Serving in Sermide , Italy
Mirco and Paola lead a church in rural northern Italy and are planting new congregations across nearby towns, with a vision of a little church for every town.
Our Ministry
Paola and I live in a rural part of northern Italy, about two hours from Venice. We have served the Lord together since 1981. By God's grace we planted a church here and have led it ever since. It now has around seventy to eighty members, and Mirco serves alongside another elder. We also work with several other churches through preaching and pastoral care, with a vision to strengthen the local witness. Our ministry area is large, and much of it lies well beyond our own town. Our mission is to proclaim the gospel in a region where Christian witness is thin and many live in superstition, having never truly heard or understood it.
Our aim is to plant churches in the towns around us. Church members who live in those towns host Bible studies in their homes to build up the local witness. Our motto is 'a little church for every town.' It is an ambitious plan, but relying on God's grace we believe it is possible. It calls for wisdom, patience, deep love for people, a non-judgmental spirit, and good partnership with the body of Christ, first with the small Italian church and also with brothers and sisters around the world who carry a real burden for our country. We keep a book table with Christian literature at the open markets in Ostiglia, Poggio Rusco, Castelmassa, and Sermide, where we live.
In spring, summer, and at Christmas we hold open-air evangelistic events, including Christian concerts and street preaching.
About Us
Mirco
I was born in a rural part of northern Italy and raised in a Catholic home by parents who were active communists. My first experience with the Lord came at six, after a very serious eye accident. I sensed His presence and knew He was calling me to follow Him.
In my teens I drifted from that call and joined the hippie movement, looking for an alternative society. After two or three years, having watched many friends lose themselves to drugs and immorality and others end up in prison, I grew disillusioned and left that life. Around this time my father died of cancer at forty-four. I was nineteen. I returned to the Catholic Church and visited many monasteries looking for a way to find God and please Him, but it was in vain.
Through reading the book of Romans and a book called The Jesus Revolution, I was born again. I immediately began preaching the gospel to everyone I met, and I have continued in that evangelistic calling ever since.
Paola
I was raised in Yorkshire, an industrial part of England. My Italian parents were Catholic, but I never enjoyed church and had no interest in the things of God. When I was fourteen, my father took a job at a textile factory in Iran, and two years later my mother and I sold our house and moved to Isfahan as well. There my life was turned around as I searched out my real identity, faith, and values. I met two American missionaries who worked at the Christian hospital, and they invited me to the Evangelical Church. I went, and as I read the New Testament and spent time with the believers, I came to understand the love of Christ and my need for salvation. I was born again. At nineteen God called me to nearly two years of full-time ministry among Muslim women in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I then joined my parents, who had moved to northern Italy, and there I met my husband, Mirco.