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Bologna is a city of about 500,000 in northern Italy, approximately two hours southeast of Milan. The vast majority of its citizens are nominal Roman Catholics--they have a religious understanding, but few have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. There are fewer than 300 evangelicals, an indication of the great spiritual vacuum existing there.
The missions trip was done in conjunction with one of the small evangelical churches in the city. It is nondenominational and has three TEAM missionary couples working with it. One of those couples is Stan and Annamaria Goertzen, members of Central Heights. This church partnership allowed for preparation to happen jointly, with the assurance that follow-up would occur.
The team participated in a variety of outreach events, including distribution of over 20,000 tracts to apartments surrounding the church, university ESL classes, park puppet ministry to children and street evangelism. In the central "piazza" of the city, mimes and songs attracted on-lookers, with whom members of the team shared their individual testimonies, translated into Italian by members of the local church. These provided a bridge for conversation with a number of the audience.
Success is not easily measured, but a number of new people were in church on the final Sunday. For most of these, evangelical Christianity is brand new, so ongoing prayer is needed. One is struck by the parallel between the evangelical church in Italy and the New Testament church in this same part of the world 2000 years ago: It is small, yet dynamic and growing.
Ron Redekop, associate pastor
Return to the M.B. Herald Vol. 35, No. 14
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