What we do in life echoes in eternity

Tuesday 29 May Sorry for the delay in the blogs I have been busy and haven't had a ton of time to blog, and be on a computer, so I will try and catch up. Today we went to the compo and met Giovanni, Hannah and Sara to help them hand out fliers for the bible study that they hold for anyone who is interested at the church. Right now they are doing a study on who Jesus was, so they are really trying to get students involved, so they asked us if we would be willing to help out and we said absolutely. So we split up into groups myself Melinda and April went with Sara, who doesn't speak very much English but Melinda has studied Italian a little so we got it to work. So we started walking down a street towards one of the campuses and she told us that when we handed out a flier we should say Posso la chartie questo. We had no idea what it meant at the time but we went with it, and it seemed effective so we didn't really question it. Eventually we found out that it just meant would you like to have this, which is what we figured. So we passed out fliers for a while walking up and down a street where there is a lot of student traffic then we headed to where one of the student cafeterias is and stood outside and handed out fliers out there. At one point I handed a flier out to some one and they walked a little ways then stopped and read it and came back and asked for a second one, so April and I were excited about that hoping that meant she was planing on coming that evening. So we handed out fliers and then we headed back to the hostel and hung out there for a while, and got in contact with some of our contacts, and then family B cooked dinner. They made bacon and had all of the fixings for BLT's and such and also they bought potato's and made some french fries which were amazing. The dinner was terrific it really hit the spot. That was at about 6:30, so we all ate together and then Team A got ready to go and we headed to the Bible study, Steve, Shelby, Nicole and myself. We got there and talked a little with some of the regular church attendees that we have gotten to know, prayed for the time, and hung out and waited for people to show up. The flier said that the bible study started at 8:30 but in Italian culture that really means 9 - 9:15 so that is about the time that we got started. But it's okay because the girls that came back and asked for a second flier did show up and they brought two friends along with them as well. So there were about 5 students there who weren't regular attendees. So the guest speaker who is finishing up his PhD work lead the bible study and it was pretty mellow for a while, but then the students started asking questions and sharing opinions and that is when things got interesting. The students who showed up were not what we would call believers, they did not believe in Jesus, or God for that matter, there were differing beliefs that is for sure. One female, who came back for the second flier, was particularly vocal and opinionated, so she had about a 25 minute debate with some of the people from the church on why Jesus was a revolutionary, and how him being a revolutionary was directly correlated to the fact that he is the son of God. After that there was a little down time and then a guy that was there start to ask question about different things, and one of the questions that he asked was "How can such a universal message as love be confined to the Christian faith?" Giovanni had some things to say to him and a few other people had things to say, but the one thing that was truly profound and made the best impact on him was what Hannah said, and she said something along the lines of "God created all of us, and so for that reason we were all given the capacity and desire to love, as God does, so that is how it can be justified." That is the gist of what she said I missed some of it because she spoke it in Italian, and she is our translator, so she had to stop translating and just answer in Italian. A little while after that things got pretty heated again, and Hannah did her best to try and keep up with the translations but some of the things that the students were bringing up as arguments were pretty confusing and she had trouble following along as did we when she translated. How ever I think that the most interesting part of the night is when another girl shared that her father was a priest, yes Catholic priest. We aren't entirely sure how that one exactly works out but apparently it does. Anyway she was saying that she has had a terrible experience with the church, so even thought she believed at one point she doesn't right now, because she needs to look from the outside in, and re-discover who Jesus is. I found what she had to say very interesting, and I really liked Giovanni's response which was, well at some point you have to start searching again, because if you never start searching it's hard to find anything, but you are here so I am assuming that you are starting to search some what. The guest speaker then finished up his power-point presentation that he had for his part of the study, and then it became my moment to shine. The Sunday prior to the bible study when we were at lunch I told Giovanni and Hannah about my Catholic upbringing, and about the journey I have been on since starting college to be where I am now, and they thought that it would be great if I were to share my story with everyone, so I did. After everything that had happened I got up and shared my testimony, in English with a translation. I can't be 100% positive but i felt like from the looks on the faces of the students who showed up that night that it spoke to them and got them thinking which is fantastic. That was the end of the bible study, so afterwards we chatted a little with the regulars, had a few bites to eat, and headed home. We arrived back at the Residence at about 11:45. We were there for almost 4 hours it was pretty crazy but totally worth it. "And Jesus called to them 'Come follow me and I shall make you fishers of men'" -Matthew 4:19