Ciao!
We're sure you heard about the earthquake here in Aquila, and we
thought you might like to hear how the story is unfolding. The
earthquake hit in the early morning hours and by 9:00 AM wed. we had a
special meeting at the KH in Aquila with brothers from bethel, CO’s,
DO’s and local elders with the regional construction crews.
Some of the families were sent down to the assembly hall in Roseto
where they had trailers waiting for them so they’d have a safe place
to stay. The tremors continued and there was a particularly large one
felt all
the way down in Rome within 24 hrs. of the first.
One sister relates how she and her brother started looking right away
for the friends and helped several that were blocked inside of their
houses. There were a few of the older ones that were not responding to
their cell phones and couldn’t be located temporarily. You could
imagine the immense joy when everyone met on the pre-assigned plaza
and everyone was accounted for!
One young pioneer wrote a SMS on the cell phone: “Don’t worry about me,
I’m staying with a family of brothers I just met. They bought me a
re-charge for my cell phone which is now my only possession and I’ve
been keeping in touch with the friends. This will be the first
Memorial that I’m not worried about what I’ll be wearing. None of us
have anything but the shirt on our backs and we don’t even care! We
are happy to be alive and attend another Memorial together with all
the brothers that thankfully made it.”
Another wrote, “ At the assembly last week we were reminded about the
sadness that Jesus felt when his cousin John the Baptist was
be-headed. Remember that he withdrew to be alone but a crowd arrived
and he ended up witnessing to them, building a hope in their hearts
for the future. That
is exactly what is happening to us here in Abruzzi. Several of us felt
the need to withdraw and mourn over our loss, but it was impossible.
There were too many people mourning with no hope, no future. We ended up
witnessing, taking care of them and inviting them to the Memorial. We
were still sad at the end of the day but not empty.”
The brothers set-up a trailer-city which you can easily spot from the
village of Popoli in a parking lot of a commercial center. There are
now some 70 trailers there and the brothers that were down in Roseto
at the
assembly hall have returned to Aquila. They set-up a tent in the
parking-lot in front of the K.H. there in Abruzzi for the Memorial and
there was 118 present. Another 111 were still down in Roseto for the
Memorial.
The assembly hall in Roseto was quickly converted into a deposit with
clothing, blankets, food, water, supplies etc. contributed by the
brothers from all over Italy. In one parking lot in a neighboring
village (Foligno) a man came up to some of the brothers loading a
truck with boxes. He asked who they were and where they were sending
it to. They explained they
were Jehovah’s Witnesses and that they were preparing this for their
brothers and anyone else in need in Aquila. He right away contributed
several cases of food form a large chain-food store stating, “I’m sure
this will get to those in need with you people”.
Several congregations flat-out bought camping trailors for the
brothers to have a place to sleep at night and sent them to Aquila.
Others put together packages of clothing to have ready before the
Memorial and everyone sent food and other needed items. The town
remained pleasantly surprised at how fast bethel together with the
regional committee sent specialists into the area to insure water,
electricity, medical personal, food & sustenance to the locals there.
As usual, they were the first to
respond and be on hand.
We had 390 here in Florence for our Memorial in Spanish and we're up
to about 130 publishers divided into 2 congregations & 1 group. We
were only 180 for the Memorial 3 years ago so the huge wave of
immigration is working to our advantage in this field. Italy is barely
hanging on
by it's seams with the ever increasing population, but it's ok with us.
Hang in there, there's a lot more coming soon!
XXXXXX XXXXXXX
