Ryan Bonfiglio '01 arrived on campus as a freshman with one thing on his mind: winning. He was a wrestler and a scholar, and he wanted to prove his mettle.
And then he realized he was "surrounded by 4,500 other people who were just as talented as me."
Pretty soon, "questions came up: if I wasn't the best student or the best athlete, then what was I?"
Enter Athletes in Action (AIA), an evangelical Christian fellowship Bonfiglio joined as a sophomore. After attending training camps and internships, seminars and fellowships, what began as a "new social option" became his calling.
Now, Bonfiglio is back on campus as director of AIA, providing a Christian resource for students who need one.
Bonfiglio is one of a number of alumni whose lives at Princeton and beyond have been transformed by evangelical fellowships.
There are at least six such fellowships on campus, including AIA, Princeton Evangelical Fellowship (PEF), Agape, Manna, Crossroads and Impact.
These nondenominational groups serve Christian students through weekly fellowship meetings, bible studies, social events, community service opportunities and individual consultations with staff.
Although the fellowships all draw from the same pool of students, each targets a slightly different audience.
"Different personalities are expressed in our large group meetings — different styles of worship, teaching, everything," Agape president Randy Beard '05 said. "The goal is for each ministry to take its strengths, its personality to attract a different group of people."
Instead of competing for members, the various groups cooperate with each other, holding inter-fellowship services for Christmas and Easter and coordinating joint community service projects.
"We're all playing for the same team, when it comes down to it," Beard said. "Competition would be stupid."
A Christian wrestler
For AIA, athletes are the target audience — a good match for Bonfiglio, a former wrestling star who is now assistant wrestling coach as well as AIA director.
When he first came to Princeton, Bonfiglio said he had "no religious experience," and he focused his freshman year on his sport. As a sophomore, however, he followed a friend's suggestion and joined a men's bible study hosted by AIA.
"It sounded interesting," he said.
Bonfiglio soon became an active member of the group and decided to attend a week-long camp run by AIA in Colorado.
At the camp, he said he realized he had an unhealthy attitude toward wrestling.
"I had just become Christian, but I still had attitudes that were not Christian," he said. "I left my Christianity up-campus when I went to Jadwin."
AIA taught him that "if you lose, you lose as an athlete, but not as a person," he said. "Truths about faith are unaffected by a loss on the mat."
As a junior and senior, Bonfiglio kept up his interest in wrestling, serving as captain of the team. But he also became more engaged in AIA and by the time he graduated, he had decided to make religion a career.
After a year of AIA training at Yale University, Bonfiglio returned to Princeton to share his experiences with others. As director, he mentors students individually, coordinates fellowship meetings and community service projects and administrates the group.
"Being director is a great way of being on campus," he said.
20 years of service
Bonfiglio is not the only alumnus who has returned to Princeton to work with an evangelical fellowship.
The Reverend Bill Boyce '79 enrolled at Princeton as a newly-committed Christian, after becoming involved in the Christian outreach organization, Young Life, during high school. Although he said he had always attended church with his parents, "I was bored by it."
At Princeton, he immediately searched for a Christian group and was referred to PEF by a friend from his hometown, Dallas. The group quickly became his major extracurricular focus, and by senior year, he was a student leader.
Through PEF, he met his future wife, Debbie Boyce '79, who is now also on PEF's staff.
After graduation, Boyce spent two years in the New Jersey Treasury Department, and then returned home to attend the Dallas Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1985.
At that time, Boyce said PEF staff members were "moving on" and he was offered the position of director, a position he has now held for almost twenty years.
"University students are at a wonderful moment in life, when they're asking really important questions, looking for answers, developing personal convictions," he said. "And it's wonderful to be with them and help them through that time. It's really a joy to be here."
From PR to PEF
Along with Bill and Debbie Boyce, PEF employs eight additional alumni staff members.
Their newest addition is Sharon Sampson '99.
Originally from Minnesota, Sampson was part of a churchgoing family and said she came to campus in search of a spiritual home.
She found this at PEF, where she was mentored by Debbie Boyce as part of the fellowship's one-on-one meetings.
"Involvement in PEF was hugely definitive in my college experience," she said. "This is where my faith was defined and refined."
After graduating as an English major, Sampson spent five years as a public relations executive in New York City, but said she had a "growing feeling of restlessness. I felt a disconnect with my work. I like to work with people. I didn't get to do that."
Last June, Sampson quit her job to "catch up on life." She began to write a novel and visit friends she had not seen in years.
All this was "tabled" at her fifth reunion, she said, when she saw Bill Boyce and discussed the possibility that she could return to Princeton and PEF.
"I had no intention of leaving New York," she said. But "the opportunity to give back was so compelling and enriching. I am loving getting to know the students."
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