Ciao, amici!
Now I come to speak a little bit
about what I lived during this last January. Everyone knows that the essential
part of our ministry is to share the Gospel, to speak about the joy of a
personal relationship with God that’s available for whoever truly desires it.
That’s a crucial task we have since we become Christians. Every follower of
Jesus should assimilate it and thus feel a true passion for letting also others
hear and comprehend the love of God. That’s why me and other Brazilian
Christian students went to Italy
on January, 3rd.
Italy: how it all began
Since the very beginning I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy task. People
usually have a beautiful idea when it comes to Europe.
I daresay people don’t even have idea about how is the spiritual reality in Europe. We’re so used to seeing many missionaries leaving
their countries to help the missionary work in African and Asian countries or
any other remote and poor land around the globe. In the other hand, if you say that
you’re going to Europe, it sounds kinda
different. I strongly felt this during the months before the trip. Europe is cradle of culture, science and richness.
There’s a really big gap between this reality and my country’s. ‘Till the
middle of the last year I didn’t really use to give so much attention to Europe. It always seemed to be a very beautiful place,
with well-dressed and polite people in a good life situation. However, all of a
sudden I started to think about it, about Europe.
Since I love English, a curiosity about England just bloomed inside my
heart. It would be nice to know a European country in which people speak in
English, the language I most love and struggle to improve day by day. We had a
National Student Conference in June, and God touched deeply my heart. I really
gave a lot of thought about Europe; I prayed
for the European people; I reflected about the spiritual situation of that land
and prayed for it. In the last day of the Conference I was shocked: they guys
announced where would the next Summer Projects take place and one of them would
be in Europe. So this is where Italy
appeared and showed itself as one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had. I
spent four months preparing myself, raising financial sustenance and praying
for it. It was a hard moment for each of us. We prayed God for us to find
people with hearts devoted to His work, people passionate by the vision of the
Gospel being spread all around the World. Thank God these people appeared in
our lives! All the time I was conscious
about the possible difficulties I was about to face up: the cold weather –
since I became a lover of Summer-extremely-hot days –, the communication –
since I was too used to speaking in English (I thought it would be useless) and
my Italian was very poor –, the people’s coldness and resistance to the Gospel.
However, I also knew that God would provide with everything.
Campus experience: Verona and Mantova
We stayed in a city called Mantova, and it is located in the North. We were so
well received by brothers and sisters of the local church, the Chiesa Cristiana
Evangelica Battista di Mantova. Those loving people also offered their houses
for each of us to stay all month long. Our group was led by four Brazilian missionaries;
two of them are from the Campus Crusade for Christ in Brazil and the other two – they’re
a couple - are full time volunteer missionaries whose ministries help the
Baptist Church of Mantova. During the first days we had transcultural training
to get adapted to the local culture and people. We went downtown to know the
city of Mantova.
It’s a beautiful historical city, with palaces, churches, buildings and lots of
arts. We also had the pleasure of meeting Agape Italia’s missionaries in Bologna. We’ve learned so
much from them when we met at the Università degli Studi di Bologna, the oldest
University of the Western World. Together we had a prayer walking around the
campus in Bologna.
Our evangelistic work started in Verona,
at the Università degli Studi di Verona. We first planned to spend only 1 week
there. In our first day there we had a prayer walking and analyzed how the
campus is and the student’s routine. I could meet some students and have a
little talk to them. They were our first contacts in the campus. Our biggest worry
was about how to get connected to them. We really should have a nice connection
to them so that we could have space to introduce spiritual conversations and
walk by their side. This happened to me in a very crazy way in the first day,
when I started to talk about Brazil
and showed some students nice pictures of the Sunset I had taken in Arpoador/ Ipanema
beach. One of the most special experiences I had happened in the second day, when
I and two friends evangelized an Equatorian student and we spoke in three
different languages: I was speaking in English, while one of my friends spoke
in Italian and the other one in Spanish. It was amazing to see a student
opening the mind to think more about God, purpose of existence and eternity! Day
after day God was putting new student on our way. They were mostly friends of
the students we knew during the first days of our journey in Verona. The conversations were initialized after
the use of a very creative and amazing tool called MySoularium. It’s a deck of
fifty photographs. Students should answer the questions we made using those
photographs, since they’re very subjective and can be interpreted just as the
students pleased. It was a great attempt because, as we could notice, they are
very attentive to visual materials – we saw a bunch of fliers hung on the walls
all around the campus. Therefore, we planed to prepare some visual material to
call the attention of possible Christian students at the campus. We’ve done
some colorful posters using paints and colored pens and spread it around the
campus.
Young people from different countries of the World could listen, talk freely
and be incited to think about God, in some cases, for the first time. Besides
the Italians, I could meet, at least, students from England,
Equator, Morocco,
Nigeria, Germany, and Russia. Many of these students have
never had opportunity to talk about spirituality and some of them judge it something
very important. One of them told me that it is something that they would never
have a chance to discuss about among their classmates or friends and, when they
would try to do that they would probably end up fighting. People seem never to
be friendly when they’re talking about spiritual stuff. Maybe we were making
the difference. Praise the Lord!
Along our days at the campus, we met Christian students and it was just
amazing! Our hearts got so excited about it! God was doing so much more than we
fist expected. Students were getting very open to hear us, we could keep in
touch with them all the time, having lunch together, texting each other,
talking on Facebook, cell phone etc. Students of other religious beliefs also
stopped to chat with us and did MySoularium.
After 1 week working at Verona,
we got ready to visit two campuses in Mantova: the Politecnico di Milano and the
Università di Mantova. The atmosphere was kinda different from Verona and we realized that we wouldn’t need
so much people working at those buildings since we met so few students. The infrastructures
of those buildings were very different from Università di Verona. They were
smaller, so few open places and the students’ routine were too heavy beside the
fact that they were having exams, just like the students in Verona. Considering the great results we had
in Verona, we decided to divide our team in two
groups: one working in Mantova and the other group would return to keep doing
the work in Verona.
I spend practically the last three weeks working in Verona, having the opportunity to evangelize
new students and having a discipleship with one Christian student we met. By
the way, perhaps it was the biggest experience I’ve ever had there. Me and one
friend of my team met this student for about five days and together we could
discuss about the basic steps of a real Christian faith, evangelize students,
create a friendship between us and comprehend even more the importance of
sharing our faith with our mates. Thank God he has loved that moment and felt
encouraged to do that among his friends. Another Christian student was
accompanied by another student of our team and he strongly felt that he needed
to start something at the campus with other Christian students. That’s amazing!
Yes, we can see that God is moving!
On January, 25th, we had a big surprise. We’ve been told about an
earthquake nearby Verona.
We decided not to go to Verona
that day and thus we all worked at Mantova. I stayed at the Università di
Mantova, where I could have an amazing evangelistic experience. Me and a friend
– who is graduated in Italian Language – had a conversation with a couple. It was
great because it was the first time I had a most complex conversation in
Italian at the campus! I remember that during my first days in Italy I got
very sad because I couldn’t talk to people in their language. I felt so locked
inside a cage, no ground, something braking my tongue. I prayed about it every
day and then God just surprised me allowing me to communicate in Italian with
those students! WOW!
I faced some hard moments as well, when trying to speak to some students from Germany and Russia, however, they stopped to
hear our words and it was very nice. Besides the earthquake, we had other
difficulties, just like the day that a railroad workers’ strike caught us by surprise.
Returning to Brazil: lots of work on the way
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Our last days at the campus overwhelmed my heart. I just couldn’t see myself
leaving that campuses, saying goodbye to the student without knowing when I
would come back again. I was so used to them… My routine made me feel just like
home and I was very adapted to that reality. I felt pleasure by helping those
students to understand more about the love of God, to reflect about their perspectives
in life and all. After some photos and farewell words we took the bus and never
returned to Verona.
We spend someday in Ortisei, enjoying the snow and the cold mountains and
recovering our energies to come back to Brazil. I realize it was a very
intense month. Each new day we had to face the cold, wait for the train, run
against the time, control our financial resources and wear lots of warming
clothes. I would do all of this again if I had another chance.
I thank God for allowing me to help the Great Commission (Mathew 28:18-20)
working with those amazing students in Italy. I really felt passionate by
every student’s life. They mean so much to me and that’s why I wish the best
for them. The best thing in all this life is having a relationship with Jesus
Christ, I’m sure.
And today, I’m here writing these lines, remembering those marvelous days in Italy. I miss
everything I lived there! However, my heart should focus in the reality I have
here. I have my campus. I see Brazilian students thirsty for answers and
seeking after a compass to their lives. I came back with my heart devoted to do
whatever is needed to glorify the Lord at my campus. I wish to see a generation
influenced by people who truly follow God. “I don’t wanna see another
generation drop”. I believe God can do the same He did in Italy and even
more. We live in a free country, where Gospel can be preached. So, what about
making efforts to share our faith in our campus? Why not investing more in
our everyday place? I want it and I’m sure that He wants it more than myself.
Arrivederci,
Sam
Last Tuesday was officially our first day back
to work at the campus. I couldn’t be with the guys that day; however I heard lots
of great things from them. A serious problem in our campus is to schedule
events for we have some difficulties to book some areas in the campus and have access all equipments required. On this Tuesday, our friends got the
permission to spread informations about our student movement freely at the main
hall of the campus. They said it was almost unbelievable, because we have
always experienced big difficulties in our previous attempts during the last
semesters. Christian students from other campuses came to help us to share
about our group and welcome the freshmen students. Our strategy was identifying
visually the freshmen, approaching them, and after welcoming and congratulating
them for passing the exams we asked them if we could take a picture of
each of them using a face-holed poster board decorated with a painting of
Einstein and other characters. We would send the picture to the student through
e-mail so that they would have a funny and different remark of their first
moment at the University. I was told that in the first day many students
accepted to take a picture with the hole-faced poster, and thus we cold get
their contacts to send the picture and more other information about our group activities. 
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