Help Alan & Rachel buy a car in Sicily!

Hi, everyone! Rachel and I have been working with a church in Italy for just over a year now. We recently received the exciting news that we’ll be able to stay here an additional year, so we decided it would be worthwhile to buy a car!

Here in Italy we use the Bible to teach English as a form of outreach. We have been in the city of Catania for 6 months now, and currently have 20 active students. We started our Italian adventure in language school in Firenze. With a great bus system and mostly flat land that makes riding bikes pretty easy, a car was unnecessary. Now that we are in Catania, our long-term home in Italy, things are a bit different. It has more mountainous terrain (very hilly), and things are more spread out. The busses here only come once an hour, and we have to time it just right to make it onto one. The place we go to get groceries, etc.—the Coop—is still 45 minutes away on a bus (in Firenze it was only 5-10 minutes)! All in all, it takes about 2 hours of just travel time to get food, cleaning supplies, etc. here in Catania. With a car it would take about 30 minutes of travel time total, so having a car would greatly reduce stress in our lives and greatly increase our productivity.

I’ll still ride my bike to church most days because gas is not cheap (about $8 a gallon!), but it would be great to be able to drive to church on a rainy day. Most of all we would love to be able to use our car to offer rides for our students—to Bible studies, church, etc. One elderly student has asked us for a ride to her doctor before, and we would have loved to be able to say yes! We’re also trying to start a joint youth group with a church in Paterno (a city 30-45 minutes away), so a car will come in handy for that too.

We are supported by Westside Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas, and we are very thankful for their prayers and assistance. Our monthly support covers our rent, utilities, food and visa/health insurance. We are fundraising here for an Opel Agila, a nice little car (that I can fit in!). It’s nothing fancy (as you can see), just functional. A little over $6500 will cover the cost of the car, the insurance, and our driver’s licenses. To this point we’ve raised about $500, so our goal here is $6000.