Student Retreat 2012

College students from all over Rio de Janeiro State experienced a unique moment of communion, spiritual growth and leisure during June 7^th – 10^th. The Student Retreat as a real remarkable moment in our timeline. Uno cards, interesting conversations, guitar chords and singing along, friendship, rain, cold and lots of joy made these four days the best ones of my year. An unforgettable time, yeah. Students and missionaries took these days to discuss about how our routine as spiritual movement is going and think about new plans and strategies for our campuses so that our goal can be achieved among the students.

It was wonderful to hear about what’s going on in every campus. I could feel a little bit how difficult is the reality faced by my friends in each university. Such difficulties are as hard as the ones me and my friends face at my university. In the perspective of a spiritual movement we understand that God wants to use us so that great things can happen through us and thus His name be glorified. Christ is the very center, His love is what moves us and His purpose is our purpose too. We wish to see changes in our universities and therefore we need to rise up. God has put resources in our hands and this is extremely urgent to use them. We’re positioned in a strategic place, from where influent people will rise and act in our society some years later. There’s so more than books, philosophies and degrees and we should share it with them.

I lived a nice experience when I mediated some discussion groups. I talked what’s our objective, our goal, since we are a spiritual movement at the university. Just like a fisherman, we need to fish in the seas of our campuses, sharing the love of Christ with those ones we don’t know. We need to be daring althout we feel hindered by circumstances (authorities in the campus, scarce resources, few engaged people etc). Nevertheless, these things cannot keep us from doing God’s work. We’ve been called to do ir and who enables us is God. We depend only on Him, whatever we need comes from Him. Our goeal is to reach people so that they can have at least the opportunity to hear about Christ and His redeeming grace. We also must share with those ones we know, investing in relationships, investing all our lives in theirs lives.

It was so good to hear what students have been thinking to do in their campuses. I felt so inspired and gave a lot of thought about my campus. I designed some new strategies and felt encouraged to take some step forward. It’s time to see new things coming and this is what I expect for the universities yet this year.

I was also very glad with the presence of many new students. It was great when I came and noticed all those new faces adapting to the context of our movement. It gave me enthusiasm, hope. Day by day they were understanding their roles as Christians at the university and how important they are in the process of changes that can happen through them. I just wanted to get connected with them and then show them my support, and tell them that they can count on me whatever they need; I’m just here to help in their journeys. It’s very interesting to look at myself today and see how different I am, ready to help them by being always close to them and sharing with them a little bit of what I’ve been learning from God. I was a big fun to be with them and learn from them. It’s good to build new relationships. God has inspired me to think about the newness that is to come. So many things have happened since last January; new students appeared, things changed, perspectives have become clearer.

This student retreat was just the beginning of something big, good and new that God wants to achieve in our State. Students are rising up to be a reference of youth in Rio de Janeiro, reflecting the character, principles, love and happiness of God, whom is the giver of abounding life and the only one deserving of all glory in the whole Universe.

Sam

Making Disciples

Among all this atmosphere of exams and works at the campus, students get more stressed and don’t show up as frequently as they use to. But you can easily find them in the library or in study rooms. I passed through a situation like this some weeks ago and probably will do it again very soon. I was spending lots of time studying for exams and working at the museum so that I didn’t spend so much time on ministry issues as I use to.

As I’ve already said, I am a very relational person. I love to be with people, to care about them, to walk aside them, to truly know them. That’s why one of the things I most like is discipleship. How I love it! I remember when I started to disciple my current disciples. I felt just like I wasn’t so ready for that and I noticed that my relationship with them wasn’t that deep as I wanted it to be. It took some time for us to settle a real friendship. I learned that discipleship is all about investing your life in people; to love them, to help them to walk day by day, to be close and also to be friends. It is also to lead, to learn from them, to love. I’m so glad cause I can see myself so mature and I can also see their growth. It is something mutual, we’re developing together. Today I feel joy when I see each of them, my disciples, going on in their spiritual and ministerial journeys. I can see the fruits. The most wonderful thing is to see these fruits tending to generate new trees, from which other new fruits will sprout with time.

Discipleship gives me pleasure, simply because I am helping someone in this one’s Christian journey and it is surely contributing to make this one to do the same with another person someday. It improves me, I am edified, and I get to know more about myself.

One question was making me wonder “How can I do this same thing out of my campus?”. I started to pray and every new day I was getting more enchanted by the idea of starting a discipleship at church. I started to have weekly meeting with a boy whom had just started to go to church. Nevertheless, he’s not converted to Christ. We’re studying about Jesus’ life and he’s loving it! He feels really happy because I showed myself willing to help him to understand more about God’s love and also because now he’s got someone who can help him with his doubts and questions. His spontaneous interest amazes me. Thank You, Lord!

I am deeply happy because of it all. Making disciples brings me nonpareil satisfaction as I see lives being changed and edified. To walk with someone who’s just got to know Jesus, helping this one to grow and progress in the journey and have a relationship with Christ is all I ever dreamt of. Plus, seeing my old disciples making new disciples drives me to immeasurable happiness.

I came to share about it because it was our last monthly meeting’s theme [at this meeting many students from several universities in Rio de Janeiro get together to celebrate, make friends, to pray and to be inspired to keep on in their campus ministries]; We were wonderfully ministered about discipleship. Who spoke that night is a missionary from “BrasilMúsica e Missão”, a ministry which uses musical and visual arts to evangelize people. After that meeting I felt more engaged in keep on in this journey, helping my friends to grow even more spiritually and personally. As that missionary said, based on John 15, “we should spend all our energies on fructifying”. All our life is supposed to do it, just like Jesus did. We should walk as He did, speak as He did, behave as He did. He not only gave His life but He is Life.

Sam

Easter: You're doing it WRONG!

From April 2nd to 13th, students from some universities in Rio de Janeiro State made an evangelistic mobilization in their campuses. Our goal was to take advantage of the EASTER season to strategically expose students to Christ’s history and his Salvation plan. It was great to hear what our schoolmates really think about this holiday. Many Brazilian people celebrate it – or, at least, they remember about it – however so few people understand what is it really about. This season is very significant for Christians, since it leads us to the memory of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross so that mankind could delight of a perfect relationship with God – and that’s why we were made for – and of the abounding life that’s offered to us. We made some fliers and posters using the picture aside.

I’ve heard some people – including a professor – saying that they had seen the poster and loved the Idea. So… Why not making students think about it? Easter isn’t just a holiday to be together with the family in a delicious Sunday lunch or to get stuck of chocolate. Surely, you can even do both these things but there’s so much more than this. And it’s essential to keep it in mind.

One day I was with one of my friends and we went for a walk, seeking for students just to talk to them about God. We found two girls. We had introduced ourselves and showed them a flier. We asked them what they think about that image. One of them said that she had already been exposed to that picture. The other girl held the picture in her hands and started to analyze it. As she was beholding the picture, the other girl asked us something: “would it be okay if I decided to give chocolate to a Christian friend of mine?”. I said: “well, if I was this friend, I would love to receive the chocolate!”. During our conversation I tried to make it clear that, there is no problem on eating chocolate and the rabbit from the picture isn’t to blame – by the way, what’s wrong in the picture is the rabbit on the cross; SomeOne else should be there instead of it. So many times we try to change the focus of things, and, unfortunately, our society’s been putting other things but Jesus as the essence of Easter time and of everything as well. Easter means Jesus’ resurrection; the empty tomb, the new life He gave us when He had died on the cross. So, if you know the real meaning of it all and believe it, besides living this truth, just relax. There is nothing better than eating chocolate once you really comprehend the complete meaning of it all. When we finished the conversation, the other girl who was beholding the flier told us she was Christian and she also helped us to explain better to her friend what we should really celebrate on this holiday. It’s a symbolic date, but it should serve as a mean to make every person of our generation to know the history and love of Jesus Christ, the author of the most important deed ever.

It makes me so glad to see new students of our group so excited and happy to share His good news in the campus. It’s a big challenge we know, since they have been with us for so short period of time and it’s usual to see many people afraid our feeling insecure about doing it so soon. Nevertheless, I can feel their passion for God and their desire to see the university as a place where God is welcome, where people can be influenced by our lifestyle and love. 

PRAY for every student to have a vision for the campus; may our hearts be aflame with the vision of a changed reality, of a new season, where each one can be impacted and thus feel themselves invited to live a different lifestyle as they are inspired and influenced by the way we act, talk and live with them at the campus.

Sam

Weekly Meetings have finally come back!

Last week we finally restarted our weekly meetings at the campus. Our intention is to promote a moment to break the ice of our university routine for we all know that it is too tough and even stressing. It’s a good time for us to talk about a lot of topics concerning our student life, our campus, future perspectives, our society and the World. A relaxing place, with smart thinking students, nice chats, and funny laughters.

Our meetings take place on Mondays (at 5:00 pm) and on Thursdays (at 12:30 pm). Last Monday we had a really funny meeting, and most of the students were freshmen. We already knew some of them through the internet. It was such a pleasure to see them in person, and get to meet those ones who were there with us for the first time.

We had another meeting last Thursday, in which the majority of the students attending it have classes in the morning. It was as good as our first Monday meeting. Freshmen students came and showed themselves so interested about our group.

It’s very important to point that our group is not limited to these weekly meetings. Perhaps, the word which would better define our group is RELATIONSHIP. Almost everything that we do is based on relationships. That’s why we have strong friendships between us so that we can develop ourselves both personally and spiritually. On top of that, this is the best way to share the love of God with students at the campus: establishing genuine connections to them. And I’ve been living awesome experiences! That’s exactly what Jesus used to do, expressing his love for the people and sharing Word of Eternal Life with them through relationships. He would truly cared for them and paid attention to their afflictions and needs. We seek to have a personal ministry based on Jesus’ ministry.

On Thursday we also went to the Nursery Faculty Building, and spoke to the group of freshmen of this semester. We could share with them about our Student Movement. The nicest thing is that they seemed to be interested to know more about the group and most of them are very interested about God and spiritual issues. Thanks God we are going forward through our campus!

God has been so wonderful to us in all of our experiences at the campus. Students of our movement are even more excited to talk about God to other students. I get so proud and surprised day by day when I hear them talking about their evangelism experiences along the week. That’s amazing! God is touching their hearts in a very special way and sharing the Gospel has become a lifestyle, in a natural and passionate way.

I’ll be back soon to talk about what’s going on in our campus.

See ya,

Sam

Welcome, Freshmen!

Last Tuesday was officially our first day back to work at the campus. I couldn’t be with the guys that day; however I heard lots of great things from them. A serious problem in our campus is to schedule events for we have some difficulties to book some areas in the campus and have access all equipments required. On this Tuesday, our friends got the permission to spread informations about our student movement freely at the main hall of the campus. They said it was almost unbelievable, because we have always experienced big difficulties in our previous attempts during the last semesters. Christian students from other campuses came to help us to share about our group and welcome the freshmen students. Our strategy was identifying visually the freshmen, approaching them, and after welcoming and congratulating them for passing the exams we asked them if we could take a picture of each of them using a face-holed poster board decorated with a painting of Einstein and other characters. We would send the picture to the student through e-mail so that they would have a funny and different remark of their first moment at the University. I was told that in the first day many students accepted to take a picture with the hole-faced poster, and thus we cold get their contacts to send the picture and more other information about our group activities. 

In our second day we met fewer students, maybe because that was the last day for them to enroll in the subjects of their courses. However, we had a great time, talking to them, explaining about our movement and taking funny pictures of them. We didn’t have any problems about doing the reception in the main hall, thank God! And it wasn’t even needed to talk to any department or so, they have already allowed us to do our activity! Amazing! We had spent some minutes praying about it before starting the reception and God answered us in a very unexplainable way.

All I can say is that our year at the campus has started in a very positive way. I’m so glad about how God has increased this desire inside the Christian students of our local movement. They yearn to spread the love of God more than ever. They’ve been surprising me day by day with new creative ideas and challenging plans. I’m sure they had a great time in Foz do Iguaçu Summer Project, last January,  as well as I did in Italy.

Now, we must get ready for the classes back on March, 5^th and all the stuff we planned to spread our movement to the new students. Pray for us! Greater things are yet to come #webelieve!

Sam

Summer Project 2012: Italy

Ciao, amici!
Now I come to speak a little bit about what I lived during this last January. Everyone knows that the essential part of our ministry is to share the Gospel, to speak about the joy of a personal relationship with God that’s available for whoever truly desires it. That’s a crucial task we have since we become Christians. Every follower of Jesus should assimilate it and thus feel a true passion for letting also others hear and comprehend the love of God. That’s why me and other Brazilian Christian students went to Italy on January, 3^rd.

Italy: how it all began

Since the very beginning I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy task. People usually have a beautiful idea when it comes to Europe. I daresay people don’t even have idea about how is the spiritual reality in Europe. We’re so used to seeing many missionaries leaving their countries to help the missionary work in African and Asian countries or any other remote and poor land around the globe. In the other hand, if you say that you’re going to Europe, it sounds kinda different. I strongly felt this during the months before the trip. Europe is cradle of culture, science and richness. There’s a really big gap between this reality and my country’s. ‘Till the middle of the last year I didn’t really use to give so much attention to Europe. It always seemed to be a very beautiful place, with well-dressed and polite people in a good life situation. However, all of a sudden I started to think about it, about Europe. Since I love English, a curiosity about England just bloomed inside my heart. It would be nice to know a European country in which people speak in English, the language I most love and struggle to improve day by day. We had a National Student Conference in June, and God touched deeply my heart. I really gave a lot of thought about Europe; I prayed for the European people; I reflected about the spiritual situation of that land and prayed for it. In the last day of the Conference I was shocked: they guys announced where would the next Summer Projects take place and one of them would be in Europe. So this is where Italy appeared and showed itself as one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had. I spent four months preparing myself, raising financial sustenance and praying for it. It was a hard moment for each of us. We prayed God for us to find people with hearts devoted to His work, people passionate by the vision of the Gospel being spread all around the World. Thank God these people appeared in our lives!  All the time I was conscious about the possible difficulties I was about to face up: the cold weather – since I became a lover of Summer-extremely-hot days –, the communication – since I was too used to speaking in English (I thought it would be useless) and my Italian was very poor –, the people’s coldness and resistance to the Gospel. However, I also knew that God would provide with everything.

Campus experience: Verona and Mantova 

We stayed in a city called Mantova, and it is located in the North. We were so well received by brothers and sisters of the local church, the Chiesa Cristiana Evangelica Battista di Mantova. Those loving people also offered their houses for each of us to stay all month long. Our group was led by four Brazilian missionaries; two of them are from the Campus Crusade for Christ in Brazil and the other two – they’re a couple - are full time volunteer missionaries whose ministries help the Baptist Church of Mantova. During the first days we had transcultural training to get adapted to the local culture and people. We went downtown to know the city of Mantova. It’s a beautiful historical city, with palaces, churches, buildings and lots of arts. We also had the pleasure of meeting Agape Italia’s missionaries in Bologna. We’ve learned so much from them when we met at the Università degli Studi di Bologna, the oldest University of the Western World. Together we had a prayer walking around the campus in Bologna.

Our evangelistic work started in Verona, at the Università degli Studi di Verona. We first planned to spend only 1 week there. In our first day there we had a prayer walking and analyzed how the campus is and the student’s routine. I could meet some students and have a little talk to them. They were our first contacts in the campus. Our biggest worry was about how to get connected to them. We really should have a nice connection to them so that we could have space to introduce spiritual conversations and walk by their side. This happened to me in a very crazy way in the first day, when I started to talk about Brazil and showed some students nice pictures of the Sunset I had taken in Arpoador/ Ipanema beach. One of the most special experiences I had happened in the second day, when I and two friends evangelized an Equatorian student and we spoke in three different languages: I was speaking in English, while one of my friends spoke in Italian and the other one in Spanish. It was amazing to see a student opening the mind to think more about God, purpose of existence and eternity! Day after day God was putting new student on our way. They were mostly friends of the students we knew during the first days of our journey in Verona. The conversations were initialized after the use of a very creative and amazing tool called MySoularium. It’s a deck of fifty photographs. Students should answer the questions we made using those photographs, since they’re very subjective and can be interpreted just as the students pleased. It was a great attempt because, as we could notice, they are very attentive to visual materials – we saw a bunch of fliers hung on the walls all around the campus. Therefore, we planed to prepare some visual material to call the attention of possible Christian students at the campus. We’ve done some colorful posters using paints and colored pens and spread it around the campus. 

Young people from different countries of the World could listen, talk freely and be incited to think about God, in some cases, for the first time. Besides the Italians, I could meet, at least, students from England, Equator, Morocco, Nigeria, Germany, and Russia. Many of these students have never had opportunity to talk about spirituality and some of them judge it something very important. One of them told me that it is something that they would never have a chance to discuss about among their classmates or friends and, when they would try to do that they would probably end up fighting. People seem never to be friendly when they’re talking about spiritual stuff. Maybe we were making the difference. Praise the Lord!

Along our days at the campus, we met Christian students and it was just amazing! Our hearts got so excited about it! God was doing so much more than we fist expected. Students were getting very open to hear us, we could keep in touch with them all the time, having lunch together, texting each other, talking on Facebook, cell phone etc. Students of other religious beliefs also stopped to chat with us and did MySoularium.

After 1 week working at Verona, we got ready to visit two campuses in Mantova: the Politecnico di Milano and the Università di Mantova. The atmosphere was kinda different from Verona and we realized that we wouldn’t need so much people working at those buildings since we met so few students. The infrastructures of those buildings were very different from Università di Verona. They were smaller, so few open places and the students’ routine were too heavy beside the fact that they were having exams, just like the students in Verona. Considering the great results we had in Verona, we decided to divide our team in two groups: one working in Mantova and the other group would return to keep doing the work in Verona. 

I spend practically the last three weeks working in Verona, having the opportunity to evangelize new students and having a discipleship with one Christian student we met. By the way, perhaps it was the biggest experience I’ve ever had there. Me and one friend of my team met this student for about five days and together we could discuss about the basic steps of a real Christian faith, evangelize students, create a friendship between us and comprehend even more the importance of sharing our faith with our mates. Thank God he has loved that moment and felt encouraged to do that among his friends. Another Christian student was accompanied by another student of our team and he strongly felt that he needed to start something at the campus with other Christian students. That’s amazing! Yes, we can see that God is moving!

On January, 25^th, we had a big surprise. We’ve been told about an earthquake nearby Verona. We decided not to go to Verona that day and thus we all worked at Mantova. I stayed at the Università di Mantova, where I could have an amazing evangelistic experience. Me and a friend – who is graduated in Italian Language – had a conversation with a couple. It was great because it was the first time I had a most complex conversation in Italian at the campus! I remember that during my first days in Italy I got very sad because I couldn’t talk to people in their language. I felt so locked inside a cage, no ground, something braking my tongue. I prayed about it every day and then God just surprised me allowing me to communicate in Italian with those students! WOW!

I faced some hard moments as well, when trying to speak to some students from Germany and Russia, however, they stopped to hear our words and it was very nice. Besides the earthquake, we had other difficulties, just like the day that a railroad workers’ strike caught us by surprise.

Returning to Brazil: lots of work on the way

Our last days at the campus overwhelmed my heart. I just couldn’t see myself leaving that campuses, saying goodbye to the student without knowing when I would come back again. I was so used to them… My routine made me feel just like home and I was very adapted to that reality. I felt pleasure by helping those students to understand more about the love of God, to reflect about their perspectives in life and all. After some photos and farewell words we took the bus and never returned to Verona. We spend someday in Ortisei, enjoying the snow and the cold mountains and recovering our energies to come back to Brazil. I realize it was a very intense month. Each new day we had to face the cold, wait for the train, run against the time, control our financial resources and wear lots of warming clothes. I would do all of this again if I had another chance.

I thank God for allowing me to help the Great Commission (Mathew 28:18-20) working with those amazing students in Italy. I really felt passionate by every student’s life. They mean so much to me and that’s why I wish the best for them. The best thing in all this life is having a relationship with Jesus Christ, I’m sure.

And today, I’m here writing these lines, remembering those marvelous days in Italy. I miss everything I lived there! However, my heart should focus in the reality I have here. I have my campus. I see Brazilian students thirsty for answers and seeking after a compass to their lives. I came back with my heart devoted to do whatever is needed to glorify the Lord at my campus. I wish to see a generation influenced by people who truly follow God. “I don’t wanna see another generation drop”. I believe God can do the same He did in Italy and even more. We live in a free country, where Gospel can be preached. So, what about making efforts to share our faith in our campus? Why not investing more in our everyday place? I want it and I’m sure that He wants it more than myself.

Arrivederci,

Sam

Hello World!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my newest adventure. Thanks for making part of this journey, that has just begun. I’m writing this first post to introduce to you this new blog of mine. Yes, there’s a smell of new stuff in the air... As you know, I am currently a Physics student from the Rio de Janeiro State University. Besides my studies, I decided to make part of something bigger (and crazy): to dedicate my years at the campus to speak about God’s love to the students. That’s an awesome adventure. Sometimes we’re afraid about it but, the most fantastic thing is that I really feel encouraged and inspired by God to do that. I just couldn’t do that depending on my own forces, my humanity. It’s all about God. Since I had decided to follow Him, I learned that it is something very important. It’s just like sharing a very good present that you’ve received for free because you want (and you feel happy about it) others to receive it as well. Just like some of my friends, I decided to see the campus not only as an academic place, but as a place where many hearts are in search of deep answers and the best answer to them all is His unexplainable love. This love can change lives, futures, perspectives, an entire campus and even the nation as well. 

I’ve been in the student ministry since 2009, when I knew a Campus Crusade for Christ’s ministry called Movimento Estudantil Alfa e Ômega. Therefore, inspired by all these few years of experience, and motivated by my last mission trip to Italy, I decided to write a blog in which I could share what’s going on in my work with the students. The idea is to make of this blog a tool to encourage other students (in my country and around the world) who desire to share their faith at the campus, just like me and my friend do. It’s not an easy thing, you know, however, it’s simple when we depend on God.