Arrivederci Italia

Well folks, the time has come. It is 1:06 am here in Italy, I just finished packing, and we wake up in 4 short hours to get to the airport by 8:20 for our flights back to Orlando. It's so strange that by the end of this "day" we will be home, in familiar Orlando, with our family, friends, and other native English speakers. Thank you all for your prayers, interest, support, notes, and comments. We are still behind on posting on the blog, so after we get home, we'll post pictures from Rome, Paris, our Venice/Pordenone/Udine trip for Pasqua (Easter), and our day trip to Florence on Friday, along with videos from ESL, pictures from our last days of class, and pictures from our very pleasant and touching last day in Italy. Keep an eye out for these posts, along with entries about our favorite things and memories from our stay here.
Ci vediamo (we'll see you!) and if not, ci sentiamo (we'll hear from each other!)

Love to you all,
Rachel, writing for Joanna also.

To: Dad

Thank you for helping us with all the details of this trip and for helping us keep track of our taxes and scholarships and everything else while we are away. And thank you for your love and prayers. You're the best.

We miss you!

Love,
Joanna

Italian Fundraiser Dinner

Hey friends! Time for some pictures from our first Italian fundraiser dinner. We had a lot of fun; thanks to our friends and fam who came out and supported us!

Here's a little slideshow (open in a new window):

From Movies

To those who are interested, we have planned two more fundraiser dinners at our house in January.
- Friday, January 7th, 7 pm
- Saturday, January 15th, 7 pm

Shoot us an e-mail at rachelaknowles@gmail.com or joanna.j.knowles@gmail.com if you would like to come!

Welcome to our blog!

Hey friends!

Welcome to our blog about our (mine and Joanna's) trip to Italy in Spring 2011!
For those who don't know, we will leave February 2nd for Chiavari, Italy. We will arrive on the 3rd, and for the next three months, live with the Walti family, do ministry, and teach English. We are very excited about this trip and every time we talk to our friend Hannah Walti over Skype, it becomes more and more real. As I type, Joanna is just finishing labeling some of our support letters, and we're about to send out a facebook invite for fundraiser Italian dinners. We hope you can either make it to one of our dinners, or continue reading our blog as we update you on the progress of our planning, and when we're over there, our adventures in Italy! Thanks so much for all your love and support in this! It will be the trip of a lifetime! :)

Ciao!