Last year, we developed relationships with so many individual people. One of my big hopes for the year was to bring the people we know together. Now, we've always been told this doesn't work here, because basically people have lifelong friends. They know everyone that they've known since they were 3 years old. It's very different from America in that way. So, we decided to go ahead and start a girls bible study with these odds against us. We just gathered everyone who could meet at that time. It ended up being 4 girls. I was so excited the night before, and was thinking before I fell asleep... "wait a second! Bible studies are awkward in America too for the first month, but then you get to know people and start enjoying it!" haha, I realized maybe it wasn't too crazy.
Before, we just prayed that the girls would connect and that it would be a great time. And... it was! We had it in all Italian, so much of the time I wasn't too sure what was going on. Our team leader Amanda is fluent in Italian, so she was leading the time. Last year all we ever experienced were very difficult conversations in broken English, so it was so incredible to hear the girls being able to really express themselves in Italian! I couldn't believe how well everyone was getting along, and how they were really opening up and sharing their lives with each other. Our friend Ilaria had said a week before, that she didn't know anyone who would come to a bible study. You see, in Italy, faith is an extremely personal thing that really isn't discussed. Afterwards, she said it was great to sit around and discuss God and life with other Italian girls.
The 3 of us girls were in awe of how great it ended up being. Our desire is to start community groups like this that are comfortable places that people can invite their friends to, so that many people will be able to hear the gospel and experience the body of Christ.
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