By Kayla Higgs, Jasmine Marshall and Johnkear Watts
Trinity Times Correspondents

Hewan Deyass makes her way to Trinity Washington University’s Main Hall chapel each Tuesday evening to come to know God but leaves the weekly Bible study group with blossoming Christian fellowship.

Deyass, a 20-year-old junior at the university, is the president of the Trinity Sister Fellowship, a Bible study club established at the school in 2019 as a Campus Ministry student organization and her involvement with this group has shown her there is “no Christianity without fellowship.”

Fellowship is the driving mission of the group and she said this journey creates stronger disciples of God.

“TSF has allowed me to live out a Christ-like lifestyle on campus,” Deyass said of the Bible study gathering, held 5 p.m. each Tuesday. “I plan on continuing to attend as long as I am attending Trinity.”

While the group was established in 2019 for students to learn more about the Bible and the word of Christ, the experience of those attending tends to be uplifting spirituality, said Sister Ann Howard, a sister of Notre Dame de Namur and the director of Trinity’s Campus Ministry.

Sister Ann told Trinity Times she believes people leave feeling good and enjoy the safe space given to be open and honest about their spiritual beliefs.

Trinity Washington University was founded in 1897 as Trinity College in Washington by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as a women’s liberal arts Catholic school, but Sister Ann said a majority of the school’s students today are not Catholic and traditionally Bible study is a practice more popular in Protestant religious traditions.

“Truthfully, I did find it odd to participate in a Bible study group at a Catholic university, only because Catholics have different beliefs from the Christian beliefs I have,” said Olamide Abiodun, 20, a Trinity nursing major who has a Protestant religious tradition. “However, when I joined the Bible study group, I realized they practiced the same beliefs I had, so it made things more comfortable for me.”

Students from any religious tradition are welcomed in this group and even though Bible study isn’t necessarily a traditional Catholic practice, some members of the faith have adopted it into their devotions and Sister Ann said it wouldn’t have been a foreign concept to some of the founding members of her religious order.

Several of the first members of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, when it was founded in 1804, were raised in a Protestant religious tradition and became Catholic before they joined the woman’s religious congregation, Sister Ann said.

Though most of the current student population at Trinity isn’t Catholic, the campus is filled with religious symbols, such as the beautiful Notre Dame Chapel, several statues of saints and faith-themed paintings throughout some of the hallways.

Campus ministry holds a variety of religious activities throughout the year that Sister Ann said about 65 students currently participate in, including the school’s Gospel choir. 

Led by students and for students, the Bible study group begins its hour-long weekly meeting each Tuesday evening with ice breaker games to get the students engaged, followed by a short prayer, and then they announce the discussion for the day, which is a section of the Bible and how it can relate to their present-day world.

“We follow this structure to make it open and welcoming for new students and have students be comfortable with sharing their thoughts and questions,” Deyass said. “Every semester we have a theme or topic we follow to help guide our discussion.”

These themes and topics are always set by students, she said, adding that in the fall of 2023 the group chose the subject ‘power.’ 

“This includes topics such as health – academic, financial, physical, social-relational, and spiritual health – or understanding even more complex topics like the Holy Spirit,” Deyass said. “TSF opens doors for students to learn about real biblical teachings while also asking questions that they don’t get to ask otherwise.”

During an October 2023 meeting, the women opened the Bible study meeting with a laughter-filled game with biblical themes, with a more rambunctious atmosphere than one might imagine of a session devoted to scripture.

All the women said Bible study should be filled with love and laughter, even when deepening a relationship with Christ. 

“During my time in the Bible study group, I have learned to be more bold about my Christian faith as a college student,” Abiodun said. “The Bible study group is about gaining a greater knowledge about Christianity. In our Bible study, we read and discuss scriptures to get a deeper understanding into how we should walk like Christ in our daily lives.”

The members of the group often gain close relationships with one another, while simultaneously building their relationship with God, Sister Ann said, while gaining life skills, greater decision-making tools and unpacking personal life issues.

“If one person has the experience of changing (positively), then the group is worth it,” she said.