GBU Friuli Venezia Giulia

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GBU Friuli Venezia Giulia has officially begun. After six months of meetings in which only two people took part (the two current group coordinators), last Tuesday the first online meeting took place with two other students (already believers). The study was on the topic of “Who is Jesus?” which is made up of 5 chapters specifically looking at Jesus’ character. The first meeting was “Is Jesus a king?” looking at Matthew chapter 2.

We are very grateful to the Lord for this new opportunity. We had never had a GBU in Friuli Venezia Giulia, except for one in Trieste some years ago, and we are really keen to use this time at university for God’s glory.

As prayer requests, we’re asking the Lord for more believer students from the local churches to want to join in our meetings and that the Lord would bring along equally as many students who don’t yet know Him to draw near to Him through our meetings.

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 Urbino

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As GBU Urbino we have started doing Bible studies in Nicola’s house (the coordinator) with his housemates. It is a close-knit GBU group but informal at the same time.

Let’s pray for M., G. and V., that they would discover (and, for some of them, rediscover) a true personal relationship with Jesus. In fact, all three of them have a strong Catholic background, but as they grew up they moved away from that religious, unsatisfactory formalism. Indeed G. admitted in a conversation with me a few months ago that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of regaining his faith but would do so with different assumptions and in a different way to how he once had.

Let’s also pray for N. and D. who would be interested in coming to the meetings.

GBU Forlì

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This year no true group has formed as such, because all the students from last year have left and due “distance/online learning”, there aren’t any new members at the moment.

We are therefore asking for prayer that:

  • God would bring together the Christians on campus, help them meet one another or make the GBU known to them.
  • That as individuals as well, we would reach those in need with whatever tools we have (online meetings currently).

GBU Florence

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GBU Florence is starting again with many new faces and a desire to form a cohesive group of joyful disciples who will courageously share the knowledge of Jesus in their universities.

We give thanks for:

  • our first month of activities which God hugely blessed with training and mentoring evening events for the new members;
  • an opening event of outdoors games where the gospel message was proclaimed through love and words;
  • A first series of Bible studies on the subject, “God, what are you doing in all of this?”, which saw active participation by new students and the involvement of others in leading the discussion groups.

At this difficult moment in history, where lectures are reduced or not happening, with restrictions and difficulties in organising meetings over a certain number of people, we’re grateful to have rediscovered the value of closer friendships and in particular the great power of prayer.

Over the last week, we stopped every day to pray for 5 minutes for 5 friends at 5 pm, and we found ourselves praising God for the wonderful conversations He has given us during this time with many of them!

We’re asking for prayer support for:

  • group members, that they would grow in the truth of the Word and as children of God, and feel involved and equipped to be a light among their friends.
  • a social event taking place on Saturday 14 November, that it would be a time to grow closer together through games and sharing, and a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel with friends and housemates;
  • our staff and student coordinator, for guidance and wisdom in making plans which are always subject to changes, and for time management.

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.

GBU Castelfranco Veneto

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In Castelfranco, in the small conservatory where we are meeting, a new academic year is about to begin as is a new GBU group!

It’s an uncertain year ahead, but we’re grateful that together, despite there being few of us, we’re motivated to see how to get organised as best we can without allowing the hard situation to stop us and begin this new adventure with the aim of bringing God glory even in the midst of these circumstances.

We’re asking for prayer for:

  • wisdom to understand how best to get going and get the studies and activities going
  • strengthening relations between us as group members when we still don’t know each other well
  • reaching new students despite the various restrictions.

That God would continue to use us as tools to bring His Word, even when we are confronted with many limitations, and touch the hearts of many students who do not yet know Him!

GBU Turin

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Things really did start out very well this year in Turin.

We thank God for the various Christian young people who have had a heart for the GBU and are giving a valuable contribution to organising our activities.

In October we were able to go on an outing with them (see the photo); which allowed us to get to know one another better and start being a team.

We also prayed together on the World Student Day: it certainly was encouraging to see how many young people like us in the world want to speak about God at universities and it was moving being able to pray for them.

 

We organised an online games evening as our first event of the year, open to everyone. It was incredible to see the great interest drummed up, particularly among the Polytechnic students who had been sent an invitation in the post. A huge number of people joined the GBU and this meant we were able to explain what it was as well as throwing out the challenge to them of getting to know God and the Bible better.

Some of them are still continuing to join in our meetings and in general the new young people approaching our GBU group are different ones, eager to know God more. Pray for them that they’d come to embrace the Gospel message and for us, that we’d have wisdom and sensitivity to accompany them on this journey.
 
Moreover, we have started up our weekly bible discussions again, sometimes in groups with reduced number of people and sometimes in larger ones.

On 12 November we held a webinar on the subject of time management and in this case too, there were a lot of people interested, so pray that this event too will bear its fruit.

Sadly, we cannot see each other in person anymore because of the health crisis which Piedmont is experiencing, currently in the red zone, and we recognise that we are really missing being able to spend “live” time with other GBU members. Therefore, we’re asking for you to pray for us that the Lord would protect us and guide our online activities over the coming weeks.

GBU Rome

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In GBU Rome we’re thanking the Lord for His guidance and constant support, especially in the strange times in which we’re living.

We recommenced our activities with an online event in October and it was encouraging to see new faces. We have new freshers among us, but it has proved harder than usual to reach non-believer students. With this aim we are encouraging our students to invite non-believer colleagues to join in with GBU events.

To mark the occasion of World Student Day we met, socially distanced, outside, and despite there not being many of us, we had a special time of prayer and fellowship.

Our prayer points are:

  • For the group in general, particularly for students to encourage other students to join us, whether or not they are believers.
  • For organising a pre-outreach online event, aimed at arousing interest and challenging non-believers to join in the weekly meetings. We also want to challenge all group members to invite along at least one non-believer friend.

GBU Bari

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Thank God we’ve been able to start doing our weekly Bible study again. In these first weeks we’ve been reflecting on a series of passages from the Gospel which clearly show Jesus as being the one who can achieve the impossible… we can’t stay indifferent when we come up against him!

Let’s thank the Lord for the new students who have joined our GBU group, for the main part freshers, and also for greater involvement of the various group members in the various Bible study meetings, despite being limited to having to only meet online via Google Meet.

Furthermore, we managed to do an online prayer meeting last Monday together with GBU Foggia, which was very encouraging and edifying and allowed us to share various prayer points. We’re hoping to be able to repeat this meeting at least once a month.

We’re planning to organise an outreach event in December but, due to the uncertain Covid situation, we don’t yet know whether we’ll do this in person or online… Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom and ideas for this event.

We’re asking for prayer that the group would draw closer together and that we’d be able to involve newcomers and freshers in the activities, despite the distance, and invite along non-believer students.

Moreover, I imagine you know that Puglia has become a Covid “orange zone”, therefore, pray that the Lord would continue to sustain and protect us.