour room so please take a look from time to time!
Wednesday Bible Studies:
The Wednesday Bible study group continues to meet and is enriched by two members from other churches. So far only ladies, but don’t forget this is not a ladies-only group! It is for anyone, young or old, who is free during the week and who wants to study the Bible in a friendly environment over a cup of coffee. I was personally delighted that one of our members asked us to meet at her house twice, since following an operation she was unable to get to PSA, but didn’t want to miss the study!
We have started the study of Revelation, a prophetic book that reveals the ultimate destiny of humanity and God’s kingdom. Before getting into Revelation we looked at the subject of prophecy in general and discovered that more than a quarter of the Bible contains prophecy, 27 percent in fact, and were thrilled to hear that Bible scholars have calculated that about half of all Bible prophecy has already been fulfilled. So we are learning that because of God’s perfect record of fulfilling past prophecies, we can completely trust his prophecy for what is yet to come and live expectantly and without fear.
At a recent study where we read of John’s vision of Christ in all his glory, we couldn’t help but remember the words of one of the most loved Charles Wesley hymns which we sing at Advent:
Lo, he comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
God appears on earth to reign.
Every eye shall now behold him
Robed in glorious majesty;
Those who set at nought and sold him,
Pierced and nailed him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing
Shall the true Messiah see.
Other bible study opportunity:
Alessia and Federico hold a bible study at their home in Via Del Casaletto 63 (near the end of tram 8) Citofono: MILANI MONTELLI – First floor. For further information for this ecumenical time of studying the bible together, ring3781675680 or email
ECUMENISM AND THE WIDER CHURCH
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: the Churches Together in Rome service will be held on Sunday 24th January at 5pm at St Andrew’s Church of Scotland, XX Settembre. The preacher will be the Rev. Willie McCulloch as this is his last year in Rome.
Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome:
We have some important visitors coming to mark the opening of MEOR. The European Methodist Council Executive meets here the week after Easter and then stakeholders of MEOR gather for its official launch around the 6th April.
MISSION AND OUTREACH
Italian language school for migrants and refugees at Ponte Sant'Angelo – Autumn 2015report by Jenny Smith
As you may know, the Consulta of the Evangelical Churches in the Rome Area has taken over management of the Italian language school for migrants and refugees previously run at Ponte Sant'Angelo by the Servizio Migranti of the FCEI. It is good to report that the classes which opened on 12 October 2015 have over 40 students in two classes. A third class started on 9 November for students who already have some knowledge of Italian. Students come from various countries: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Ukraine, to name but a few. The hours are the same as previously, Mon/Tues/Wed 15.00 to 17.00 hrs. And the same team of experienced teachers are continuing (one afternoon each per week), with the additional support of two trainees supplied by the Italian Schools for Migrants website people who have been very helpful.The Consulta was formally registered with a statute a few months ago, and is therefore now in a position to present projects under the 8x1000 tax benefit scheme. They currently run a project for Work Integration assistance; those requiring advice can go to Via Firenze 38 (ground floor, on the right as you go in) on Friday mornings.
Tandem Language Exchange
Marzia Scuderi, who coordinates the young adults group at Via Firenze, recently introduced a language exchange scheme. The idea is to pair people who want to learn a different language so that they teach one another informally rather than attending fixed classes.It is of course an experiment - but Rome seems the ideal place to make a start, as with people from so many different countries there should be a good variety of languages to choose!If you are interested, contact Marzia by email: