Complimenting Kassim for delivering his first public speech in very good English , he remembered the first time he was asked to preach in Italian ! He was the minister of the English Speaking Methodist Church in Ponte Sant ’ Angelo in Rome and called the holiday centre ( Foresteria valdese ) in Rio Marina on Elba . They said that being a pastore ( a minister ) he will receive a discount : then they added that if he would also preach , the discount would be much bigger ! ‘ Oh yes you are going to preach !’, my wife said , Richard added .
He then told us how he ended up in Italy . He felt the call to the ministry when he was a student at Aston University in Birmingham and he was encouraged by a tutor at Queen ’ s Foundation to serve in the Methodist Church Overseas Division
Carol and Richard Grocott . and was sent as a missionary associated teacher to Japan for 2 years . He then went to Wesley College Bristol for four years , was ordained at the 1991 Methodist Conference and with his wife Carol decided to offer themselves again for serving overseas … They thought they would end up in the Far East but they were offered … Rome ! He didn ’ t even know there was a Methodist church there and didn ’ t know a word of Italian … but the idea was very exciting and there they went in the Autumn of 1993 with John , their newborn baby .
He had five wonderful enriching years : the congregation consisted of a very mixed community of 31 nationalities , from West Africans to Philippinos to English expats working for the UN ’ s Food and Organisation etc . He studied Italian and started collaborating with the Italian Methodist Church in via Firenze and the two Waldensian ones at piazza Cavour and via IV Novembre .
When pastor Valdo Benecchi encouraged him to become an Italian minister , he was ready and more than happy . After five intensive years in a place that was also one of the most photogenic in the world , he left for the northeast in charge of two churches that could not have been more different . Padua , Waldensian , consisted of Italians , middle class , educated , liberal and well versed in academic theology . There you couldn ’ t get away with just a 10-minute sermon . In Vicenza , Methodist , there was a small congregation of Italian steel-workers and an increasingly growing number of traditional , evangelical members from Ghana . Certainly it was not easy to put Bible classes together .
There was also a great opportunity for Ecumenical representation in a very traditional Roman Catholic part of Italy ; often asked to speak at public
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