GBU Milano Statale

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It’s been a real pleasure to finally reopen GBU State University Milan this year! There have been months full of significant events:

Praise
  • New members: Thank God that generally speaking, new, already believing students have joined us and are proving to be an invaluable support.
  • A welcome party for freshers: We were able to introduce ourselves and get to know new students. We connected with students many times during the event.
  • The Bible Exhibition: This was a week-long event that we held and it really was a blessed experience! Students approached the panel exhibits curiously, giving us many  opportunities for conversations.
  • Those interested gave us their phone numbers, and some have already started regularly attending our meetings. I heartily recommend all the groups hold this event! It was an excellent means of outreach and directly inviting people to the GBU.
Prayer
  • Significant encounters: Pray God would put students in our path who are seeking answers. In particular, pray we could involve our course peers who we see every day in lectures, that God would arouse curiosity in their hearts and make them join our meetings.
  • Visibility and growth: Pray we would become even more well known within the University, promoting meetings wisely, potentially making use of University events that are already happening.
  • Outreach events: Pray that upcoming outreach events would go well, that those involved would develop and those who don’t yet know Christ would be open to Him.

We continue trusting in God’s guidance over every step we take and that He would be glorified in everything that happens. Thank you, all of you, for your support and prayers!

GBU Milan

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Praise
  • New students (believers and non) are participating regularly in the meetings and seem interested in the topics we’re covering.
  • Compared with last year, everyone is more involved in the meetings, they are making a lot of observations and are asking questions about the passage.
  • Working together with the Church, il Rifugio [the Refuge], we’ve set up an English club at the University where American believers have come along to have conversations in English. During the two weeks there has been a lot of involvement and we’ve been able to witness to some people who participated in the meetings.
Prayer
  • To manage to do more outreach in the University.
  • For the presence of the Holy Spirit as we run the activities (Inductive Bible Studies/social activities).
  • Making an effort to maintain and cultivate relationships with other students.
  • Holding inductive Bible studies which are clearer and more effective at getting to the message God wants.
  • Spiritual growth of each group coordinator and the support to continually improve required as a coordinator.

GBU Milan

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  • We are thinking of organising a conference on Anxiety (this is due to the news of a girl at the Milan University, Lulm, who committed suicide). We haven’t yet thought about when to do this, but we’d like prayer that we’d not only choose the best day for everyone, but also the most suitable speaker. We’re praying this would be an opportunity to bring new hope to those in search of truth.
  • We’d like as many people as possible to be free, have the money, the desire and enthusiasm to attend the Festa GBU. If the Lord graces us with seeing non-believers at the Festa, so much the better.
  • We’re asking for wisdom in how to best organise ourselves when deciding which days to do the Bible study, to then be able to book all the teaching rooms in advance, month by month. Some of us also have work, the youth group and driving lessons to manage in addition to our University and personal commitments. We’d like prayer to be able to fulfil all our duties, that the Lord wouldn’t let these things take over.
  • We’re asking the Lord that our break times and rest times would truly restore our whole beings. The Lord has made us zealous and diligent, not lazy. We are grateful for this, but we’re seeking times to recharge. May the Lord bless both our time of work and study and everything to do with being productive, as well as our times of rest.
  • We’re asking that the Lord would cultivate an attitude of gratitude in us and an acknowledgement for all He has given us, is giving us and will give us.
  • We’re asking for maturity to improve our capacity to communicate with one another and not pay back evil. God give us patience, mercy, grace and the strength to speak the truth to our neighbour.

GBU Milan

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Hi, in GBU Milan we are experiencing a new group asset, as the various local groups are working together with more exchanges and meetings all together.

We thank God for allowing us to renew our association in Bicocca, and for a first meeting comprising numerous people.

We also thankful that God gave us the opportunity to witness to Him, by means of a personalised stand at the State University Open Day. We also say thanks to God
for all the other activities we’re carried out, including surveys, prayer meetings and various trips out.

Finally, we’d like you to help us pray for the other activities we’re planning to run:

  • The evangelistic Christmas event
  • The tourist outing on 4 December (with the intention of creating greater ties among us and inviting along new people)
  • greater ability to know how to nurture the friendships in the group

GBU Milan State University

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We thank God that we have started up our meetings in person again and this is a victory.

Moreover, we have discovered that we still have association status, meaning that we have university lecture halls available to us, which is a joy because we didn’t know where to go.

New people have been coming along too. Let’s pray for their conversion, that they come to know Jesus Christ as their saviour.

At the end of the month, we’ll be introducing the GBU to a church, so pray for us.

GBU Milan Bicocca University

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How the Bicocca group started was rather unusual and rash, from the moment when all three of us were new at being GBU coordinators and none of us studied at the University of Bicocca.

Nonetheless, we were very keen from the start to get help, learn, get involved and although what we really wanted was to form new GBU groups at the Catholic University of Milan and the University of Bergamo, we cared about working from inside a pre-existing GBU group and not letting the living testimony in Bicocca burn out. We saw the Lord’s hand in this calling through the staff workers and the work with other GBU Milan groups.

We decided to alternate our weekly Bible studies between online meetings and meetings in person until the end of this first term.

As follows, we’re asking you to pray for:

  • students to be more involved in the meetings in person. In fact, we often find ourselves clutching onto our virtual meeting devices.
  • coordinators and group members themselves to be strongly united in purpose.
  • getting to know new students with whom we can form deep connections and have time to talk to about Jesus in the right way, in a way which would arouse their curiosity and their interest in being involved in the GBU.

GBU Milan – State University

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The Lord has done amazing things in the Milan State University GBU.

Praise

In the first semester His guidance was crucial in getting a totally new group going.

After this initial period, we were fearing it was not going to be easy to start up the meetings with the students again after the winter break, as we had all been focusing on exams for a month. But instead, the Lord renewed His blessings right from the first meeting and continues to do so time and time again, bringing curious young adults into the group, ready to get involved.

Prayer

Please pray that the Lord would continue to drive the conversations we have with the new students who are starting to draw near to Him.

GBU Milan Bicocca

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Praise

We thank God for how He has guided us over these last few months: He answered our prayers in a great way, bringing new people who were interested in the GBU each time (both believers and not)!

We did not hold any studies in January and February to allow everyone to concentrate better on their exams, but first we sent out a survey to the students to get their opinion on what we did in the first semester and two games evenings which were a great way for our group to become closer and to invite along new people.

We have been running the studies again since the beginning of March and we have also started training up new students to lead the studies alongside us.

Prayer
  • Please pray for greater involvement in the WhatsApp group (because few people reply to messages and this discourages us).
  • Moreover, as already mentioned, pray for the new students keen to join in, and for training others to lead studies.

GBU Milan – Bicocca University

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Three weeks ago we started to meet on Zoom.

Thank God we are having several new students who have started to participate in our meetings. For now most of them are believers, but we have also seen an interest from several non-believers, although unfortunately we have not yet had the opportunity to have any non-believers take part in the Bible study.

Despite this, we do not want to be discouraged and rather we want to continue to pray that the Lord will give us the grace to invite some classmates or simply spread the word about what we are doing with GBU in the university, even if for now only online.

Unfortunately, like many other GBU groups not only in Italy, but also in the world, we are facing the difficulties of this particular and challenging period. Sometimes it is difficult to perform at best and make the most of the potential of what can be done with the GBU, because unfortunately sometimes it is necessary to have a face to face relationship with people; but above all, everyone misses being able to meet physically.

Despite everything, we want to live this moment with joy and strength knowing that the Lord is already doing something extraordinary in the universities even at this time.

We ask you to pray that the Lord may support us, encourage us and give us wisdom on how to move during each meeting with the group.

As a theme of the studies we are addressing Acts, with the addition of insights on various topics (wisdom, anxiety, time, hope) once a month.

Thank you very much to everyone for what each of you are doing for the GBU and for the Lord.

GBU Milan – State University

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The GBU Milan State University group has been updated this year, in fact all the coordinators are new and there are many new GBU members and university friends.

This has meant that there is a lot of new energy and potential to use for the best. We decided together to deepen our understanding of Jesus through meeting many of the characters whose lives were profoundly touched by Him.

We thank the Lord for making it possible for us to meet physically with all the new young people at the first meeting of the year. All this happened before the health emergency began to worsen.

Now, given that Lombardy has been declared a red zone, all our meetings will take place online.

We’re asking for prayer that all the online meetings would be equally as effective and that the new group could keep coming closer together despite the impossibility of forming one-to-one relationships.