Bologna Day 2

We started the day similar to day 1. We began with devo, testimonies, and a debriefing from the day before at the Hannah's apartment. Afterward, we made our way to campus to have lunch at the mensa with students. Dillon & I sat down with 2 students, Floriana and Michael. To our surprise, they had met members of our team the day before at lunch. Floriana asked of it was normal in America to randomly sit with students you don't know and attempt a conversation with them. I think she thought it was pretty weird that we were trying so hard to meet other students and talk to them.

After a long conversation with Floriana and Michael about what they liked to do, american football, etc., we invited them to an aperitivo we were hosting at Lab 16 near campus. Floriana gladly accepted and I was so excited that she was going to come and meet more of the team and allow me to talk to her more.

After lunch, we went to the scuderia coffee bar on campus and began doing surveys and soularium. Melissa and I began a conversation with 2 Albanian girls and asked them if they'd mind doing a survey. We learned a lot from these girls and this was probably one of the most interesting conversations we had all day. They told us that 80% of Albania is Mulsim and about 20% is Catholic or Protestant. Only a small percentage of the Muslim population actually "practices" their religion, while a larger portion of Christians are "active," I guess you could say. We asked these girls a few questions about human rights and their personal philosophy. The conversation got really interesting, though, when we brought up God and Jesus.

Ani believed that Jesus was not the son of God, yet did live, was not crucified, but ascended into heaven and will come again to save the world. The other girl (I cannot remember her name...) said she could not believe in God because she believes in science, however, she did say that she believes that Jesus is the son of God, died on the cross, but was not resurrected. She also mentioned that she was not well informed about Jesus (interesting...).

Ani also went on to say that she believed that God is the most intelligent scientist, as well as the creator of intelligence, and that he created the world. The other girl said that this could not be true because it conflicts with science. We both thought this was a really weird conversation coming from girls declaring to be Muslim... Together it seems like they "know" the gospel, but it's so misconstrued between the 2 of them. We mentioned that our team practices English with Italian students and gave them our card for Agape Italia, so hopefully they'll contact our team and maybe want to know more about our conversation.

That afternoon, we hiked up to San Luca, a church on the hill. This was probably the longest uphill hike I have ever done, but the view was amazing. The church was also very ornate and beautiful.

That night, our team hosted an aperitivo at Lab 16 and we had quite the crowd! Several of our new friends showed up and stayed for 4 hours, getting to know the team, learning about each other's cultures, etc. this gives our missionaries a great advantage because relationships that are formed are very helpful when entering into a conversation about God. The Italian students are so turned off by God and the Catholic church that a relationship is needed to really get a feel for what their life is like, what feelings they have toward God and religion, and how we can help them to know the truth about Christianity and a relationship with Jesus Christ.

This week has been a blessing already. God has crossed our paths with students who have openly talked about their lives, beliefs, and feelings toward religion and it has given us such a burden for these people. Please pray for the students at the University of Bologna and our full time team there.

Forgot a few of the silly pics from the other night. We also went to the whispering wall tonight.