13 August 2026 | Valencia, Spain [Ezequiel Duarte with tedNEWS]
Nearly 3,500 young Adventists from more than 50 countries gathered at Feria Valencia in Valencia, Spain, from 4–8 August for the sixth European Adventist Youth Congress (AYC). Following decisions made before and during the congress, 21 young people were baptised.
The four-yearly event brings together young people from the 20 countries of the Inter-European Division (EUD) and the 22 countries of the Trans-European Division (TED). The congress, the largest AYC to date, included worship services, workshops, sports activities, board games and other opportunities to spend time together, make new friends and build relationships across cultures, strengthening participants’ sense of belonging to a global church family.
Pastor Marcel Ghioalda, TED Youth Ministries director, highlighted the importance of congresses like AYC for young people from small churches. “It allows them to experience worship, workshops and fellowship on a scale they may never have encountered before,” he said. “They form friendships across borders and discover that their local congregation is part of a much larger, international church family. Bringing the TED and EUD together makes our unity in diversity visible and gives young people a greater sense of belonging and shared mission across Europe.”
When baptism can’t wait
Before the congress began, three young people had already contacted their local pastors, expressing their wish to be baptised at AYC. Following an appeal for baptism on Thursday evening by Damien Chandler, a Canadian pastor and special guest at this year’s congress, another 17 young people decided to give their lives to Jesus at the baptismal service scheduled for Sabbath morning.
Then, just minutes after the last of the 20 young people had been baptised, Raphaël, from Mantes-la-Jolie, France, appeared backstage. Overwhelmed, in tears and being supported by friends, he asked whether there was still time for him to be baptised too.
At that moment, the entire programme came to a halt. The nearly 4,000 people in the Feria Valencia auditorium, with attendance increasing due to day delegates, did not initially understand why the programme was not continuing.
Behind the stage, Raphaël and Pastor Stéphane Eucharis, Franco-Belgian Union Youth Ministries director, called his parents to ask permission for him to be baptised. The 20 newly baptised young people were already lined up, preparing to step onto the stage to receive their baptismal certificates.
Suddenly, cheers of joy broke out backstage among the dozens of people gathered there, including the newly baptised young people, their family members and pastors, as they realised Raphaël had received permission to be baptised and that his baptism would take place within minutes.
Before the congress, Raphaël had been reflecting for some time on whether to get baptised, but had yet to make that decision. That Saturday, he decided he was ready, bringing the programme to an unexpected pause. In that moment, the Congress quite literally paused for one young person. It reflected a point Damien Chandler had made in his opening sermon on Wednesday evening, that “we are to be intentional about seeking the one,” drawing on Jesus’ parable of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go in search of the one who is missing.
A baptism that changed two lives
The history of AYC is interwoven with countless personal stories. Among them are the stories of Danielly from Venezuela and Saúl from Spain, friends for many years who could not have imagined how AYC would change their lives.
Danielly had no plans to attend AYC 2022 in Lahti, Finland, but Saúl had long dreamed of being baptised there. Years earlier, he had prayed a very specific prayer, asking God that the woman he would one day marry would be present on the day of his baptism. By that point, he had begun to doubt that Danielly was the answer to that prayer.
But the day before the congress, Danielly changed her mind. She felt a sudden urge to go, bought her tickets and travelled to Finland without telling Saúl, arriving as a surprise.
She was there for Saúl’s baptism.
When he came up out of the water, Danielly was there to greet him. For him, it was a deeply moving moment. Seeing her there, he remembered the prayer he had prayed long before he even knew her and believed he was witnessing God’s answer to that prayer.
Two years later, Danielly and Saúl got married. Four years after the AYC in Finland, they returned to AYC 2026 in Spain, this time with their nine-month-old daughter, Évelly.
Ghioalda measures the success of this year’s AYC primarily by its impact on the young people’s lives once they return home. “I assess a congress by what young people carry home with them. When they make new friends, worship wholeheartedly, renew their commitment to walk with God, and leave with a memorable and positive experience of church, then we have done our work well. Its full impact will become visible as these young people return to their churches and live out what they experienced here.”
AYC across Europe
Although congresses for European youth have been held since the 1970s, the EUD and TED first united for AYC in its current format in 2004, when the congress was held in Wroclaw, Poland.
Since then, AYC has been held in Berlin, Germany, in 2009; Novi Sad, Serbia, in 2013; Valencia, Spain, in 2017; and Lahti, Finland, in 2022. In 2026, the congress returned to Valencia, Spain, where it was held at Feria Valencia.
The seventh AYC will take place four years from now, in 2030. Since the host location alternates between the Inter-European Division (EUD) and the Trans-European Division (TED) territories, and this edition was held in Spain, within EUD territory, the next congress will take place in Poland, within the TED territory.
[Photos: Simão de Abreu]
