God provides in Rome
CMS missionary Gillian Law works in Rome with Christian university students and their friends as part of the GBU (Gruppi Biblici Universitari, an Italian university Christian group). Recently they saw God answering prayer through a dramatic presentation of Mark’s Gospel, as Gillian tells here.
GBU Rome has seen God answer prayers, especially for The Mark Drama (TMD), a theatrical presentation of Mark’s gospel. At the start I said to the students that this project needed to be covered in prayer, trusting the Lord to provide and his will to be done at every step. God was faithful!
God provides a team and a venue
Our first prayer was to find all the team members, and a place to hold the dramatic production on a limited budget. God provided! Every team member was from Rome and everyone was a student. This was fantastic, because in similar productions in the past we’ve had to get students from other cities or friends from church. And God provided a place to perform free of charge, very accessible via public transport.
God provides for language, sore throats, storms, and exams
We prayed that God would meet every practical need, and he did. The international students were able to get their mouths around Italian words with confidence and fluency. When the students playing Jesus and James woke up on the morning of the second performance with sore throats, we asked the Lord to protect their voices—and he did. When a large storm blanketed Rome in hail 30 minutes before the start of the first performance, we asked that people would not be dissuaded from attending. God provided a full house, including many nonbelievers. When one of the team had an exam the day after the second performance, she prayed that God would honour her choice to use the weekend doing TMD rather than studying. She passed her exam.
God answers wider prayers: evangelism and discipleship
TMD was also an answer to some wider prayers of the students. One international exchange student, in Rome for only one month when I asked him to participate, had been praying for friends and a community for his short stay in Rome. Through TMD he got to know other students, increased his confidence in speaking Italian and this opened up opportunities to meet more people. Another student in his final year has been praying for a uni friend since they had met in first year, looking for opportunities to share the gospel. He was excited to tell me after the first performance that his friend had come, the first time he’d accepted an invitation to a Christian event.
TMD was also part of my ongoing prayers for Christian students in Rome to be well-grounded in the gospel and emboldened to share it with others. One student, who has been a Christian for some years, told me that this experience taught her that it’s one thing to know Jesus died for her. But to understand this is a whole other story.
The week after TMD we were on campus chatting to students about the gospel and one of the first years was keen to participate. Often students get nervous about this exercise and don’t turn up or stay quiet and let me do the talking. But this student was happy to chat to various students we met that day: asking questions, and sharing his reasons for believing in the God of the Bible.
Our prayers continue for those who came to TMD, especially the friends and family of GBU students: that it might one day be part of their testimony in how they came to know Jesus.
PRAY
PRAYGive thanks to God for his answers to prayer for The Mark Drama, and pray with Gillian that many family and friends of GBU Rome students will come to know Jesus as Lord.
