,

Slovak lessons

Tempo di lettura: 4 minuti

By Aoife Beville, university researcher and former GBU student

Ahoj!

Ahoj! – that’s how they say ‘hello’ in Slovakia, where I visited at the beginning of October. I’m Aoife (pronounced Ee-fah), I’ve been involved in different IFES groups: Cork (Ireland) where I’m originally from and where I was co-coordinator of the Christian Union during my BA; Bologna, where I did two years of InterAction, an IFES international voluntary work programme where I supported the students of the local group; Naples, where I was co-coordinator of the group during my MA. Now, I am back in Naples and still at university, but on the other side of the lectern! I research and teach in the field of English linguistics. You may be asking yourself ‘what does Slovakia have to do with it?’ Good question!

Good News for the University

Last year at an IFES conference I met Sara, a VBH (GBU) staff worker in Slovakia. We started talking about the usefulness of having Christian academics involved in the work of national movements. I believe that the gospel is good news for the university and I would like to be able to support and serve GBU students as I do my work. I told Sara about my research on irony as a persuasive strategy in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. A linguistic and literary study that, due to the nature of the text, touches on various interesting topics (apologetics, atheism, etc.). Sara invited me to come to Slovakia to give a lecture at the university on the topic of this research.

“The Trouble about Argument”

Aoife and Sara at lunch in Prešov

So, through Sara’s contacts I was invited to give two lectures in the English Language and Anglo-American Literature courses at the University of Prešov. The lectures were entitled: “’The Trouble about Argument’: Irony and Rhetoric in C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters” and presented the stylistic analysis of the text. The text, for those unfamiliar with it, is a sardonic epistolary novel consisting of letters from one demon to another with detailed instructions on how to ensure the eternal damnation of a human ‘patient’. Linguistically, it is a fascinating text that makes use of neologisms, irony, bureaucratese and other peculiar stylistic features to persuade the reader of the intellectual and spiritual validity of Christianity. Written more than 80 years ago, during World War II, it presents a lucid and surprisingly relevant critique of the objections to the Christian faith. The lessons went well, the students participated actively and I had the opportunity to chat with both them and their professors.

Aoife giving her lecture at Prešov University

A Polarised Society

My lectures in Prešov took place during election time, a time of high tension and strong division in the public debate. Given the themes of the lectures, the local student group also invited me to participate in evening activities in a café near the university. We advertised these evenings under the title ‘Polarised Society’ and while handing out leaflets our team had some interesting conversations about it with students on campus, the topic certainly attracted their attention. At the café we welcomed guests with ice-breakers and questions for discussion in small groups. Following this, I was interviewed using questions from attendees that arrived via app (Slidoo; highly recommended for similar events!). The discussion was wide-ranging and touched on various topics: my personal journey to faith; tips for healthy debate in a divided society; questions on the validity of the Christian faith. In fact, even after the official end of the evening we stayed chatting for so long that we had to order pizzas to feed the crowds. As a good adoptive-Neapolitan perhaps it is better if I don’t comment on Slovak pizza!

One of the Cafè nights

Good News for GBU

The VBH is a national movement with different challenges than the Italian GBU. For example, there are only two staff workers – Sara and Graham (also Gen Sec). However, the vision is the same! The events in Prešov were part of an attempt to revive the group after a slowdown caused by the pandemic. It was encouraging to see some students better understand the purpose of the local group – not simply a club for young believers but a space to welcome those who would like to know Jesus. The students seem to have been empowered and encouraged by the events we held together, their feedback has been really positive. Many Ukrainian students – who are now studying in Slovakia because of the war in their country – came to the Cafè Nights. It was a joy to see the Slovak students welcome them and offer them the kind of community – safe, hospitable and friendly – that they so badly needed. I am grateful to the Lord for the experience and for the blessings we received during those days. I also feel that no local group or national movement is too small to think big and organise such events!

And in the beginning God created a perfect plan for us today

Tempo di lettura: 2 minuti

by Simona Squitieri, GBU Parma

In the beginning God created. If I had to sum up this GBU training weekend (Formazione), it would be like this. 

But let’s start from the beginning. About sixty people from Trentino to Sicily, after overcoming long journeys, trains, buses, cars, arrived in Umbria, in a little house with a view of Lake Trasimeno, to participate in GBU Coordinator Training 2023. 

In the beginning

As the acronym GBU (University Bible Groups) suggests, we looked to the Bible again this year to address the challenges we should face. Organizational challenges, practical and theoretical, intellectual and social challenges, for which we prepared ourselves by looking at, interpreting and applying the first three chapters of God’s Word. Starting, therefore, right “from the beginning”!

Moments of praise to the Lord and prayer refreshed and accompanied us during the intense daily program of seminars, reading and study of the Word. The Staff worked hard to provide us with the tools to better serve the students of our local groups, but especially the yet unreached students within our universities. Through Bible studies, then, we noticed how in the beginning God had thought of everything, neglecting no detail, planning and arranging everything perfectly, including us, descendants of Adam and princesses from the beginning. 

God created

These two words highlight the relationship that we are called to have with God, even before we make any commitment to Him and to others: the relationship of Creator and creature. It is essential to recognize God the Lord as the creator of the universe and of our lives; and that before everything was, He already was. 

But the words “God created” also highlight God’s creativity. Everything we study, from physics to art, from literature to medicine, have the same creative origin here in these two little words.

After creating, in the beginning all things, light, waters, bright stars, animals and plants, after the creation of man in his image, God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

A perfect plan for us today

So, was I able to understand what place I have in all this? In all this “good”? Coordinators from all over Italy, did we understand what place we have, together with the students and our local groups?

Adam and Eve lived in God’s presence and had a purpose, stolen and ruined by sin.

But in the beginning God created a perfect plan for us today: to save us through his son Jesus and ask us to share with others this Great Creator, who wants to come back to reconcile with us through Jesus. To share him from student to student. 

Ready, set, go!

Delegazione italiana alla World Assembly

168 nations, one people

Tempo di lettura: 4 minuti

by Marco Piovesan, GBU student

“… once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (1 Peter 2:10a)

Would you have ever imagined that 168 different cultures could coexist in one kingdom? Well, that is how it works in God’s kingdom. Yes, sometimes we think back to the fact that in Christ we have been called from every people and nation, but often we cannot really conceive the magnitude of this reality. The IFES World Assembly is, on the other hand, a way in which we can touch upon the authentic meaning of being one people, members of the one body of Christ.

The World Assembly is an event held every four years with the goal of bringing together delegates from all national movements that testify to Christ in the university as a ministry (e.g., GBU in Italy) to make decisions for global fellowship. The bureaucratic aspect, however, is little more than a pretext for experiencing a week of sharing and edification among brothers and sisters who share the same mission.

This year the date was set for early August in Jakarta, Indonesia. Participating in this event as a GBU student was something God used in an incredible way. One article could never contain all the spiritual richness that God was able to provide me, however, I cannot help but share some basic teachings from World Assembly.

We are not alone in our zeal 

Among GBU students, I think several times we have faced the immense mission of sharing Jesus to the students at our universities, but we have also been discouraged from seeing something beyond our reach. In fact it is beyond our human reach. In light of this discouragement, after the initial enthusiasm in which we are full of ideas and initiatives, we find a balance in which to settle in as we go forward.

From here, we get to know other students and see the zeal for God with which they are filled with, has completely changed my way of seeing these difficulties. Yes, they too see this mission as something vast, but they have God at the center of their hearts, to the point that they think of every second as an opportunity to talk about the gospel.

This of course often requires them to commit their evenings to events, Bible studies, organizational meetings and face-to-face meetings, but the desire to see Christ glorified outweighs the personal desire to have time for themselves. In short, I saw in these students the full realization that God is worth sacrificing for and that the true way to reason, is to reason with an eternal perspective

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

We are not alone in serving

One struggle I have experienced as a student over the past two years is wanting to organize some events at the university, but always finding too few people in the GBU group to make it happen.

At the World Assembly one evening I shared this struggle with the people I was sitting with at the table, and the response I received was immediately, “Invite us, we can come as help from abroad to participate and organize a week of events.” I was taken aback by the simplicity of this phrase, but it made me realize that being one flesh in Christ does not just mean greeting each other and telling each other good experiences once every four years: we can use this immense privilege to work closely together, meet each other’s needs, and toil together to see God’s kingdom advance.

At this point, I feel entrusted with the responsibility to make appropriate use of such a precious gift of having true co-workers in Christ with the same perspective.

We are not alone in our sufferings

No doubt different challenges are being faced in every corner of the earth: World Assembly was inevitably an opportunity to hear stories of struggles and suffering specific to different nations. We discussed issues of social justice, mental health, and stress created by the university setting.

However, I think what should cause us to reflect the most is the persecution (not just psychological) that so many Christians are subjected to. To find myself eating at the table with believers who literally every day expose their lives to death for the sake of Christ has raised many questions in me. The only way they can live is by embodying the gospel in their lives by their behavior to the point that this can trigger in people around them a desire to ask questions about the Christian faith

I wonder if, in the Italian context (in which we are far from having to risk our lives) I have the same desire to impersonate Christ in every area of my life. I wonder if I really am willing to make the same sacrifice for God that these brothers are exposed to everyday. I wonder if for me, as for them, “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). 

There is, however, something extremely incredible about these examples: Christ is so precious that it is worth giving our very lives to stay together with Him.

We are not alone because God is with us

Admittedly, World Assembly was not only rich in all these broad teachings, but it was also an opportunity to reflect from a personal point of view. Speaking of which, there is one concept that was reiterated so many times and which I cannot do without anymore: becoming aware of God’s presence in our lives.

So many times in the Bible God’s promise of “I will be with you” appears, but we often fail to consider this in our daily lives. I had a chance to talk with several people who have served in IFES for decades, and one thing each of them insisted on after so many years of ministry is that a personal relationship with God is the basis of everything we do. We cannot think of serving God without being in fellowship with Him. We need to seek Him and His presence: being aware that He is with us can radically transform the way we live for Him.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

The Christian life and even Christian service is a continuous walking side by side with God.

Our Inheritance

Tempo di lettura: 3 minuti

How easy it is to lose or squander an inheritance. If you type the words “squandered inheritance” into Google a series of stories come up, one sadder than another:

“Woman inherits a fortune, squanders it all and ends up living on the street.”

“My brother squandered my mother’s money and now he won’t even contribute to the funeral expenses.”

“She spent 92,000 euros a month. The squandered inheritance of Lisa Marie Presley – daughter of Elvis.”

This year at the Festa GBU we thought about the legacy of the disciple of Christ, of what awaits the believer in the future. For those who live by faith in Christ today, the best is to come. It is not here in the present, it is in the future; and the disciple simply has to look up to contemplate it. 

We studied 3 passages to meditate on this secure future: 1 Peter 1:3-5, Hebrews 12:1-3 and 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

The characteristics of this inheritance

Peter urged us to rejoice in the fact that we are a guarded people for a guarded inheritance, all because of the Lord’s great mercy. Three words are used to describe this inheritance: incorruptible, spotless and unchangeable.

Incorruptible – Isaiah describes our existence as covered by a veil – a veil that covers the face of all peoples (Isaiah 25:6). Death. Any organism living in this world today is subject to the corruption of death that consumes and defiles everything. Except the believer’s inheritance. It is incorruptible!

Spotless – blemishes, impurity, darkness. It is perfect in every sense; it is the definition of beauty and can never be infected by our sin. It is spotless.

Unalterable – it is protected from death, and protected from wickedness and is also protected from time. It is an inheritance that does not grow old. The woodworm, the moth cannot destroy it. The rust, the sun will have no effect on it.

An inheritance guarded in heaven by the Lord for a people guarded by the power of God – the power that created the sun, the stars, the black holes, the Himalayas, the Mariana Trench. The power that raised Jesus from the dead! That same power is functioning as a shield around the heirs to bring them to the end of their journey. Let us celebrate the certainty of our inheritance!

The gaze fixed on the champion!

Instead, the author of the letter to the Hebrews explains that God’s children are a people who persevere to the end by fixing their gaze on Jesus. They run with perseverance, convinced of the possibility of finishing the race, throwing off every distraction and destroying every sin that would like to deceive the heir. They persevere with their eyes on Christ, the model, the means and the medal of faith.

The model, the example of how to run with perseverance. Look at his courage: he did not give up. Observe his conviction, focused on the goal. Reflect on his submission to the Father’s will, and note the chronology of faith: suffering now, joy in the future, cross first, crown later.

The means, because of his running, because of his perseverance, the believer today can run in the race of faith, confident that the road is no longer blocked by his sin. He can go all the way to the presence of the Father, thanks to Jesus!

The medal is what awaits the athlete of faith at the end of his run. Jesus himself is the prize of faith; he is the inheritance. The believer does not run to win a gold medal, or a yellow shirt, or the shield, or the world cup. The believer will receive at the end of this race, a much, much more precious thing-Jesus himself, incorruptible, spotless and unchangeable! We win him and he wins us!

Passing the baton

Paul with his last words implores his son in the faith, Timothy, to pass on the message of inheritance to the next generation. The heir is sure of his inheritance, sure that he will make it to the end of the race through God’s power and through his perseverance, is called to preach the word of inheritance to his and the next generation. And he is called to do so with urgency, with patience and with suffering.

Discouragements, disappointments, frustrations, obstacles, attacks and opposition are part of the believer’s life. Shame in the present, glory in the future. Cross today, crown on that day. Suffering now, yet our inheritance is incorruptible, unblemished and unalterable at Christ’s return. This is the living hope of Christ’s disciple! God will bring us through faith to that day and so let us run with perseverance, eyes fixed on the prize, on Jesus, proclaiming the Word to all.

Acknowledge your time

Tempo di lettura: 5 minuti

By Davide Maglie, GBU Chairman

In the last few weeks I have been struck and deeply disturbed by news stories which have to do with the context in which the GBU operates. On the 1st of February news reached the press and national media about the suicide of a student at the Iulm University in Milan. A young woman whose name we do not know was found dead in the university toilets. Just over a month later, on 3 March, came the dramatic news of the suicide of a student at the Federico II University in Naples. Her name was Diana.

The student from Milan left a letter of farewell to her family, in which she tried to explain the reasons for her gesture. They can be traced back to a general sense of failure, to her not feeling equal to her family’s expectations and sacrifices to make her study. Instead, the student from Naples had constructed a false narrative about her course of study, and may not have been able to cope with the sense of shame or guilt. She had announced that she was close to graduating, when she was not. Unfortunately, these are not isolated cases. In the last three years, ten university students have taken their own lives. And these are just the known cases.

A challenge for the GBU

We must not underestimate the situation and take seriously the mental health of the students the GBU ministry deals with. On the 15th of February, following the shock of the suicide in Milan, Emma Ruzzon, President of the Student Council of the University of Padua, said during her speech at the opening of the academic year: “When did studying become a competition? When did training become secondary to performing? All we know is that a good life, a dignified life, is not ours by right, but something we have to deserve’. Words that should make us pause.

We must engage ourselves as a ministry and thus equip ourselves and raise awareness of our co-workers, especially our front line, to pay proper attention in recognising the signs of discomfort, of existential malaise, the non-verbal or indirectly expressed signals. But I want to add something personal, which may explain the reasons for my emotional upset at the news I am reporting.

My personal experience

I was a university student who experienced traumatic interruptions in his life: the person with whom I shared my exam preparation, my academic alter ego, was a friend, her name was Cristina, and she lost her life in a car accident on New Year’s Eve 1992. We had said goodbye to each other a few weeks earlier, in mid-December, with the commitment to resume the preparation of the exams of the common syllabus when we returned from the Christmas holidays. All the exams we had prepared together had gone well and we were encouraged by the results. This news produced an emotional upheaval in me, exacerbated by other traumas that had occurred, and made me unable to concentrate on studying.

At that time, I was “kept afloat” by active involvement in a church ministry, which occupied my days. However, guilt and feelings of inadequacy were burrowing inside me: I attended classes, but could in no way concentrate on reading the study texts. On several occasions I left the house to take exams, but I did not reach the classrooms where I was supposed to take them. I could not accept the death of that sensitive, intelligent and generous girl. I was angry with God and had entered a kind of black hole; and even if on the outside I smiled and said ‘it is all right, the Lord is good and will provide for my needs’ inside I was emotionally torn apart.

Eventually, the love of my biological and spiritual family helped me to redirect my life in a healthier and more satisfying direction. I overcame the acute phase of the crisis and managed to complete my studies. But I could never have done it alone. I remember well, even though I never spoke about it willingly and never in public, the frustration, indeed the depression, the anger, the sense of self-pity that had held me back and prevented me from progressing in my studies. 

Around us, bearers of hidden challenges

Dear staff and students who participate in GBU activities, I want to encourage you to look at those who relate to you as potential carriers of hidden challenges. If they feel judged by you, they will not truly open their hearts. If you present only normative models of high spirituality, they may smile at you and say “amen”, but you will not reach them where they are, at the heart of their conflicts. Be able to welcome and encourage, without judging. Bring out their sense of failure, their insecurities, their challenges by sharing your own. You do not have to recount every detail, just be honest and open, genuinely interested in their lives. 

I believe these words from Ecclesiastes can help us:

There is a time for everything,     and a season for every activity under the heavens:     a time to be born and a time to die,     a time to plant and a time to uproot,     a time to kill and a time to heal,     a time to tear down and a time to build,     a time to weep and a time to laugh,     a time to mourn and a time to dance,     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,     a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,     a time to search and a time to give up,     a time to keep and a time to throw away,     a time to tear and a time to mend,     a time to be silent and a time to speak,     a time to love and a time to hate,     a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes (3:1-11)

These words have an enormous magnetic force, a poetic flow that continues to shake us, to not leave us indifferent.

Within human existence lies both what is desirable and what we would gladly avoid, within a chronological cycle that takes the form of the oscillation of a clock, or rather a pendulum.  Qoelet/Ecclesiastes is not an idealist who optimistically hopes for a period of peace and celebration that can erase the less desirable dimension of existence. As the biblical scholar William P. Brown reminds us: ‘Every activity has its season and the seasons have their place in the rhythm of the eternal rotation, it is not appropriate to dance in time of mourning, weeping does not suit celebration, silence when the rights of the oppressed are at stake. Even hatred has its time, as the psalms of imprecation remind us.” The real challenge of the wise man is therefore to “recognise what time it is that you are living in.  Discern the appropriate and inappropriate time to say certain things, to perform certain actions.

An appeal

Dear reader, when “sharing Jesus” be open to the lives of the people you are addressing. You will need wisdom and discretion, at certain stages and moments; but you will also need courage and resourcefulness, when you have to ask “the questions that matter”, the most difficult ones, in order to reach the students where they are and really help them, in the stretch of the journey you will make together. There will be a time to walk together and then you will have to let go. This separation at the end of the study cycle is also natural and physiological.

Of course, we hope to find those students again later, having become mature and aware men and women, capable of picking up the baton and passing on to other generations that sense of wonder and awareness of life. Within a divinely inspired and Christologically oriented wisdom and, who knows, collaborators in various capacities of the GBU. But “there is a time for everything”, recognise the time you are living in and remain listening to God’s plans for your life.  For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  (Jeremiah 29:11).