Greetings Pastors and Faithful Brethren, Happy New Year in Christ Jesus our  Lord, Palermo, 3-11-13 

During the past two months a lot has gone on and here are some of the main highlights.  There have been five saved in our church services and one assurance of salvation made.  Eliano, Derek and Dario were saved on different Sundays.  They are young teenagers and have been faithful to attend church and also the theology class on Tuesday nights.  Pray particularly for Eliano as shortly after his conversion his mother had to be disciplined out of the church for an extra marital relationship.  Pray for Sis. A’s repentance and return to the Lord and also for Eliano that he will continue to come to church and grow.  Leslie came forward to reassure her salvation and is going through some follow up Bible studies.  Salvo Capizzi was saved a couple of weeks ago and had been attending church with his parents for the past couple of months.  He is 19 yrs. old and made a serious confession and profession of his faith.  Before he was saved, of his own choosing he removed his earrings.  He then left his gang of friends and also his steady girlfriend of two years because he did not want to be distracted.  This was done all on his own.  Shortly after that he knelt down with me in my office and received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.  He and and his family continue to be faithful in church, Theology class and also come with us for street preaching on Sunday evenings.  Maurizio and Rosi had gotten saved years before both coming out of a serious mafia background.  They had been faithful in a Mennonite church but were not in agreement with the doctrines of the church.  They sort of floundered for a while and then met us last fall on the street while evangelizing.  Right after the new year they began attending and have been in every service and activity.  It was their heart’s desire to see their son Salvo get saved. Pray for this family.  Another great blessing for our church was the salvation of Nenette this past Sunday.  Her husband Alan had gotten saved last year through the ministry of the church and has been faithful in all services, discipleship and street work.  His wife had been in an adulteress relationship for the past 6 years and after Alan was saved my wife and I made several visits to their home trying to win Nenette to the Lord.  She was not ready to get saved but continued to attend church infrequently.  We can only just praise the Lord for the amazing grace and patience that he gave to Bro. Alan to continue to care for her and love her.  The whole church knew of her relationship and she knew that everyone knew.  The sisters of the church continued to show love and kindness to her and all of this over time softened her heart.  A couple of months ago she cut off the relationship she was in and began attending church very regularly with her husband.  Then this past Sunday I was led of the Lord to preach on the woman of Samaria at the well and during the invitation my wife asked her if she was ready to get saved and she replied "very much so, I have been waiting for someone to lead me".  She then went to the altar broke down and cried her heart out asking the Lord to save her.  Basically the whole church was in tears to see her so broken.  She was so very thankful for her salvation and loves much because she has been forgiven much.  We have asked for prayer for her in our other letters and so those of you who have been praying can rejoice in the fruit of your labors with us for the salvation of Nenette.  Pray for their daughter Lyka who is 16 and attends church but needs to be saved.  We have another Italian family who have been joining us for our midweek service and also street meetings.  Cosimo and Daniela Sabato with their two children Cristina and GianLuca.  They have been a blessing and we pray that the Lord will meet their spiritual needs.  Cosimo lost his job with Enel which is Italy’s main electric company.  He has a family to feed and so is greatly burdened with this need. Please pray for this.  Brother Stefano Petraglia has been visiting with us from First Bible, Pastor Mike Veach in Staten Island, NY.  This is his third con-secutive visit over the past three years and each time he has been a great blessing to our family and the ministry by participating and also ministering the Word of God. He preached twice in church and also publically at Piazza Politeama with Samuele translating.  We also took a trip to my native city of Termini where we had a cook out with my cousin out at his country house and then preached publically at the belvedere, sang and passed out tracts.  The belvedere is a piazza at a high altitude that overlooks the lower part of the city and the sea and is a popular place for people to walk or just hang around.  Brother Steven came with us, he’s black and he preaches up a storm.  This was also the first time for me to preach publically in my native city and I met up with some relatives who said they were glad to see what we were doing.  As the Lord wills, I hope to have more opportunities to evangelize in Termini.  The church had a Faith Promise Sunday on February.   All the messages prior to that from the beginning of the New Year were around the teaching of faithfulness, both God toward us and us toward God.  On that Sunday we had good start pledged monthly for missions.  May 16-19 is our mission’s conference and we have at least three missionaries who will be presenting their work and preaching the Word of God.  As the Lord leads these missionaries will be taken on for monthly support.  We appreciate your prayers for this.  Several from the church took a trip up to the mountains to see the snow.  The young people had a great time throwing snowballs and building snowmen.  On April 1 the church is planning a trip to Siracusa (Syracuse where the apostle Paul landed and more than likely preached).  We plan to preach publically and distribute tracts, do some sightseeing and also visit a handful of Filippino brethren who are meeting together but have no pastor.  Please pray about this trip.

 Dear Brethren in Christ Jesus our Lord, happy new year in
Christ our Savior:
Palermo, 1-9-2013

We have just come out of a busy time, as it is for most everyone at this time of  year. Besides our usual street work we did some Christmas caroling. We noticed that there was increased indifference from last year. Normally at Christmas time there is a little more sensitivity to spiritual things but there is no room for Christ more and more. Besides the energy saving Christmas tree that was illuminated by a series of pedaled bicycles, the traditional hymns about the birth of Christ were blaring to techno music. That prompted the Christmas caroling to include some preaching. We were reminded of Noah and how foolish his work and message seemed to those around him. We still believe that "where the word of a king is, there is power" Eccl. 8:4 and that the gospel continues to be
"the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth" Rom.1:16, and that it is "the foolishness of preaching" I Cor. 2:21 whereby we are saved. Pray for fruit from the tracts, preaching and singing. The church organized and performed a Christmas Cantata which included scripture readings in between the songs and a
gospel presentation at the end, followed by a dinner. We had many visitors that evening and continue to pray for those that heard the gospel. A special afternoon was held at the church by my wife and the sisters of the church for children where they heard the story of Christ’s birth, the gospel message and had other activities. There was also a good turnout for that. Please pray for fruit from these outreaches. The height of activity happened at the end of the year, on Sunday December 30, our daughter Graziella was married to Joel Hauser,
missionary to Germany. Joel had come for a three week visit and there was originally a May wedding planned. Because of Joel’s preaching schedule and the fact of living overseas, they were willing to forgo a more involved wedding and it we concluded that there was no reason to wait until May. There were not going to be any relatives from either of their sides able to attend the wedding in May. Joel is on full time deputation, so once married they would be getting back to his meetings. Graziella has lived on the road several times between our
deputation and furloughs so she is already used to this kind of lifestyle and  was ready to join him not only in marriage but also in his calling. They had a simple wedding at the church among our church family and the brothers and sisters all pulled together to make the event special. They had a week of honeymoon here and then flew out to the US on January 7 to Wisconsin where they will spend time with his family and have a reception there. On that same day, our second grandchild was born, Elizabeth Faith Leib. Joshua and Priscilla
called us about ten minutes before the wedding ceremony began with the news.  They are off the road for a couple of months and then will pick up their deputation again. We had a two day preaching services over the New Year where several men in the church were given an opportunity to preach and also to pray in the New Year. All went well except that during one of the services some street kids threw an M-80 into the building through the partially opened door.  Thankfully it landed on the floor a few feet from the pulpit and not on anyone
or in between the seating. It shook the place, but no one was hurt. Several of our men chased them down on foot and they were detained until the police came.  Also recently one of our young people was held at knife point and robbed of his brand new cell phone. He had just left the church after our midweek service. He ran back to the church shaken and in tears. Pray for Arnel, he is 12 years old and shows real potential for the Lord. This was a sobering event in his life and we pray that the Lord uses it to help him love the good and hate evil. Also recently a 4 year old boy of one of our people was molested.  We need wisdom and protection to deal with these kinds of things, thank you for your prayers. The Lord continues to add to the church. We have Oliver, Joseph, Anju and Helen all coming faithfully as newcomers over the past couple of months. Theology class on
Tuesday night continues to go well with about 8 students. Pray for the situation with our church sign.  Now that the holidays are over business picks back up and we hope to receive the permit soon to mount the sign. We’ve done some light remodeling inside the two buildings and are still waiting for permission to cut a door between them.  One building is used as the auditorium and the other is used for classrooms, kitchen and fellowship area. We appreciate your prayers for this. Pray for the visitors who have been in our services that have heard the gospel and need to be saved.  Lorenzo, Wernalita, Nenette, Sheila, Eliano, Cristina, and a handful of young people who come at times. Pray for the following people who have heard the gospel recently, our landlords: the Ciravolo and the Imburgia Families. At our recent business meeting the Church agreed to begin a faith promise missions for this year. Bro. Joel Hauser was the first missionary to present his work in our church and it was well received. Pray for this part of the church outreach.  It was also decided to cho-ose the theme of faithfulness for a New Year’s goal.  There are several objectives that we are aiming for such as faithfulness in Bible rea-ding, witnessing, giving, etc. Pray for our people that this will be a year of real growth in their lives.  We are in the process of renewing our mailing list. To minimize postage expense, please send an email adress to: salvatore_galioto@alice.it that we can send the prayer letter to. A hard copy can still be sent to those who would need one. We thank each of you for your prayers and faithfulness this past year and for all your labours with us in the year to come and also thank you for the Christmas gifts and cards and notes of  encouragement that some sent.
Bro. Sal Galioto, Heb. 12:1-3