From Ester Montefalcone, National Director of Italia YFC
- CHALLENGE — Our “Challenge” retreat was a great blessing to the young adults who participated and to the older adults that were there to offer themselves as mentors. The studies by Andy Hamilton (from Scrabo Hall Church, Belfast) encouraged us to live for God, letting Him transform us from the “inside out”, in a world that has turned its back on Him and lives as if there were no God to whom we must give account. The various workshops were a stimulus to reflect on certain areas of life where we need to mature. Some of the young adults present at the retreat have committed to being followed up by a mentor from their local church.
- OIKOS (group home for girls) — Our relationship with the group home OIKOS in the center of Bologna continues. We have had opportunities to spend some evenings with the girls, and during one of these evenings, one of the young adults who works with us had a moment to give his personal testimony of faith in Jesus. Pray that this relationship will develop and that we will have other opportunities to love and serve these girls and their educators.
- OUTREACH WITH AN AMERICAN GROUP — In March a group of teens from a Christian High School in Arkansas (USA) came to Bologna for three days to help us with our school programs. One of their leaders is a baseball coach that has worked for a few years with Sport Camp, which is held at Poggio Ubertini in June. We were in 5 high schools in Bologna with this group doing English lessons and teaching baseball. There were a number of opportunities for testimonies. Pray that these seeds will bear fruit.
- EXCH@NGE 2011 — The second edition of our summer camp, Exch@nge, returns to Bologna. Again this year, from July 4-9, we will spend a week with teenagers in Bologna doing sports and learning English and the Bible – all in the context of a cultural exchange. In fact we will have two teams, one from Wheaton (USA) and one from Durham (UK), to help us.
- TURIN OUTREACH, May 17-22 — Pray with us this week. We are in Turin where, in collaboration with the Azione Biblica Church, we are hosting an event called “In or Out?” For this occasion we will have with us a teams from Youth for Christ in Northern Ireland and Holland. The Cage is used a lot by Youth for Christ in the countries of Northern Europe to reach teenagers. It’s a real cage in which four players play soccer (football) and then the youth workers share a short message that connects the game to spiritual values. This will be our first experience in Italy and we greatly need prayer – for protection, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of eternal life in the lives of many.