significant because I started really to pray the name of the Lord, asking for
help and salvation. While I was taking care of myself in order to recover my
health, I attended church activities with a different spirit and interest. I read
the Bible, finding in it real consolation. I also participated in youth meetings
organized by FGEI [Italian Evangelical Youth Federation], sharing my faith
with other young people. I really felt the hand of the Lord get me out of the
pit, as Psalm 116: 6: says: ‘The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and
He saved me’.
I was very confused at that time because I had to decide what to do with
my life. I called my art studies into question: I did not know whether to continue
them. In my heart I felt I wanted to do something for the Lord, to thank him for
the work of salvation which took place in my life, but I did not know what.
One day, I told my pastor that I would be available to preach. I didn’t know
why. My pastor was very happy and asked me to preach on Sunday, 13 May 2007.
The text was Mark 2: 13–17, where Jesus says: ‘It is not those who are healthy who
need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but
sinners’.
While I was writing, I felt in my heart a deep insight: ‘And if I enrol at the
Faculty of Theology to become a pastor?’ All the choices I had made in the past
were from my mind. This was the first choice that came from the bottom of my
heart.
My pastor, however, advised me to do a year of volunteer work first, to
put into practice the meaning of service. And it was so. I went to Palermo, to the
Waldensian Diaconal Institute ‘La Noce’, and I worked as a volunteer in a foster
family.
In September 2008, I began to attend the Waldensian Faculty of Theology.
At the time of my choice I was not able to give clear reasons for that choice. All
I knew was that it was a gift that the Lord had put in my heart and I had to start
using it somehow.
During the admission
meeting with the
Ministries Committee
of the Faculty, I gave
this reason: ‘I want
to become a pastor
to serve the Lord
by helping to see
that every man and
every woman could
discover the talents
that He has put in
their heart’. Now, after
these years of study,
Youth group gathering in Riesi, Sicily, April 2013.
training experiences
6