We thank God that GBU Chieti-Pescara has started up again after a few years, and we’re encouraged by the support of local churches. There are currently only a few of us involved in the meetings, but we’re trusting God that the group will grow. As numbers are low, meetings aren’t always regular.
This is the reason why we’re asking for prayer for other students to get to know the GBU and join in the meetings.
We thank the Lord that after being on hold for a year, the group has started up again! To date we’ve managed to meet up regularly once a week, albeit online.
Please pray the students would be more and more impassioned by the GBU vision, that they’d give it the right priority and that we’d be more encouraged to speak about Jesus with our colleagues.
We’re also asking for prayer that we’d manage to meet up in person, which is currently proving difficult, given everyone’s different availability.
This year the group at Urbino has been formed out of new people. We’re pleased that after the GBU formed, we’ve had continual meetings every week, with more and more people attending. We’re going through the series, The seven “I am”s of Jesus.
Two Catholic boys have been attending since last year and we’re pleased they’re continuing to come along regularly. We state the Gospel message at every meeting, so pray they’d receive it in their hearts one day.
Let’s pray that believer group members would have a heart for the work of the GBU and would always attend regularly.
Moreover, due American missionaries would like to come to Urbino to set up a Church. They’re still praying about it, but let’s place this in God’s hands, because something beautiful is happening in Urbino.
We’re planning to hold an event before the end of the year, a Christmas dinner, with an outreach aim of inviting lots of students. It will be held at the start of December.
Moreover, we’re going to start organising the Winter Camp next week. It will be held with GBU Siena and GBU Pisa in the first weekend of March and we can’t wait!
At GBU Bologna we’re studying some passages from Luke this year, connected by the theme of love and forgiveness. We pray that in these meetings the students would reflect the immense love God has for us and encourage us to love others as we love ourselves, and in the same way forgive one another.
We thank the Lord that new students have come to join the GBU and despite the initial difficulties brought about by organising the meetings, we’ve now managed to find two different time slots enabling everyone to join in.
Pray the Lord would lead us next time we go into the Faculty, giving us wisdom in speech, and opening the hearts of the students who’ll hear about Him. Pray that the Lord would guide our conversations and help us be fearless in sharing the message of hope and salvation that we have in Jesus.
GBU Castelfranco will try to start up from scratch again this year, in the Castelfranco Veneto Conservatory. This choice was made because the group had been made up entirely of young adults from the Conservatory, who were not students, with the exception of the group coordinator, the only one who was studying there. The decision was therefore to continue with the group made up of young people as an autonomous group, and to try to form a new GBU group, which would reach students in Castelfranco Conservatory.
The prayer request is therefore that with God’s help, the group coordinator would manage to find new students to read the Bible with.
Meanwhile, we thank the Lord for the work completed by Him in these three years of GBU Castelfranco, for having brought together many believers and non-believers to read the Word of God, forming new friendships and connections, and sowing seeds of truth in the hearts of many.
In October we started up again, needing to reform a group from virtually nothing, however, we are very grateful for how God enabled us to start up our Bible studies and prayer meetings. A few days ago we were able to present the GBU to other students at the University of Padua. God gave us two new students to welcome and talk to about what the GBU does. We’re very encouraged because God is providing a network of contacts for us through whom we can reach new people.
The students in our group are very motivated to share the Gospel with others and are rejoicing at the doors God is opening for them.
At the moment the group is made up entirely of students who already know God. We are praying to be able to reach other students and be able to start up conversations where the Gospel is shared.
We’re putting up posters on University notice boards and we’re trying to update our Instagram page with short videos, where we introduce the GBU and talk about our experiences with it. We’d also like to meet students one-on-one to talk to them. Let’s pray God would use these methods to bring people close to Him.
We need great wisdom as group coordinators to know which steps to take in the coming weeks and for which initiatives to undertake to best glorify God. As we’re continually evolving as a group, we evaluate the choices we make from time to time.
Among the praise points, we’d like to thank God for being able to renew our membership as University Association this year too, allowing us to have a warm venue to meet inside the University and giving us access to University funding for organising conferences or seminars. We’d also like to praise God for allowing us and each group member to form new student friendships and contacts who can then come along to meetings.
One of our prayer requests is asking for prayer for the conference we’re holding on 14 December, that it will be an effective time giving out flyers and that those God wants to bring along will choose to come to GBU meetings. Pray also for the posters we’re about to put up for the presentation of the GBU as a University Association on 15 November, that God would use these to make the GBU known and new students would be led to come to meetings and be saved by His grace. Finally, we’d like to ask God for wisdom for us, the team coordinators, that He’d lead us both in managing the group and in decisions needing to be made by the end of this year over requesting funding for next year’s conferences.
