first day of ministry!

ciao amici! oh my, was today a long day! i am so excited though, because we started our ministry today. we started the day with a meeting at the office. the ministry here is called 'agape italia'...that is what the students know the team as. so we met at the agape office at 10am and had a small bible study before we began our day. gary, the director of the agape team, took us through 2 samuel 9, and it was awesome. we are so blessed to have such a wise man of the lord leading our entire team. then, we went over some administrative stuff and left for the campuses! my team is split into 2 groups and each group goes to a different campus. the two campuses are novelli, which is business, law, and social sciences, and morgani, which is engineering and medicine. my campus is novelli. we got there around 12:30 and ate lunch at the mensa (the cafeteria). my group paired off and went to sit next to some students! we sat down at a table with kelly, one of the agape permanent staff girls, and immediately, a guy named carlo came and set next to us. he knew kelly because he had been to a few agape events. we talked to him forever in his broken english...it was aweome. i asked if we could speak in italian and he said no because he wanted to practice his english...it made me sad, but obviously, i agreed. then, we went and got a caffè and sat down and here comes carlo again...still yaking away! he was great though...he told us some jokes that made absolutely no sense at all, but that he thought were hilarious, so of course, theresa and i laughed along with him. he went to go study in the library, so we went up to a room where there were some more people studying to see if we could find some to talk to.

our preface for our ministry is that we are on a cultural exchange trying to learn about italian culture, language, and college students' views on life and spirituality. we have a survey that we go through with people we meet that starts off with surface questions and then get more spiritually oriented, in hopes that it will lead into an opportunity to share the gospel. we met with 2 groups of girls that were really receptive to what we had to say and gave great answers to our questions. there names are simona, silvia, althies, and sara. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM!!! none of them are believers, and in fact, simona flat out told me that she didn't believe in God, but they were so open to listening to us and responding to the survey, that i was so encouraged. we invited them to our english class that we are having tomorrow, so i hope they come! please be praying for them continually! we didn't get to go much deeper than the survey questions, but the lord really opened my eyes to what ministry is like in italy, and gave me so much more confidence to approach students in the future. the biggest thing i learned today is that i need to be praying for sensitivity to the holy spirit, so i would know how to approach, what to say, how far to push, and when to back off. PLEASE PRAY FOR THIS TOO!!! even though i didn't outright share the gospel with anyone today, i am so encouraged by their willingness to hear and feel so empowered by the strength of my lord. i am so not alone in this...in fact, this isn't me at all. please pray that i would remember this. that is going to be it for now, but i love you all so much and i am so thankful for all of you and your prayers! please don't stop! pray without ceasing!

also, please be praying specifically for my team...here are their names:

stephanie
katherine
hayleah
rachel
thecla
ally
ashlee
theresa
samantha
kim
jessica
me :)
matt
adam
jonathan
kevin
chase
toby and jessica (our leaders)

thanks so much...love you!

ci vediamo! ciao tutti!