I am Albie Morrison, a computer engineering student at Cedarville University, Tau Beta Pi engineering honors society member, and avid musician. I participate in the university orchestra as a violinist and am part of upcoming chamber ensembles at the university as a violist. At the start of the summer in 2026, I will be traveling to Italy with the orchestra on a Christian missions trip to spread the Gospel in the schools and towns of Italy.

Did you know that Italy is less than 4% evangelical or Protestant Christians? It is a challenging place to bring the Gospel, especially because the religion is predominantly Catholic. That makes sharing the Gospel directly with most citizens extremely difficult, because they appear to know many of the right things already! Our missionary partners have discovered this fact the hard way, and learned that it is much easier to share with the youth of the country. Specifically, Italian schools are a mission field ready for the Gospel. As Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." We are working with several missionary families, and the university has taken several trips similar to this one in the past, where the Gospel was readily received in schools. We will play concerts in schools and public spaces in towns throughout the country, using our music as an opportunity to open up discussion of spiritual things with the people of the area.

The current plan with the missionaries is to start in the northern part of the country in Trieste and move south slowly toward Rome as we perform. This will allow us to reach more people than we could if we stayed in one place, which is our goal. We will be using our music to draw people in and get their attention, then sprinkling seeds of the Gospel throughout the performance and then talking directly to attendees after each performance with the intent of sharing the Gospel with them.

Why Italy? I have a burden to share the Gospel with people who are Catholic and misguided, and have for years ever since I lost my best childhood friends, who were Catholic, over our differences in worldview and faith. Italy specifically is a place where music can be effective at starting Gospel conversations, and is full of Catholics to whom I feel called to bring the Gospel. And the Cedarville University orchestra is in a unique and effective place to start these conversations; we are from a Christian college, which is automatically interesting to many high-school-aged students overseas, and we have a talented orchestra that has proven to be an effective witnessing tool in the past.

Every dollar you commit to this fundraiser will be a great help on this trip. Your support will pay for plane tickets to Italy and back, which can cost over $1400 (plus transporting a small orchestra's worth of valuable and fragile instruments, which is a significant extra cost) and cover the costs of necessities such as food, housing, transportation in Italy. While there are various missionary families helping us plan the trip, housing for 12-15 college students is not easy to come by in the small houses Italy tends to have, so housing is a major expense that this campaign will help cover. Thank you for your generous contribution; it goes straight toward sharing the Gospel of Christ with those lost people of Italy who desperately need Jesus. Keep me in your prayers!