From Ester Montefalcone (National Director)
We are grateful for a young leaders’ retreat in Bologna at the end of March. This was run in partnership with a church. The guest speaker was Andy Hamilton, a youth pastor from Belfast, who taught on the book of Daniel. A lot of emphasis was put on the importance of a transformation which has to happen inside out in order to make us effective for God’s kingdom. Young leaders were encouraged to choose a mentor from their local churches to be their co-journerer on their walk with Christ. Many of them have taken this seriously and have started meeting up with mentors on a regular basis.
MySpace in Palermo continues to welcome many young people to the drop-in centre. It seems like Andrea and Sheila’s desire to make this a place where young people can feel at home is becoming a reality. Pray for wisdom on how to deal with some of the troublemakers (they probably feel too much at home!) and sometimes bully others. Also pray for wisdom on how to engage these young people in spiritual conversations. Last month they had a blessed night with 50 young people and a lot of conversations on God happened. Pray that this won’t be an exception but routine.
May 17th – May 24th the Nomad team from Youth for Christ in Northern Ireland is going to be in Turin (Northern Italy) together with a team from Youth for Christ in The Netherlands and the Youth for Christ local team. The Dutch cage will be used to reach out to young people in Turin for the whole week. This will be run in partnership with a local church. Please, pray for all the bureaucracy that is involved in setting up the Cage in public spaces. Italian bureaucracy is famous for giving people a hard time accomplishing things. Pray that this outreach will be effective in spreading the Good News among the young people in Turin.