Members from the Graduate InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the University of Illinois–Urbana spent their 2007 spring break (March 17-24) in Austria and Slovakia. We partnered with the International Fellowship of International Students (IFES) to help Christian students and staff with evangelistic outreach to students at their universities.

We began in Vienna with an outreach in the Life Sciences University. There we met Rudiger, an Austrian student with incredible vision and passion. Rudiger initiated an outreach book table in the Life Sciences Library — a first for his chapter — and the response was encouraging. Christian students publicly identified themselves as Christians, and a number of their non-Christian friends came by to look at the books and have conversations.

A couple of days later, we traveled by train to Bratislava, Slovakia, to join with Christian students there for an outreach event in several of their residence halls, led by Mario, a law student who lived in one of the halls. The idea was quite simple: knock on the doors of the rooms and have a conversation about the meaning of Easter. Most had never before considered how the events of Easter related to their own lives. We saw Christian students eager to share their faith with fellow students who were indifferent. We invited them to view a movie about Jesus that would take place the following week in one of the residence halls.

In Linz, Austria, we participated in a lecture by IFES staffmember Andrew Page on the significance of the Easter events. The room was nearly packed. Andrew, who is British but speaks fluent German, gave a powerful talk and convincingly answered questions about the resurrection.

We were encouraged by the dedication and persistence of the Christian students and staff in these universities despite the very hard soil of unbelief, and we hope to imitate their courage in taking risks to share the gospel on our campus.

David Suryk is a Graduate Faculty Ministry staff member at the University of Illinois-Urbana and served as Director of the 2007 Vienna Ministry Trip. You can make a direct financial donation to support InterVarsity’s Graduate Student Ministry at the University of Illinois by following this link.