Locals call it a hip "neighborhood hangout." For young missionaries like Sheila, it's also a life classroom.
BOLOGNA, Italy – When I graduated from college, God didn’t ask me to choose one path for the rest of my life. Instead, He led me one step forward – a two-year commitment in Italy.
I gained not just a new job, but a world of experience. I’m now standing on a missionary stage, vulnerably announcing my life to hundreds of people at Punto d’Incontro, a computer and language learning center that Avant Ministries helped launch in 2002.
One of these people is Carla. Her new job with an international company encouraged her to continue the English studies she had started at Punto d’Incontro, which translates as "The Meeting Point." Punto closed for Italy’s long summer holiday, along with countless businesses, stores and restaurants. However, the convenience of an English lesson is that it can happen anywhere – so Carla and I started our own casual “meeting points.” This led to an invitation to join her family for a weekend in the mountains.
Many of the 1,000-plus Italians registered at the rapidly-growing Meeting Point are agnostics or atheists, and Carla is no different. Her religious views reflect the post-modernism so common among people I speak to here: You believe what you believe, I believe what I believe. We’re taking different paths to the same God. It was painful to see the gospel’s offense plainly written on the face of another English student as I explained my belief about Jesus being the only way to God.
My first summer in Italy was an increasingly deeper dive into the culture and the intimidating language barrier. At first it took courage to go grocery-shopping, order a cappuccino, and ride a bus by myself. During my holiday weekend, Carla’s 9-year-old son was one of the best cultural informants I’ve had. His straightforward instruction saved me some guesswork, one lesson at a time: You wear slippers or shoes in the house. Place your bread above your dinner plate, not on it.
I’m learning to communicate in another language – the language a man down the street uses to loudly express his anger could also lead him to understand the gospel. I’m seeing the vast opportunity and need for ministry created by the neutral ground of English and Italian classes.
That weekend in the mountains with Carla was more than a cultural experience or an English lesson; it was a chance to show God’s love to an Italian family.
Avant missionary Sheila Busenitz, 23, from Newton, Kan., graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 2004 with a degree in Family Ministries.
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