(Oranjestad)—The Bethany Chapel Foundation and Youth Clergy Aruba are collaborating to organize activities for the celebration of King’s Day on April 27th. With these activities, they hope to collect funding for Youth Clergy Aruba, so that they could participate at the global conference of Pope Francis in Portugal this coming June.
Suzette Kelly-Boekhoudt, who volunteers at the Bethany Chapel Foundation, explained in a press conference yesterday that for King’s Day, they are organizing their “family fair”, which opens at 10am and closes at 4pm. This fair is also related to the 65th anniversary celebration of the Imeldahof Convent building and the 65th consecration of the Bethany Chapel.
Youth Clergy Aruba, which consist of a group of young boys and girls who are currently working very hard to achieve their dream of traveling to Portugal and to represent Aruba at the international conference of Pope Francis.
Coordinator of Youth Clergy Aruba, Reginald Winklaar, expressed their happiness to be able to organize this fair with the Bethany Chapel Foundation for collecting funds for their trip to the European continent. This conference summons all young people of the world to meet with Pope Francis: “It is the biggest event of the Catholic Church,” Winklaar expressed.
Furthermore, he told a bit of history, saying that in 1983, Pope John Paul held a big service in Rome and was surprised to see so many young people participating. From that day on, the idea for a service for young people came into fruition, and in 1984, the first service took place, called “You Believe”. In 1986, he changes the name to “World Youth Day” in Rome and in 1987, the church held their first World Youth Day service in Brazil.
From that day too, Aruba has been sending delegations of young people to the service. This year, they are preparing to participate in this event from July 21st to August 8th in Portugal. It is for this reason that the youth clergy of Aruba has been collecting funds since last year: “We are talking about a huge sum of money; almost 5,500 florins per person. The total sum adds up to approximately 176,000 florins. This is why we wanted to ask the community of Aruba for their help,” Winklaar explained.
Sidney Tromp from the Youth Clergy of the Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Dakota said that they will be joining Youth Clergy Aruba at the conference. He state that the members of the youth clergy of the parish will be the Bethany Chapel on April 27th due to the fact that they have two activities planned for this day.
The first activity is a walk-a-thon in the Noord neighborhood, starting from 7am with Zumba. The walk-a-thon begins and ends at the Bethany Chapel. Afterwards, the family fair takes place on the chapel grounds, where the young boys and girls of the delegation will be entertaining the children of the Aruban community: “All families all welcome.”
On this day, the members of the delegation will be selling 10-florin tickets that include traditional games, food and drinks. Entrance is free.
