 "Photo: Courtesy Kevin Eaton")
From May 16 to June 27, three UCF students, as well as four former students and three students from Valencia Community College, traveled to Salerno, a city in southern Italy.
The trip is part of UCF Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Overseas Missions Opportunities.” While in Italy, students had the mission of building relationships with local Salerno students as well as building their relationship with God by sharing their faith.
“Our overall vision is to connect every college student on our campus with someone who truly knows Christ,” said Kevin Eaton, an event management major. “We don’t look to push a religion, but a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
The reason Campus Crusade goes to Italy, according to a video on the UCF Crusade Web site, is due to Italy having “the lowest birthrate of any western nation” and a decrease in spirituality within the country.
The video states that out of 98 percent of Catholics in Italy, only 2 percent are active in the church. 96 percent of Italy’s youth do not even attend church. The mission of the UCF and Valencia students was to help, so they tried to connect with Salerno’s youth by talking to them and becoming friends.
“Some Italians didn’t want to talk about spiritual things with us, but they still wanted to be our friends,” UCF senior Heather Felsted said. “Usually, they bought us caffe while we were hanging out. Once you’ve made an Italian friend, no matter what, they’re your friend.”
Said Julia Sander, a senior business management major: “They were so open and willing to talk, but so much held them back. The actual act of talking to them wasn’t hard, it was hearing about their families and how much they were hurting.”
The Campus Crusaders even gave the students in Italy a taste of American cuisine.
“For four weeks we had American barbecue at the pensione we stayed at in Salerno,” Eaton said. “We grilled food for them and served them by embracing their culture and giving them a taste of ours. They love to practice their English whenever they can.”
In order to go to Italy, each student had to have a certain amount of money to pay for the cost. Both Eaton and Felsted chose to make Facebook groups to help raise money.
“This group helped me a lot,” said Felsted, a music education major. “Several of my friends were able to give some money. I also sent out letters to friends and family explaining my trip and asking people if they could give me money for my trip. This was the bulk of my fundraising, and God provided everything I needed this summer.”
The students stayed in a hotel called Quattordici Leones, which means “14 Lions.” They stayed three to four students to a room in the family-run hotel.
The students also had the opportunity to have fun and explore Italy beyond Salerno. They traveled to Positano, Capri, Pompeii, Paestum, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Vietri and Siena.
“We went hiking on the weekends, shopping regularly, played board games, the guys played soccer with Italian guys, and hung out with Italian students on their college campus,” Sander said.
The Campus Crusade returned from Italy in late June, and many of the students said they achieved their true mission: to reach out to students in Italy.
“It was so amazing to spend six weeks with these students and share with them the most important part of my life: God,” Sander said.
“God truly accomplished a lot in Italy this summer, and he chose to use us,” Felsted said. “It was amazing to see the language barriers broken and the different relationships formed between Italians and Americans simply because of our love for Jesus.”
Eaton said it was important to make a connection with the Italian students and to offer them the hope of faith.
“Making an impact on a life by offering them a conversation, a new perspective on life, giving them a chance to step out of a spiritually dead culture and into one with hope,” Eaton said. “People are searching for what satisfies, and when they exhaust all the options they know of, I hope that they remember the conversations we shared with them about where we have satisfaction, in Jesus Christ and his loving grace to heal our brokenness.”
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