The youth wing of the Garo Baptist Convention known popularly as the Baptist Youth Fellowship (BYF) is, but the ministry for the young people. In the beginning there was no BYF in the Convention. It was in the year 1905, during the annual gathering of the Convention at Rajasimla, the Young Men’s Group was formed where the young people from four Associations first started the fellowship. In 1945 (after 40 years), Rev. H.M. Randall then a missionary on the field, way back came to Tura and introduced the BYF. He planned to combine the young men and women groups together. From October 25-27, 1948, missionaries and Baptist Leaders organized “Crusade for Christ” program in Tura. Right after the Crusade that is from October 28-30, 1948 a meeting was held to form the young men and women group together. 300 young people along with Rev. R.G. Beers, a missionary to Assam and Assam Youth Director Rev. Edward Singha attended the meeting.
In that meeting, Rev. Beers shared about the ministry of the Baptist Youth Fellowship in America and that had inspired the young people to form such a fellowship in GBC.
In that meeting they passed a resolution as follows:
- All Middle School and High School Baptist students should join this group.
- It is better for the young women to join the young men’s group instead of the women group.
And so in October 1948, the first Baptist Youth Fellowship was established but it was officially approved in the Convention’s Annual Gathering in February, 1949. With the introduction of the BYF in the Garo Baptist Convention area, young women could also join this Fellowship. It has since been functioning under this organizational name as the arm and the main strength of the Churches. Today the GBC BYF has 103,198 baptized members.
