This year’s theme, SENT is at the heart of what the Keswick Convention has long been about: mission.
Mission overseas and mission ‘right where you are’, a going out into the world sharing the good news of the gospel through word and deed. This year, visitors to the Keswick Convention will have the opportunity to take a peek into the world of mission and experience some of the many opportunities we have, as Christians, to reach out to the lost and suffering. For the first time ever, the Global Village Experience will be available at the Convention and will be hosted on the pencil factory site right next to the missions exhibition tent, Base Camp.
Teenagers and adults
Since 2012, Global Village has been part of TeenStreet. Thousands of teenagers and adults have already been through the interactive simulation and experienced a broken world, their reaction as Christians, and reconciliation with God first-hand. And even though Global Village was originally established for TeenStreet in Germany, it has spread and taken place at other conferences and in other countries.
As people finish their journey through Global Village, they leave challenged and touched by what they experienced. And for some, a visit to Global Village can change their whole life. Barbara is one of them. This outgoing young lady from Germany was a coach at TeenStreet 2012. Together with five teenagers, she went through the experience: an airport where teens and adults were challenged to travel into the land of the poor, the captives, the blind, or the oppressed.
Taken by surprise
Barbara ended up travelling to the land of the captives. Knowing that she was not actually making a real trip into another country, but being part of a realistic simulation, Barbara thought, ‘I will come into a situation with imprisoned Christians in North Korea.’ But to her surprise, she ended up being in a room with a man and a woman who were victims of human trafficking.
All the others in her group started talking with the man, while Barbara turned to the young woman. ‘I was drawn to her from the beginning,’ Barbara shares, ‘so I started to talk to her, and it was so normal for me, like I had done it a thousand times before. But I have never encountered something like that!’
And suddenly in this weird situation, Barbara ‘had the impression that God said very clearly: “I want you to take care of women like this,”’ women who are caught in human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
Barbara’s initial thought was that maybe she had misheard, and she started to pray over it. ‘But in the following days and months, God confirmed it more and more to me,’ she says. The topic of human trafficking and social justice kept following Barbara. She heard it in sermons, and people who never spoke about that topic suddenly started talking about it.
God’s leading
‘God brought this topic close to my heart,’ she remembers, ‘and eventually he led me step by step so that I came in contact with the organisation A21.’ A21 is a worldwide initiative which fights against human trafficking and modern-day slavery with the aim of abolishing injustice in the 21st century.
One year after God spoke to her in the Global Village, Barbara, together with some others, started the first A21 A-team in Germany. ‘From there, one thing led to the next,’ she explains. ‘God opened doors for us. We could do a lot of prevention work here in Germany and were able to hold lectures in schools, universities and churches. And we were able to start more A21 A-teams in Germany.’
‘And that’s what I am doing now,’ she says. A21 brought her back to TeenStreet 2016. This time she was not leading a small group, but was there with an A21 information booth, to which the teenagers responded very well.
Looking back on her Global Village experience, she says with sparkling eyes: ‘I love the Global Village and I am not the only person who was impacted by it! I thank God that he led me this way!’
A21 exists to abolish injustice in the 21st century through a comprehensive system of achieving preventative measures to help potential victims evade trafficking; victim protection through shelters and an aftercare programme; prosecution of violators; and strategic partnerships.
