The appeal was made by Youth With A Mission evangelist Paul Freiburghaus, director of the prayer and praise event heralded by observers as making several significant steps forward in church unity in a small country with four official languages.
Staged in a French-speaking part of Switzerland for the first time, the event - previously supported only by evangelicals - was joined for the first time by members of the country's official Protestant church, and also attracted large numbers of people from German-speaking regions. "There was remarkable unity," commented Tom Bloomer, a leader at YWAM's University of the Nations campus in the city, who said that the day was significant because "the unity of the church is extremely important, as debates over the country's future seem to line up more and more along linguistic fault lines."
The 25,000-strong crowd was led by a full orchestra and 400-voice choir, and
watched a presentation by 700 members of YWAM's
King's Kids ministry. The
children and teenagers marched around a three-story model of the walls of
Jericho, before hundreds of red heart-shaped balloons symbolizing God's love
for the country were released into the air.
The event attracted media attention, with the morning worship service
broadcast live nationwide in French, German and Italian.
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