STORY:
Teens Worldwide Share New Year Together

Christian teens around the world link up via satellite for a three-day celebration

By Karen Shomo

A three-day New Year’s celebration will bring thousands of youth from around the world together by plane, train and satellite link up. The 200,000 Christian youth will get together and share stories, listen to contemporary Christian artists and do community clean-up projects.

Teens and students from 41 states and 5 foreign countries will travel to participating states and then link up via satellite with each other and with speakers in the Holy Land. Each city will report together via satellite, sharing exciting celebration moments, interviews with recording artists and talk about community projects they are doing. At various times during the satellite link, all 200,000 participants will be singing together.

The event is called YouthLink 2000 and is one of the largest gatherings of teens in history. It is sponsored by the Southern Baptist church as way for young people to change their world for the better as it enters a new era. The event has been in the planning stages for ten years, and is finally all coming together as the year 2000 draws near.

"Most adults know exactly where they were when man first walked on the moon, or when President Kennedy was assassinated," said YouthLink’s Richard Ross. "In the same way, the next generation of young adults will always remember where they were at midnight December 31, 1999. We want 200,000 students to remember they were in the presence of God in a way that marked their lives, forever."

The students will be spending their days in several U.S. cities. They have traveled to Anaheim, Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Tampa. Some of the participants have come form Hawaii others from Lagos and Nigeria to be a part of this event.

The teens will spend Thursday and Friday afternoons serving their host communities. This means they will do projects that were set up ahead of time in each time. Some will clean city parks, others will help the homeless and some will throw block parties.

In the evening all 200,000 participants from each city will gather together and linkup via satellite. They will also be joined in this interactive broadcast by youth author/evangelist Jay Strack and other youth in Israel. The group will take the U.S. teens on a virtual tour of the Holy Land. They will walk where Jesus walked ---in Golgotha, the Garden Tomb and the Mount of Olives—reporting from each location via satellite.

The satellite link up will also be a chance for some of the hottest names in contemporary Christian music to talk with the group and sing. The artists include Rebecca St. James, audio Adrenaline and Third Day as well as many others. Teen speakers and famous athletes will also be on hand to talk with the group.

If you would like to find out more about YouthLink2000 you can check out their web site for complete information. www.youthlink2000.org.

DATE: 12/16/99

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