World Youth Day-Wollongong

World Youth Day officially starts July 15th in Sydney. Pilgrims are arriving from all over the world. Many are staying in Wollongong. On Saturday, there was a "Welcome to Australia" festival for those staying in the area. It was quite an experience! Seeing so many people of all ages come together to praise God. The crowd got quite packed. In the photo above you can see some of the pilgrims were in native dress.
This is a group waiting in line to register for the week's festivities. The raised flag is from The United Emirates. There is a USA flag around a guy and another with a Scottish flag. We met many people from the USA. It was so nice to talk to people from home! There were large groups from Saginaw, Michigan and Modesto, California. There were stage events to poke fun and learn about Australian Culture. Sheep sheering, whip cracking, lots of G'day's and Goodonya's. There was sing and dancing from Australian groups.
There was a Christian band that got the crowd line dancing. This group is from Croatia. The priest really got in to it and led most of the dances.

This group is from Nigeria. They sang in their native tongue and danced traditionally. It was an amazingly large group that could not all fit on the stage.

This is only a tiny part of the big event. They are projecting more people will be in Sydney than was in the Olympics. I read in the paper there are 1 million communion hosts and 350 liters of wine prepared for the Mass with the Pope on Sunday the 2oth.

We are heading to Sydney on Thursday night. We pick up Barb, Don and Carolyn from the airport and stay in Sydney until Saturday. So we hope to see some of the entertainment. John wants to hear Father Fortuna a rapping priest????? from NYC. On Sunday, we leave for the Great Barrier Reef!!! I can't wait!!!!!!