Christian couple'chosen'to minister to college students
■The two work on UNL's
campus with the Navigators
ministry group.
BY SABAH FOX
Susan Fiorino compares her
life to a 1970s TVshow.
A character in “Charlie's
Angels” asked a nun why she had
joined a convent though she was
young and beautiful.
Said the character in the TV
show: “Some hear a call and some
are chosen, and I was chosen.”
“Chosen” is how Susan and
her husband, Joey Fiorino,
describe their lives as full-time
staff workers with the Navigators,
a Christian, nondenominational
ministry group at the University of
Nebraska-Iincoln.
UNL has about 21 campus
ministries and 53 full-time staff
workers, according to the 2000
2001 student directory and infor
mation from ministry members.
Some of these people never
planned to become campus min
isters. They majored in English,
speech communications or gen
eral studies. But their nontradi
tional jobs with students have
"eternal” benefits, they said.
Susan Fiorino came to UNL
from Ericson, a town near Burwell
in central Nebraska. While she was
a student at UNL, Fiorino changed
her major and partied a lot - living
a life similar to some students.
But during her junior year in
1989, her life took a turn.
“A guy broke up with me, and I
had a broken heart I thought, ‘Oh
maybe I should do something reli
gious. Maybe that will help me feel
better,’” Fiorino said.
Searching, Fiorino got
involved with the Navigators. She
said she realized Christ had died in
her place on the cross for her sins,
and she found forgiveness
through her faith in ChristAround
the time she graduated in 1994, a
Navigators worker asked her if she
would think about working on the
staff. At first she wasn’t sure, but
then she decided to. She started in
1995.
“I really want to have the skills
to help someone for the rest of my
life. It’s about serving someone,
not about assuming you know
more than younger students,” she
said.
"It’s not like you’re at level 15,
and a freshman is at level two.”
Fiorino mentored women at
UNL and at the University of
Zambia as part of her Navigators
work. She and Joey Fiorino, a 1996
graduate of the University of
Missouri-Columbia, met each
other in 1999 when he came to
UNL They married in May of this
year.
The couple said the work
hours, the pay and the results are
different from normal, 9-to-5 jobs.
They usually use mornings for free
time and meet with students in
the afternoons and evenings.
“It’s like working a second •
shift job,” Susan Fiorino said.
“When your friends call you, you
can never return their calls.”
Unlike many second-shift
jobs, Susan and Joey Fiorino don’t
have a constant paycheck. They
get their salaries from friends and
interested churches whom
they’ve told about their work at
UNL.
“The whole salary thing is you
live by faith,” Susan Fiorino said.
“Some months your income
might be high and other months
not so high. Buying clothes is a big
deal. You have to plan ahead to
buy a CD.”
Joey Fiorino said he cut down
his budget when he joined the
staff. “You eat beans and tuna,” he
said.
And for the uncertain pay, the
couple sees uncertain results.
“You see no product,” Susan
Fiorino said. “At die end of the day,
you think, ‘Well, I think God might
have let me help someone,
maybe.’”
However, one person Susan
Fiorino has helped is Becky Hyde,
a senior economics major. For 2M>
years, Hyde has participated in a
Bible study Susan led for greek
women. When she was a sopho
more, Hyde came to a Navigators
GreekSide meeting with her
roommate from her freshman
year, and she met Fiorino.
“I had been feeling spiritually
empty,” Hyde said. “The very first
time (I went), I had mixed feelings,
knowing right away this is exactly
what I needed to be doing but kind
of scared.”
Hyde, the president of Alpha
Omicron Pi Sorority, said Susan’s
Bible study taught her to have a
relationship with God and to bal
ance her life in her sorority with
what will matter eternally.
“I’ve grown to a greater under
standing of what’s important,” she
said.
Young adults work well with
college students, said Lany Meyer,
pastor of the Lutheran Center
across from Neihardt Residence
Center. Meyer, 53, gets an intern
almost every year from a Lutheran
seminary.
"At the Lutheran Center, I’m
kind of a dad. If they want to talk to
someone who's a brother or sister,
they'll talk to the intern,” he said.
Meyer said successful
Christian workers must genuinely
like people. “Not everyone likes
young adults,” he said.
He also said interns must
know campus and pop culture.
“They’ve got to have some
idea of the greek system’s about If
we had an intern who didn’t know
any music since Beethoven, we’d
be in trouble,” he said.
Meyer said he’s never regretted
becoming a campus minister.
“On Sunday mornings, there’s
a special energy young people
have that you don’t get very often
in a regular church. You're talking
to someone who doesn’t know
there’s disadvantages.”
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