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Theresa Formosa con la bandera de Australia en la día de la Alianza Theresa Formosa, waving the Australian flag on Covenant Day Therese Formosa am Bündnistag mit der austalischen Fahne Foto: POS Fischer © 2004 |
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Hacia la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud... Heading to World Youth Day... Am liebsten schon los zum Weltjugendtag |
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Buscar fondos Fundraising Sie lassen sich etwas einfallen für die Reisekosten |
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Las chicas mas joven les ayudan The younger girls are helping Die jüngeren Mädchen helfen mit Fotos: www.schoenstatt.org.au |
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WYD, Therese Formosa. "To my surprise I have discovered that five Schoenstatt Youth from Australia are planning to come to the World Youth Day in Köln. What surprised me most about this was not that these people would have to raise thousands of dollars or fly 26 hours to get here but that nobody seemed to know that they were coming!" – A comment from an Australian girl meeting with some World Youth Day volunteers these days in Schoenstatt. Just one of possible more joyful surprises along the road to World Youth Day in Cologne, an hour from Schoenstatt, come August.
So what is happening? There is a group of one boy and four girls from the Mulgoa Shrine in Sydney, Australia, who have been busily preparing since July to come to the World Youth Day in Cologne. Natalie and Ana Magarinos, Rebecca and her brother Johanathan Dundov and Amanda Stobbs were even clever enough to convince the younger Schoenstatt girls to get behind the cause and help fund raise to get their leaders to Germany to represent them. Their first big fund raising event was at the Mount Schoenstatt Fete at Mulgoa last August; they were able on this day to raise a deposit for their trip.
Imagine you come to Schoenstatt and something is happening you almost missed…
So now we know that they exist, we know that they have a deposit on their trip but does Schönstatt know they are coming and do they know what is happening in Schönstatt at this time. Well no. The people of Schönstatt did not know that they were coming, but there is no problem this minor oversight of a small Pacific country has now been rectified. Now to the second problem: do they know about what is taking place in Schönstatt just before the World Youth Day is set to kick off? Perhaps not but this is also easily solved. On the 7th to the 11th of August 2005 Schönstatt is holding their own Youth Festival with the title of "Our way moves to Christ". That sounds nice doesn't it? Well I'm sure that it will be lot of fun with guests expected to come from many countries across the world. It will be a chance to meet with other Schönstatt youth before the big event. You are able to register for the Youth festival by getting in contact with your friendly representative at Schönstatt, addresses can be found at the bottom of the page.
The place of the Vigil is at five minutes driving distance from the place where Father Kentenich was born
It might be nice to know a bit of news from the World Youth Day Office in Cologne. We know from their recent newsletter that the location for the final events of the World Youth Day has been chosen. The site has been named Marienfeld and in a recent ceremony was dedicated as a destination of pilgrims to the Virgin. But what you might not have known is that this site is only five minutes from Gymnich where Father Kentenich was born. A small group of Schönstatt girls where also at this ceremony and helped to dedicate this land to Mary and pray for a successful meeting in August. Other news includes that the European Government has pledged 1.5 million Euros to supporting the World Youth Day and that you are now able to purchase lot of interesting merchandise from their website. You are able to subscribe to the newsletter by going to www.wjt2005.de and registering it will then arrive directly to your email address.
If you would like more information about the Youth Festival in Schönstatt or the World Youth Day you can visit the following web sites
- World Youth Day: www.wjt2005.de
- Schoenstatt Office: www.wjt.schoenstatt.de
or feel free to contact the Schönstatt office at
- English: english@wjt.schoenstatt.de
- Spanish: espanol@wjt.schoenstatt.de
- German: deutsch@wjt.schoenstatt.de
For information on the Youth Festival, you may also turn to Kathrin Bieler (Kathrin_Bieler@web.de) and Arno Hernadi (arno.hernadi@online.de), in charge of the public relation of that event.
As with this article, our international website www.schoenstatt.de offers quite a lot of information about World Youth Day, you can either search the list of contents in the weekly updates (and by chance find other great news) or have a look at what happens when you click the button with the WYD symbol!