As you may be aware, we are delighted to have been invited to host two Alpha Events at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia 15-20 July 08.

Between 500,000 and 800,000 Catholic 'youth' (age-range is 16-35) from worldwide are expected to attend the week-long celebration, at which Pope Benedict XVI will be present. The WYD08 theme set by the Pope is: 'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.' (Acts 1:8). This is a wonderful opportunity to encourage young Catholics from around the world to come and learn about Alpha and to join together in prayer, worship and discussion with young people interested in Alpha from other countries.

We have the privilege of hosting two Alpha events. Tim Hughes will host an evening to introduce the Alpha Course with live worship, praise and testimonies. This will be followed by an ‘Alpha Taster’ the next day where we will host a time of worship, live talks and prayer and spend time looking at some of these issues covered on the course such as ‘Who is the Holy Spirit?’ and ‘Why and how should we tell others?’. We will then break up into small groups to discuss these topics. Again there will be live worship led by Tim Hughes. Our events will take place on the evenings of Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th July during the Youth Festival at World Youth Day. We are still waiting on confirmation re our venues so more information to follow nearer to the date.

We would like to include testimonies from around the world, so we would love to hear of anyone you know of, who will be at World Youth Day, whose faith was deepened or whose faith came alive on an Alpha course.

It would be really wonderful to have a good group of young people from around the world with us! See www.wyd2008.org for more details on the event itself.

Please be in touch if you have any questions and thank you so much for your help.

catholics@alpha.org