Global Youth Day 2023 is on Sabbath 18th March. Due to calendar clashes, the young people at Crieff Church decided to hold their Global Youth Day event two weeks early on 4th March and they were happy to be amongst the first globally to start the GYD ball rolling.
Early on 4th March, 15 young people and a handful of willing adults travelled to Perth to carry out a morning of street witnessing. For almost all of the young people, this was the first time they had taken part in active outreach. Perth is a city and the historic county town of Perthshire situated about 19 miles from Crieff.
The decision to take part in street witnessing was an answer to prayer. The Crieff Church Youth Leader, Angela Logan, had prayed for guidance about what to do for Global Youth Day. She knew that she wanted the Crieff young people to do something, but she had no idea what they could do. She prayed for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and she waited. A few weeks later, Angela and her husband, Malcolm, were sitting in a restaurant in St Andrews, Fife. From their window table, they watched a group of people outside begin to set up tables, take out instruments, gather up bags to hand out. The group started singing and handing out bags and Angela knew right then that her prayer for guidance had been answered. She turned to her husband and said, “We can do that. Crieff can do that!”
It was decided to hand out bags containing a copy of the Gospel of Mark, a “Focus” magazine about Prayer (thanks to Trans-European Division Director of Communications and Media, David Neal, for all of his help with this), a Christian bookmark and a small chocolate. Carole and Steve Barratt-Peacock and Yvonne Bauwens took charge of the singing and ensured the young people were familiar with the songs before the big day.
More prayers were answered on the actual day! Prayers for dry weather – it was a cold day, but the skies were blue. Prayers to secure the best busking spot - the confluence of two major shopping streets in Perth meant that a steady flow of people were able to hear the singing and take the bags. Prayers for receptive hearts and kind words were also answered and whilst the Devil tried his best to derail the efforts of the Crieff youth, he did not prevail!
The young people stated that they would be happy to do street witnessing again!
The group from Crieff Church were very thankful for the financial assistance given from the Trans-European Division. They were also thankful for all of the prayers from far and wide that carried them through and gave them lasting memories of a special event.
