BY TEDNews staff

Adventist youth from around the world mobilized to
perform acts of service for Global Youth Day on March 15. The initiative,
coordinated by the General Conference Youth Ministries, included 22 live video reports
from all of the Adventist Church’s 13 world divisions. Each program was hosted
by young people showing activities of the youth in their territory.

The Trans-European Division (TED) hosted two live
reports, one from Vik, near Oslo, Norway, and one from Newbold College in
England.

In TED, church groups from the very north in Alta,
Norway linked through to the Oslo transmission, while cities in Croatia and
Albania in the south featured as part of the Newbold broadcast. Other
participating countries featured included Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland,
Slovenia, and Sweden. Greece and Serbia also took part in the day with
activities.

Individual projects were varied widely. In the
Netherlands, they used a nationally known saying “carrying the egg” as a means
of people sharing their stresses and writing something appropriate on a real
egg. In many other cities across Europe, waffles and fruit with Bible texts and
other literature were distributed; some youth made the community a better place
by picking up litter. Others visited a children’s home, gave blood, exchanged
cigarettes for pieces of fruit, sang at a senior citizen facility, fed the
homeless, prayed for people, and gave away free hugs.

In the UK a group of young people helped open canal
locks for people in boats. Other groups helped to clean up neighborhoods and
beaches, donated clothes to the British Heart Foundation, and gave gift bags to
senior citizens. An iconic red Routemaster bus was transformed and parked in a busy
London street offering free health and dental checks as well as prayers.

Globally the effects of GYD have been very impressive.
One member of the public in London commented, “You are just great. God bless
you all.” The youth that volunteered also gave positive feedback, “It’s a
different way to reach out in ministry–perfect, actually, and it needs to
continue.” All across the countries young people took part in the day’s events
and reports of these activities are still coming in.

Participating as part of the Oslo program, TED Youth
Director Paul Tompkins saw the action first hand and said, “It was great to see
so many young people excited and motivated to share their faith in a practical
way and to participate in an event that linked youth throughout the world.”
Reports have shared that 58,000 computers worldwide were logged on during the
Nordic hour alone.

The impact of Global Youth Day has been huge and next
year it will be repeated on Saturday, March 21st which will also mark the
commencement of the international week of prayer. [tedNEWS]