I spent the morning repacking for the next phase of our adventure. All of the wet gear from the days prior finally was starting to dry. The hotel breakfast was delicious with different meats and cheeses and pastries. While having breakfast and getting all of our itinerary for the day loading in the the iPhone, the iPhone went crazy opening every app, entering phone numbers, and doing all kinds of other strange things. I kept trying to turn it off and it fought me canceling my trying to kill the power. I finally got it off. Chris suggested praying over our electronics as it seemed something was trying to hack them.
By 11a, it was time to pick up Tirzah. Nathan/Chris/I walked back to the apartment and you could see one of the kids dancing strangely in the window frame of the third story apartment. I told them it looked like Tirzah had taught the other kids how to play angle tag (where one person is blindfolded and has to find everyone else in a room without anyone talking). The game was in full swing when we entered the apartment with much laughter.
We picked up Tirzah and Jane to go eat some German food before we needed to be at our train in Rovereto. The food portions were large so we all wound up splitting and helping each other finish up the food. The food was really good. Saying goodbye to the Carpenters was bittersweet as we all had a great time with their family. With traffic, we made it to our train gate with 5mins to spare (Thanks Josh for driving us!). Then we all split up. Nathan/Jane/Chris took a train to Rome to make a flight to go minister in Ukraine and Tirzah and I took a train to Verona. My original plan was to train for an hour, then take another train the next day for an hour to Venice.
As we landed in Verona, I turned the iPhone on again. It disabled itself, so it was no longer useable. We needed to walk from the train station across the city to an obscure apartment we had rented in the heart of the old town. All of our directions were loaded on the iPhone. Neither one of us were too bothered as this would be an adventure in prayer, allowing the Lord to guide our steps in a literal way. We walked for about 2km, through the busy streets, making our way to the colosseum in the center of town. Verona has the best kept colosseum from the Roman days and they still have concerts there. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was based in Verona, and there is even a balcony they claim was just like Juliet’s balcony in the play.
We made it to the colosseum and entered the catacombs of city streets with lots of bustling crowds. We wound our way in a direction I felt would be our apartment and we kept praying. In one of the alleys we found a nice hotel. I pulled out my laptop to see if I could borrow some wifi from the hotel. The wifi was locked, so we prayed and the wifi started working. We were within two turns of our apartments and 3mins away from it. The Lord had taken us on a direct path all the way from the train station, without any wrong turns. I’m not sure I could have done that well with the iPhone working. Praise Jesus.
In the apartment I reformatted the iPhone and it started working again. We then used it to find an apple store across town to get a charge for the computer which had also died. It was easier navigating the city without our bags. Lots of people and high end shops were waiting for us. We found an alley with a little cafe to have some lasagna, then it was back to the hotel for some sleep.
At 1a in the morning the light beside my bed started turning on. I would touch it to turn it off and then it would turn on again. Every time I turned if off, it would turn back on. I told it to stop in Jesus name and then screwed the light bulb. No more problem with the light the rest of the night! The next morning I screwed the bulb back in and it was working with no strange behavior.
