Addressing Suicide in Salerno

The Nuova Vita Church team in Salerno, Italy shares how they provide hope in the wake of recent suicides on campus.

In just a few months we have had two students kill themselves on campus, in public. The university has never had this happen in its history of being open. Students and staff were not addressing what happened, and the typical response to these situations is to ignore it. Nuova Vita wanted to get involved to provide help and space for students to talk about suicide and give hope.

We hosted an event at the university to talk about mental health as there are virtually no resources here and it is actually considered taboo. The event included a small time of prayer, a Bible passage, reflection questions and an open time for anyone to talk to the university's ministry team or our pastor.

The event went very well and many non-believers heard the Gospel, were informed of resources on how to deal with this issue and were shown an open community of people that are available if they ever need to talk about it.

God orchestrated our event to be on a day that one young woman needed it the most. She struggles with severe depression and was having a particularly heavy day. As I listened to her story, God was able to provide me scriptures and truth that she needed to hear. She left a different person, no longer sad and hopeless, but filled with joy and hopeful.

Please pray that this young woman and any others struggling with depression would see that the love of Jesus can and will set them free and heal them from the lies that steal their hope, joy and worth. Please pray that each day they would choose hope instead of giving up.