Last Day on Campus

Can you believe that I come home in 5 days! I can't! This won't be my last post but it will be one of my last from Bologna. This past week has been amazing. As the trip went on, we spent less time on campus meeting new people but more time following up and hanging out with the people we have met. This week I had a few meetings with Filippo from last year and a new friend named Sebastiano. Both very cool guys that I look forward to keeping in touch with once I get home. Not to mention the rest of my team has been on fire with meetings and getting the Italian students in contact with the permanent staff here. Last night we had an end of the trip party and we were able to invite all the Italians we have met and become friends with over the past 5 weeks. We had over 20 students come and eat and talk with us. It was the most students I had seen in one place in my two trips here. The Italians that are with our partner church here were amazed at the turnout. It was cool getting to see the students we met talk with the students from our church and of course we couldn't understand any because they were speaking Italian and very fast at that! I am so excited for what is to come in this city and on this campus. Last night was another big new beginning that we can work off of in future years.


This weekend we have a debriefing a few hours away from Bologna. This time is to clear the air and let everything that has happened over the past five weeks to sink in. Everything has been happening so fast it is hard to really go through each encounter and each conversation but we need to think about those things because they will keep fresh in our mind the need that is still here. It doesn't go away just because we leave to go back home to our Christian bubble. Italy needs workers. Bologna needs workers. The work is not finished.


We will be on campus for a very short time today because we will spend most of the day with our Italian friends that we have met. After we are finished on campus we will go to the park to play some soccer and basketball and then all go somewhere to watch the Brazil v. Portugal match. I am looking forward to hanging out with them for one of the last times before I leave. Please pray for the students we have met. Pray that God will soften their hearts so that they will see that God loves them unconditionally and wants a personal relationship with them. I pray that your hearts will break for the same students that my heart breaks for...the same students that I long to call my brothers and sisters in Christ. Finally, in the words of Paul writing to the Ephesians:


Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.