Greetings to you from Italy as we press on during the unforgettable year of 2020. We pray this letter finds you well. We have found great comfort and encouragement through our wonderful ministry partners that have been praying for us and partnering in personally with us in the ministry. As we continue to pioneer as missionary church planters in Italy our hearts are united to you in Christ in a special way. We are in this together.

  Jeryvee's mother is still with us to help around the house as we prepare for the arrival of baby Beatrice. We thank the Lord for her as this pregnancy has had us going to many extra appointments! Towards the end of the summer, we were blessed to take our annual 3- day missionary retreat in order to refresh, recreate, pray, and prepare ourselves for the fall ministry during the ongoing pandemic. We were back-and-forth about whether we should go or not, but we decided to go by faith and it turned out to be a great blessing.

 Recently here in Italy, the schools have begun to open again with new restrictions to keep things as safe as possible during the ongoing pandemic. Cases continue to rise again here in Italy, but people are now aware of the virus and how to behave themselves in a way that reduces its rapid spreading. For the time being, we have decided to keep Cornelius at home rather than take him to the nursery school. This was a hard decision to make, but after Jeryvee's gynecologist recommended this to her we decided to go ahead with this plan. Perhaps after the birth of the new baby girl, we will consider, depending on the virus situation, taking him back to the nursery school. He does really miss his friends, but thankfully there are other kids for him to be with on Sundays at church. This is a huge blessing!

-- Above Photos:

Cornelius helping to evangelize by handing out tracts in the piazza | Jeryvee pregnant with baby girl | Cornelius helping get tomatoes to make homemade sauce

CHURCH PLANTING 

Throughout the summer we picked up evangelism again in Mestre and we praise the Lord to have been able to witness to many people. We have not seen any soundly saved, but we have been leading them to the Lord by preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ day in and day out. We are reminded from 2 Corinthians 2 that as we preach the word it is the sweet aroma of Christ; for some it's wonderful and for others it's terrible. We preach and it is God alone who causes rebirth. As we prod along, by God's grace, in the difficult labor of evangelism here in this extremely unreached part of Italy, we pray. We want to see more people saved, knowing, and loving Jesus as Lord and Savior!

  In our last newsletter, we spoke about the brethren in Pordenone. They had reached out to us (a group of 7-9 baptized believers walking faithfully with the Lord) to discuss a restart. After meeting and praying together we decided it is not the Lord's will for us to relocate to their city to see the church restarted. At this point, it seems best for these dear folks to join in on the other churches now established in that area. We are remaining in touch and praising God for our friendship. We also hope to invite these friends to join us maybe once per month as soon as gatherings start in Mestre.

We are now fully involved in the ministry of Mestre city again and we praise God. We are reaching out primarily in 3 ways: from house to house with Gospel tracts, in the piazza with Gospel tracts, and the “digital piazza” via social media, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes where we preach and teach God's word evangelistically. Everyone who receives our tracts gets the links also to our media ministry where they can learn more. In short, we are bringing the Gospel to the people any way we can. We praise God for his sustaining and enabling grace to keep us flourishing in the work that He has given us to preach the gospel, make disciples, and plant biblical and healthy churches in Italy. To God alone the glory.

On Sunday mornings we are gathering to worship with our brothers and sisters at the New Life Church in Vicenza. We thank the Lord for these dear folks and some new friends we have made there. We have been blessed to be able to serve these people (soldiers serving the US) God's word on two Lord's days. The fellowship is good for our family and we will continue gathering with these folks as the Lord enables us and until we have a core group of baptized believers that want to self-identify and covenant together as a local expression of the body of Christ here in Mestre. We pray to see souls soundly saved so we can begin gatherings in the afternoons in Mestre.

-- Above Photos:

Jesse in the PMc recording studio | Gospel tracts being distributed from house to house

PRACTICAL MISSIONS cohort - PMc

  The PMc mission continues as we press on by faith, pioneering in the work of evangelism, discipleship, and church planting in Italy. To better incorporate partners and train new missionaries, we are developing the PMc Media Ministry and Academia courses. We invite you to pray for these projects. Potentially, we will soon take on our first staff people Stateside. They will be assisting the media ministry and things related to recruiting. Once on board, we hope to interview them on the PMc Podcast so you can meet them and pray for them as they serve the Lord Jesus through PMc. We pray to be able to host our short-term cohorts for next summer - post-pandemic. Thank you dear partner for playing a valuable part in this ministry to reach Italians, make disciples, and plant Biblical churches!

  To stay engaged with the PMc mission you can visit practicalmissions.org. There you will find a variety of resources, opportunities, and updates.

In His grace,

Jesse & Jeryvee and all at PMc

PRAYER REQUESTS

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. - 2 Cor. 5:2

PARTNERING 

To partner with us, we invite you to send tax-deductible donations to

Practical Missions Cohort, and mail to:

Practical Missions Cohort

500 Westover Dr. #10079

Sanford, NC 27330

Simply write “Schreck” or “general fund” in the memo section, depending on how you would like to support us and the PMc ministry.

Donations can also be made online at https://www.practicalmissions.org/donate