Posts

,

A JOY THAT SPRINGS FORTH EVEN IN SUFFERING

Tempo di lettura: 2 minuti
Elena Montaldo, coordinator of GBU Torino 

As someone who studies Primary Education (ed: education = training), the word “training,” has a special value.

Its meaning is not summed up in the systematic transmission of knowledge, but indicates a desire to render someone competent. In other words, they are able to rework and apply that same knowledge that they learnt in the context of reality. This is possible only if there is a social network that provides those being trained, stimuli to which they can respond.

Student Leaders Training

This year’s Student Leaders Training meant all of the above to me and even more. It was  more than a context where students from all over Italy gathered for three days in Florence to listen to teaching, study the Bible together and participate in various  seminars. Here I even had the opportunity to lead an inductive Bible study, a prayer meeting, as well as planninng events and meetings for the new GBU students and to share GBU with university students in Florence itself.   

For the first time as a coordinator, after years of participation in the GBU, I felt that I was an irreplaceable part of a project that has Love as its engine and People’s Lives as its goal.

The theme

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul speaks as a father who, shortly before his death, addresses his son. The very one who had been the author of massacres, violence and persecution of Christians, after meeting Jesus, finds himself writing in prison, abandoned by all and condemned to death because of his faith in Him. 

An absurd decision in the eyes of many, but not to his own who saw joy flowing from his suffering. With his life, until his last breath, Paul had in fact led many souls to receive the salvation that comes from faith in the One who first gave His life and rose again to give them Life forever.

Reading and studying his words together with other students who, like me, received that same news and chose to believe and live for this same reality – I felt like the recipient,  together with Timothy, of that same letter. 

Let’s start again

During our Student Leaders Training we coordinators were confronted with an example of faith that laid bare our fears, insecurities and worries that anyone, in living to the fullest an ideal that goes against the grain, faces sooner or later, and then removed them. Together we understood the deep meaning of the ministry we believe has been entrusted to each of us Christian students within the GBU.

I realized how much courage and strength it can take to consistently maintain this life choice. At the same time, I realized even more deeply how worthwhile it is to live it out fully so that more and more people will know the Love and grace that the God of the Bible has shown, through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus, in order to have a personal relationship with each of them.

Now we are ready to begin again, each where he or she lives in Italy. This time, however, with the knowledge that everything we do in our own small way has a common goal and a joy that springs even in suffering.

,

Far From Home

Tempo di lettura: 2 minuti

There aren’t many contexts like university, at least spiritually.  Every day we’re assaulted by the assumption that every “good”, even the best “goods”, can be reached if we humans just put in enough effort.  In today’s university departments, there’s little room for the spiritual: at most, it gets relegated strictly to the private, personal realm that has little or nothing to do with civic life or academic progress.  In our lecture halls, therefore, the socio-physical world and the spiritual world are completely separate, removed from one another.

 For both the aggressive atheist and the typical disinterested uni student, someone who wants to entrust themselves completely to Jesus seems strange.  Maybe too strange – crazy, even.  Academically, faith is often seen as weakness, a shortcoming, something that gets in the way of knowledge, that holds humanity back from reaching our true potential.  How then can someone belong to Jesus and at the same time swim in these cultural waters?  It’s easy for a believing student to feel like a fish out of water, to feel truly far from home.

But this experience isn’t at all unique to the modern university

From the very beginning of Christianity, believers have been considered “outsiders” by their society – from the very beginning it was clear to the world that there was something different about these “Christians”, that their allegiance wasn’t the same as those around them, the majority of their society.  For this reason in the early years, the church suffered greatly at the hands of those around them.  The problem was so serious, that the apostle Peter wrote a letter to the first generation of believers – calling them “sojourners and exiles” on this earth – encouraging them to not give up, but to endure, to keep going, even to rejoice in the midst of their sufferings, because of the great blessing that they had received from God.  This letter will be our launching point for the long-awaited FESTA GBU!

What does it mean, though, to be a sojourner and an exile?

What does that imply for today, to be far from home?  This will be the main theme for this year.  We’ll have two very special guests joining us: Stefano Mariotti, the pastor of the Chiesa la Piazza in Budrio (BO), who will share with us some reflections from 1 Peter on this theme.  We will also have with us Lindsay Brown, former General Secretary of IFES, the global movement that includes the GBU.  Linsdau will be sharing some of the lessons he has learnt from his over 40 years of experience in student ministry.

 But wait, there’s more!  The FESTA GBU also represents the primary moment of the year when students from all of Italy can gather together IN PERSON for 4 days of workshops, prayer and praise to the Lord, music, sport and plenty of time face to face – what a joy that we’ve been missing for nearly 3 years!  It’ll be unforgettable, and absolutely unmissable.  

Be there!

Simon Cowell
(Staff GBU Bari)

Sign up here!