AW English - April 2019

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Adventists as Influencers

No Matter the Cost

The Spanish Prayer

April 2019

Making History

BY BILL KNOTT

W australia

About the Cover Kelvin Coleman from Kuranda, near Cairns, Queensland, Australia, attended the recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ministries (ATSIM) National Camp. ATSIM is celebrating 40 years of ministry to the Indigenous peoples of Australia, who are joining the Seventh-day Adventist Church at the highest rate of any people group in Australia. Kevin’s tribe is the Olkola, situated on the Cape York Peninsula. He is a secondgeneration Adventist and an elder in the Kuranda Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Cover Photo: Murray Hunter

Focus 10 Adventists as Influencers The Word 20 Devotional 26 Bible Questions Answered My Church 16 Global View 18 Millennial Voices 19 Spirit of Prophecy 22 Looking Back Living Faith 24 Faith In Action 27 Health and Wellness 28 May I Tell You a Story?

30 Growing Faith—Children’s Pages

hat we learned in history class shaped our vision of our lives more than we ever understood.

As commonly taught in most cultures of the world, “history” is a narrative of great (or awful) things said or done by privileged people at pivotal moments in the story of a tribe or people or nation.

The story line as we learned it connects the dots between great military heroes, powerful monarchs, and eloquent politicians over more than four millennia. From ancient Mesopotamia to the breaking news story about a legislator’s quotable speech, “making history” is an act we expect of other people—those whose lives are somehow different from ours because of wealth, bloodlines, or educational opportunities.

This “great man” theory of history inevitably reduces our expectations of ourselves, however. If recordable history is made by others who say or do important things on stages we will never walk upon, our responsibility for changing the world around us is somehow lessened. Hunger, we assume, is a problem for the politicians to solve. Peacemaking is the task of trained diplomats, shuttling between capital cities. Treating people fairly will happen only when legislators in some paneled chamber narrowly approve the reform bill.

But there is another story line—one both taught and lived by Jesus—that puts each believer, however apparently humble and obscure, at the tipping point of history. Alongside the narrative of philosophers, kings, and politicians, there is the gospel reality of change and impact made by those whose names will never reach the headlines. If every cup of cold water and each loaf of bread is noted and valued by Him who judges all things, then kind acts done in the name of the only King who truly matters are of far greater value than all the victories won or speeches ever made.

History, from heaven’s perspective, isn’t made only on battlefields and in legislative chambers.

The power of a self-forgetful act of kindness to change even one other human life—to care for the poor, preach the gospel to the shamed, lift up the brokenhearted—these are what heaven counts as decisive moments in the history of the world.

In this edition of Adventist World, you will find brief stories of Seventh-day Adventists who are making a difference for the kingdom while “living here below.” None was born to power or influence, but each has already had a powerful influence on their portion of the world. We tell their stories to remind you that you, too, are already an influencer for the coming kingdom of Jesus. Jesus gives both influence and opportunity to those who can be trusted to use them to bless, support, and uplift others.

We believe in the power of prayer, and we welcome prayer requests that can be shared at our weekly staff worship every Wednesday morning. Send your requests to prayer@adventistworld.org, and pray for us as we work together to advance God’s kingdom.

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News Moment

Attendees to an Adventist youth congress in the Philippines play kick volleyball or “sepak takraw,� a sport which originated in Southeast Asia. The congress drew more than 16,000 young people. The theme emphasized unplugging from technology and encouraged a renewed focus on making new friends and learning new skills.

Photo: Southern Asia-Pacific Division

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News in Brief

“There is currently a tendency toward a highly secularized view of human rights and a habit of seeing religions more as a problem, while in reality they have a significant role to play in the solution.”

—Gabriel Monet, professor of practical theology at Adventist Campus of Salève, Haute-Savoie, France, also known as the Adventist University of France. The university hosted a meeting at the initiative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to work on human rights awareness and training resources for agents of faith.

1990 The year in which the world’s first hospital-based proton treatment center at Loma Linda University Health was created. James M. Slater, a physician, pioneer, and proponent of proton radiation therapy for cancer treatment, who oversaw the development of the proton treatment center at Loma Linda, died in December 2018 at age 89. Today approximately 25 proton therapy centers are in operation, with another 11 centers under construction or in development, according to the National Association for Proton Therapy.

US$105,201 The amount of money raised for water wells in Kenya by Maranatha Volunteers International donors on the global day of giving known as #GivingTuesday. The campaign took place entirely online through social media, e-mail, and Maranatha’s website. The funds will provide multiple wells in parts of rural Kenya that have no water. Villagers, usually women and children, often walk miles each day to collect water from polluted streams, or dig into dry riverbeds to scoop up water that seeps up. These sources can be contaminated, but are the only options available.

A group of Kenyan women, with the containers they use to carry water, often for long distances.

Photo: Maranatha Volunteers International News 4

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News in Brief

“Affected families are in a very challenging situation at this time and need a lot of both physical and moral help to overcome this crisis.”

—Kyriakos Ersantukides Erlan, project manager of Community Resilience through ADRA and Church Partnership, after a deadly tsunami hit the coastal towns near the Sunda Strait in Indonesia in December.

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Indonesia

Church & Sabbath School Attendance Worldwide Source: Adventist Global Church Member Survey, 2017 Church

29%

Sabbath School

More Than Once a Week

12%

immediately deployed emergency response teams and coordinated with government entities to conduct rapid assessments.

800 The number of teachers and administrators who recently spent nine days at Gahogo Adventist Academy in Muhanga, Rwanda, discussing creation in a faith and science conference organized by the East-Central Africa Division (ECD) and international partners. More than 60 presentations covered a wide range of topics, such as creation in both the Old and New Testaments.

Topics also included hermeneutics and the understanding of a biblical worldview in regard to questions of geology, the fossil record, molecular biology, intelligent design, carbon-14 dating, and more.

11,044 The number of doors that were knocked on by 1,664 attendees to the 2018 Generation of Youth for Christ (GYC) Conference who volunteered for the annual outreach activity. Among those doors in Houston, Texas, United States, participants reached out to 3,276 homes that housed refugees.

Houston is home to refugees speaking approximately 145 languages. A total of 622 people expressed an interest in studying the Bible. GYC’s 2018 theme, “To The End,” featured dozens of keynote and seminar presentations on spiritual topics.

42%

Every Week

56%

“We bought him a chainsaw, which he used to cut coconut trees for timber.”

18%

Almost Every Week

Monthly Quarterly Once or Twice Never

19%

—Kiribati Mission president Luther Tanaveki, speaking about ministry volunteer Tekarimwi Bitaa, who was sent to Nikunau, one of the 16 atolls and coral islands forming the Gilbert Islands group in Kiribati in the South Pacific. Because of financial constraints, no minister or layperson has been sent to the island for years.

The church was deserted and members had left. Bitaa was sent to revitalize the church. With the coconut timber he built a small church for his congregation. He will also construct a small house for a layperson to look after the church and its members.

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News in Depth

Approximately 100,000 Pathfinders Gather in South America

Camporee posts historic numbers and engages teenagers.

By Mateus Teixeira and Adventist World

Nearly 100,000 Pathfinders from the South American Division (SAD) recently crowded the arena of the Parque do Peão, in Barretos (SP), 420 kilometers (260 miles) northwest of São Paulo, Brazil. Pathfinders from eight South American countries gathered for the division’s Pathfinder camporee. On opening night, dressed in class A uniforms, they recited Pathfinder ideals and sang together about hope.

Because of the historic number of attendees the camporee was run in two separate sessions, called Alpha (January 8-13) and Omega (January 15-20). This year’s event was attended by approximately 65,000 more people than the previous division camporee in 2014. The number of Pathfinders in South America has doubled in the past five years.

The opening ceremony of the first session on January 8 welcomed both Pathfinders and government representatives. Among them, João Doria, Jr., governor of São Paulo, greeted the crowd and congratulated the initiative. “Our continent is growing stronger from faith,” said Doria, “the faith we have in our hearts, and the faith we dedicate to God.” Jair Bolsonario, newly elected president of Brazil, also sent welcoming remarks in a letter that was read to the campers.

CELEBRATING CREATION

Among the experiences at the SAD camporee, the Creation Place allowed Pathfinders to learn about creation with the help of 26 representations of dinosaurs and 42 complete and fragmented fossils among replicas and real pieces.

Fossil excavations in the sand and a journey through the days of creation were also included.

An emphasis on creation also included a “Sustainable Camporee” exhibit, which allowed attendees to learn about clean energy. While there, Pathfinders could recharge cell phones in photovoltaic “trees,” generate energy through magnetic induction by pedaling on bikes, and discover that the force of gravity can light bulbs. They were also invited to exchange recyclable items for “camporitos,” the currency of the event.

ADVENTIST-INSPIRED STAMPS

SAD’s 2019 Pathfinder Camporee also unveiled two series of Brazilian stamps, created in partnership with the country’s post office. The series included eight commemorative stamps, one referring to the fifth South American Division Camporee, and another to the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the first Path-

Nearly 100,000 people attended the 2019 Pathfinder Camporee in the South American Division.

Photo: South American Division News 6

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finder Club in Brazil. The initiative was led by Samuel de Paula and Priscila Silvana de Paula, siblings and business leaders in Brazil. In preparation for the event, 18,000 stamps had already been printed.

DECISION OPPORTUNITIES

Ultimately, the entire event was geared mainly for teenagers and important spiritual decisions, organizers said.

Biblical messages were provided by the youth ministry and Pathfinders ministry leaders of several Brazilian union conferences and by pastors Gary Blanchard, world church youth director, and Andrés Peralta, world church associate youth director.

“I had not read the Bible up to this point, but at the camporee I was motivated to do it,” said Éliton Júnior. “I read at night, when my friends were sleeping. I now want to be a pastor.”

Others decided to be baptized.

“I have been in the club for five years and it has helped me a lot,” explained Isidora Uvalentina, who came from Chile determined to be baptized. “When I was a child I didn’t attend church regularly, because I got bored easily. If I hadn’t joined the club, I might never have gone back to church.”

A total of 819 Pathfinders were baptized during the camporee.

“Pathfinders is one of the most efficient tools we have for children to love God, the church and [to learn] leadership,” concluded Erton Köhler, president of the Adventist Church in South America. “Pathfinders can help preserve our church, keeping it alive and focused.”

News in Depth

East-Central Africa Church Region Passes 4-Million-Member Mark

Nearly a million members were baptized across the region in the past three years.

By Prince Bahati, East-Central Africa Division, and Adventist World

Members of the East-Central Africa Division Executive Committee received a report from Alain Coralie, the division secretary, which revealed that the number of baptized members across the region is now above 4 million.

Photo: East-Central Africa Division News

The number of baptized members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the East-Central Africa Division (ECD) region has passed the 4-million mark for the first time in its history, said Alain Coralie, the division’s secretary, in a recent report to the members of its executive committee. Coralie’s report showed that at the beginning of the third quarter of 2015 the number of baptized members was 3,116,320; membership now stands at 4,097,347.

The figures Coralie shared show that the division, with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and encompassing 10 African nations, has increased its membership by nearly 1 million (981,027) in the past three years. That is a growth rate of 31.5 percent, or an average increase of more than 10 percent every year, he said.

Regional church leaders explained that across the division, ECD members and leaders have wholeheartedly embraced the “Mission

Priority” theme. “It is something that has resulted in the great success of our Total Member Involvement (TMI) initiatives,” they said. Total Member Involvement is an initiative of the world church that looks for all members to be involved in the work of sharing Jesus with their friends and neighbors.

“We’re delighted with this great milestone for the East-Central Africa Division and the progress that its members and leaders have made through an emphasis on Total Member Involvement,” said Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

While this number of baptized members is an unprecedented accomplishment in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Coralie counterbalanced the good news with the fact that the church also lost nearly 150,000 members across the region over the same three-year period.

Simply put, for every 100 members who joined the church, about 15

decided to leave. This state of affairs does not go unnoticed by ECD president Blasious Ruguri. “This growth in membership makes us smile, but losses are sobering,” he said.

Coralie urged church leaders and members to let the love of Christ propel them so that they spare no effort in reclaiming former members. He also challenged delegates to share strategies for nurturing and retaining the new people who join the church. “Nurture and discipleship should not be an afterthought,” he told them.

The report concluded with Coralie introducing the Adventist Church Management System (ACMS). He hailed it as a sound membership management system that will enable union conferences to report membership with a higher level of accuracy and reliability.

“By faith, we will push forward with a renewed commitment to our vision,” he said.

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News Focus Southern Asia Division (SUD)

1,603,952 SUD membership as of December 31, 2017

“People are going more for health awareness now than before.

We have many health issues in our country, and they will be more attracted by this kind of wellness center.”

—Ezras Lakra, SUD president, commenting on a new Adventist Mission-funded wellness center in India. The Vibrant Life Medical and Wellness Clinic, which opened in the Indian city of Bengaluru, offers medical consultation rooms, exercise facilities, a seminar hall, pharmacy, and planned healthfood and bookstore.

80

The number of dams that collapsed during unprecedented monsoon rains in the state of Kerela, India.

According to authorities, at one point, 80 percent of the state was without power, which severely affected Adventist Church members and churches as well.

“This is the result of my volleyball evangelism. These men have accepted Jesus and want to become Bible workers too.”

5,630 The number of Adventists who live in Nepal, a country of 29 million people, 80 percent of whom are Hindus.

“Every day I would visit these families and I would introduce the love of Christ through singing and the reading lessons.”

—Pradeep, an Adventist pastor in Pune, India, who helped found the Children’s Literacy Program focused on impoverished and homeless children. Children are taught to read through song and learning the alphabet. Pradeep was inspired to do something for those in his community as he learned about Christ and what He sacrificed for the human family. Watch an interview with him at m360.tv/i7062. (^-)

—Man Bahadur Rai, from Nepal and a new Adventist believer who began a volleyball ministry by setting up a net in an unused field situated between five villages.

Volleyball is popular in Nepal, and those requesting to play were met with such answers as “Sure, you can play; but to play one game you have to memorize one Bible verse or one song.” Before long a number of young people had memorized whole chapters from the Bible and knew many Christian songs by heart.

Rai eventually became a Bible worker and inspired other volleyball players to do similar outreach.

Pastor Pradeep teaches local children to read in Pune, India.

Photo: Adventist Mission 8

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Perspective

By Richard de Lisser, former Stewardship director, South England Conference

Photo: Benjamin Voros

Adventists and Ecology An Adventist perspective as people around the world reflect on our planet Seventh-day Adventists around the world are concerned about the environment. Climate change, global warming, and carbon emissions are the daily staple diet of many a news editor as they prepare the newspapers for our daily consumption. Headlines grab our attention and arrest our thoughts and imaginations: will we have a viable planet to pass on to our children, yet alone our children’s children?

New frontiers are being sought just in case the prophets of doom, death, and destruction are right, and the moon and beyond become the next step for humankind. Back here on earth politicians, presidents, pontiffs, and prime ministers convene conferences, issue joint declarations, and set targets to steer the world clear of disaster, asking us to think globally but act locally.

What organization is better placed to rise to this challenge than the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Enshrined in our 28 Fundamental Beliefs is the doctrine of stewardship, which summarizes the church’s ecological perspective, stating that “we are God’s stewards, entrusted by Him with time and opportunities, abilities and possessions, and the blessing of the earth and its resources. We are responsible to Him for their proper use.”

AS A CHURCH, ARE WE TAKING THIS RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY?

God has placed us on this earth as His image bearers to look after and manage His environment faithfully and lovingly. Seventh-day Adventists believe that the preservation and nurture of the environment relates intimately with the way we serve God. The General Conference Administrative Committee, in an approved and voted statement released in 1996, stated: “Unfortunately, men and women have been increasingly involved in an irresponsible destruction of the earth’s resources, resulting in widespread suffering, environmental degradation, and the threat of climate change. While scientific research needs to continue, it is clear from the accumulated evidence that the increasing emission of destructive gasses, the massive destruction of the American rain forests, and the depletion of the protective mantle of ozone (the so-called greenhouse effect) are all threatening the earth’s ecosystem. . . .

“These problems are largely due to human selfishness and greed which result in ever-increasing production, unlimited consumption, and depletion of nonrenewable resources. Solidarity with future generations is discussed, but the pressure of immediate interests is given priority. The ecological crisis is rooted in humankind’s greed and refusal to practice good and faithful stewardship. . . .

“Seventh-day Adventism advocates a simple, wholesome lifestyle, where people do not step on the treadmill of unbridled overconsumption, accumulation of goods, and production of waste. A reformation of lifestyle is called for, based on respect for nature, restraint in the use of the world’s resources, reevaluation of one’s needs, and reaffirmation of the dignity of created life.”

WHAT CAN MEMBERS AND LOCAL CHURCHES DO TO INCREASINGLY PRACTICE ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP?

Management standards, such as ISO 14000, enable organizations to identify and modify or control how their activity impacts their environment. Members and churches can also be encouraged to: • Nurture future generations to think environmentally.

• Value what we have now and pass on appreciation for earth’s complex design pointing to the Designer.

• Initiate steps to work with agencies that are protecting the environment.

• Recycle, remodel, reuse, reclaim, repair, and practice restraint.

• In some things, though not always, nature is life’s lesson book; learn from it.

• Manage earth’s resources faithfully and lovingly.

• Enhance energy efficiency and productivity.

• Be temperate and balanced in all that we do.

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Focus

Adventists as Influencers

Influence is a key currency in the world in which we live. Whether on social media, in sports, politics, or religion, people are inspired by people. All around the globe Adventists influence the communities where they live. The following pages introduce some of them.

—Editors

By Faith and Not

by Sight Jamaican Senate’s first blind president

F

loyd Emerson Morris—born July 23, 1969, in Bailey’s Vale, Jamaica—had little expectation of academic and political success when he lost his sight as a young man as a result of glaucoma and left high school to become a poultry farmer. In spite of his visual impairment, however, and the countless challenges involved, Morris later enrolled in college and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and a Master of Philosophy in Government. In 2017 he graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of the West Indies. His most notable achievement, though, was being elected president of the Jamaican Senate in May 2013—the first visually impaired person to hold that position. He served as senate president until February 2016.

Morris is known in the region for being a strong advocate for people with disabilities, and actively promotes the passage of bills and programs that benefit this community. He has also written an autobiography titled By Faith, Not by Sight.

Although lauded by many for his accomplishments—including Adventist world church leaders at the General Conference session in San Antonio, Texas, in 2015—Morris credits God and his family for his success.

“I believe that God has a special plan for my life, and I have allowed Him to lead and direct me—and I am seeing the benefits of that faith in Him,” Morris told Adventist World. “God and support from friends and family have played an indelible role in the successes that I have had over the years as a blind person.”

Morris has been married to his wife, Shelly-Ann Gayle, since 2011. The couple are members of the Andrews Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kingston, Jamaica.

—Sandra Blackmer

Photo: Courtesy of Floyd E. Morris

Ryan Williams and the Botswana Orphan Project Teaching, feeding, and clothing vulnerable children

I

grew up in Botswana fairly ignorant of its challenges,” says Ryan Williams, 37, the driving force behind the Botswana Orphan Project (BOP). “It was only when I moved to Australia to study engineering that I encountered the stark contrast between the two worlds and realized Botswana’s need.”

During one of his university holidays in 2004, Williams was asked to take pictures and video footage of a church-sponsored orphan-care event in northern Botswana. It was there that he felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of orphans, many of whom had lost both parents to HIV/AIDS. “My dream became to care for orphans and vulnerable children by addressing education, Photo: Botswana Orphan Project

nutrition, and self-worth needs,” Williams recalls. “It was a dream so inspiring that I felt compelled to do whatever I could to help.”

Williams’ resolve was reinforced by sobering statistics, as Botswana is one of the countries most affected

by HIV/AIDS. (A 2003 United Nations report found out that in the country, almost one in five people ages 15-49 were living with HIV.) Back in Australia, Williams rallied his church and school friends and launched BOP, “a movement of people”—as he defines it—”focused on delivering a message of hope to vulnerable children, the innocent victims.” BOP’s approach is twofold, he explains. “First, we work to prevent—educate children, addressing

behavior change to prevent further damage,” he says. “At the same time, we work to alleviate—provide a safe environment to vulnerable children, where they can receive the love, care, and nutrition needed to grow.”

Fifteen years later BOP works together with the church’s Botswana Union Mission and has developed local partnerships to help build and run six orphan centers around the country. The centers were mostly built and funded by volunteers, which Williams brought from as far as Australia and Canada.

Some of them were young church members (a Christian band was the first tool he used to create awareness and raise funds); others were classmates from his public school in Australia, and later colleagues and coworkers.

“Many of the volunteers who sign up are not even Christians,” says Williams, who now works as an electrical engineer. “But all confess that taking part in this project has been a transforming experience.”

Williams tells of his former boss, an agnostic, in a large 5,000-employee engineering company in Australia.

He and his family decided to volunteer, and traveled to Botswana to help build one of the centers.

After the trip his wife approached Williams. “This trip has saved our marriage,” she told him.

In 2013 then Botswana president Ian Khama awarded Williams the Presidential Order of Meritorious Service for his humanitarian work.

Now from Portland, Oregon, United States, Williams keeps promoting BOP’s mission. “It is hard work, and we’ve had our fair share of challenges,” he says. “But we’re committed to the dream: teach, feed, and clothe vulnerable children.”

The next volunteer trip of the Botswana Orphan Project is scheduled for July 2019.

—Marcos Paseggi AdventistWorld.org April 2019

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Focus: Adventists as Influencers

U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera

Admiral Vern Clark, Chief of Naval Operations, congratulates Rear Admiral Barry C. Black (center), upon receiving the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.

The Power of Influence The chaplain of the United States Senate is an Adventist.

B

arry C. Black rarely makes headlines. But every day he rubs shoulders with those who do.

Barry Black is chaplain of the United State Senate, a position he has held since July 7, 2003. In that role Black offers the invocation each day as the Senate begins its deliberations. He is the first African American and the first Seventh-day Adventist to hold that position.

In addition to his formal role of offering the invocation before each day’s senate deliberations, Black oversees the spiritual care for the senators, their families, and their staffs, a constituency of approximately 6,000 people. He also coordinates Bible study groups in the Senate and presides over the weekly Senate prayer breakfast. In 2017 he was keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Before being selected to serve as chaplain of the United States Senate, Black served as a United States Navy chaplain, rising to the rank of rear admiral. He was chief 12

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of Navy chaplains when he retired.

Black was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, one of eight children. He credits his mother as being one of the primary influences in his life, making sure that each of her eight children received a Christian education from first grade to graduate school.

Commenting on this experience, Black said, “To pull this off, many times she couldn’t pay the rent.

And when you can’t pay the rent, you are evicted. So three times in my life I came home from my nice Christian school to find our furniture out on the street.”

Black is known for committing to memory large portions of Scripture, a habit he developed as a child when his mother promised to give him five cents for every Bible verse he memorized.

As chaplain of the Senate, Black has participated in presidential inaugurations, many state events, and is often an eyewitness to the historical debates of the United States in the twenty-first century.

During the federal government shutdown in 2013 his invocations attracted national attention, as when he prayed: “Strengthen our weakness, replacing cynicism with faith and cowardice with courage.”

Three weeks into the government shutdown that had national implications, Black’s prayer included words that recognized the significant issues at stake, and challenged members of the Senate to do their duty: “O God, our way, our truth, and our life, we worship You. Quicken our consciences by Your holiness, that we will find nourishment in Your truth. As this partial government shutdown grinds on, help our lawmakers to open their hearts to Your love and to surrender their desires to Your purposes. In this tangled world we are conscious of our woeful inadequacies to sit in the seats of judgment, to balance the scales of justice, and to respond with equity to the myriad calls of human needs.

We need You, Eternal God, to crown our deliberations with Your wisdom and with spacious thinking to fit these challenging days. We pray in Your strong name, amen.”

Black has written four books, including his autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill.

—Stephen Chavez

Hope Channel Kenya

Courtesy of Joy-Marie Butler

A Voice for Women In too many cultures females are still secondclass citizens.

J

oy-Marie Butler says about herself: “I try to encourage women around the world to be fully liberated in Christ and reach their full potential.”

Justice, fairness, and compassion are key words that she uses to describe her ethos. “I speak, write, and pray about these matters at every opportunity. I believe in helping [to] free women from the ravages of the DAT poisons: drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.”

Butler is president of Australia’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and second vice president of the world WCTU. Along the way she served the South Pacific Division as Women’s Ministries director for the South Pacific Division and a chaplain at Sydney Adventist Hospital.

Butler is passionate about health and safety issues for women and girls. In Thailand she worked with ADRA Thailand to develop a Keep Girls Safe initiative, which attempted to mitigate that country’s human trafficking.

Butler lives in Papua New Guinea, where she has initiated a fund-raiser she calls TTT (Taps, Toilets, Transformation) for PNG. She says, “Girls’ bathrooms and toilets in many schools in Papua New Guinea are atrocious or nonexistent.” Her Facebook post has this rationale: “To have decent facilities for young women is of paramount importance and will help them to have more respect for themselves and encourage them to be dignified and assertive, and to enjoy a sense of value.”

About her connection to the WCTU she says, “WCTU women campaigned for rights of mothers and children in a time of deep distress for these underprivileged and hurting people. The concerns continue, and I am here in the world today to help make a difference and make it better for a few of the people I encounter.

—Stephen Chavez

David Maraga, President of the Supreme Court in Kenya Standing tall for your convictions

S

eventh-day Adventist Chief Justice David Maraga became president of the Supreme Court of Kenya in October 2016. But even before taking over, he was forced into the spotlight.

During his confirmation hearings that year, Maraga told the Judicial Service Commission that if elected, he would not hear a hypothetical case on Saturdays, the seventh-day Sabbath. “It would be very difficult for me to sit on a Saturday to hear a case,” Maraga told the commission responsible for nominating Supreme Court candidates to the president. “I would rather talk with my colleagues in the court to accommodate me and exempt me from sitting if the hearing extends to a Saturday.”

Maraga had an opportunity of putting his convictions into practice after the August 8, 2017, national elections in Kenya were contested. The first hearing of the case had been scheduled during day hours of Saturday, August 26. At his request, however, the hearing was postponed until 7:00 p.m., to accommodate for the top judge’s beliefs.

Since then Kenyan political analysts have highlighted Maraga’s reputation as a person of integrity, which they attribute to his being a devout Seventh-day Adventist.

“The greatness of a nation relies on its fidelity to the constitution and adherence to the rule of law,” Maraga says.

—Marcos Paseggi

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Eric Rajah

FARMSTEW Facebook

A Better World Joy Kauffman and FARM STEW Training nutrition trainers across Eastern Africa

J

oy Kauffman launched FARM STEW in 2015, after witnessing the nutritional needs of many in Africa.

“I found out that farmers in Uganda were growing soybeans, but they wouldn’t give them to their children, who were dying for lack of protein,” says Kauffman, explaining the rationale of her ministry. “The truth is, they did not know how to process them.”

After launching FARM STEW—which stands for farming, attitude, rest, meals, sanitation, temperance, enterprise, and water—Kauffman and her Ugandan assistants moved fast to teach them how to incorporate soybeans into their diet in ways that were tasty and healthful while providing them opportunities to start small businesses.

“We started teaching them about soaking the beans, making tofu and soy milk, and adding the by-product of the soymilk right back into the porridge that everyone ate for breakfast,” she says. “We also told them the difference it would make to their health.”

Despite her initial success, it did not take long for Kauffman to realize that in order to make a real difference, she needed to go a step further. “So I trained people, and I hired them to start training others,” she shares. Last count, they have provided abundant-life training to more than 49,000 people.

Kauffman and her team have also developed training materials, and eventually expanded to Zimbabwe and recently to South Sudan. The ministry has worked in rural villages and urban centers, in schools and prisons. They even operate a vegan restaurant. “There’s so much we can do if we make an effort,” she says. “And we are open to see what God has still in store for us.”

—Marcos Paseggi 14

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Imagining a world in which everyone has all they need

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hen members of the College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada, started looking for outreach opportunities, they thought, How can we make a difference not only in our community but around the world?

That’s when Eric Rajah and Brian Leavitt started looking at a few international humanitarian projects the church could initiate and support. That was in 1990.

Almost 30 years later A Better World Canada (abwcanada.ca) is involved in humanitarian projects in 14 countries.

A Better World is a champion of sustainable development, which means that it seeks partners with whom it can develop projects that last from five to 10 years. Its model is investment rather than aid.

That’s a big distinction.

Some aid agencies swoop into a community and drop enough resources to dig a well or build a building, but when the resources are gone, so is the agency’s support.

A Better World begins by asking community members about their immediate needs. Then it expects

Courtesy of A Better World Canada

Focus: Adventists as Influencers

Courtesy of Marianne Thieme

local communities to contribute a percentage of the labor and take ownership by caring for and maintaining the project.

A Better World shares humanitarian goals as articulated by the United Nations: (1) end poverty, (2) ensure that communities have enough to eat, (3) ensure adequate health care, (4) ensure that every child has access to primary education, (5) ensure access to clean water, (6) enable people to exit the cycle of poverty. Each goal recognizes that human dignity is part of being created in the image of God, and that to restore these characteristics is to restore the image of God in fallen humanity.

Each year A Better World coordinates trips for volunteers to Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, or Bolivia. Some trips are designed to initiate new projects, some evaluate the progress of projects already in place, and some go to provide specialized services to communities, such as medical, dentistry, or rehabilitation/physiotherapy.

Recognizing that today’s youth and young adults often have a heart for international justice and global action, A Better World has a youth division called Tomorrow’s Edge. It works to provide travel opportunities so that youth can experience community needs firsthand, and teaches them skills that are useful in fund-raising and international project development.

In a commencement address to graduates of Burman University in April 2017, Eric Rajah gave the graduates “three words that can transform your world.” In a world in which humanity’s needs are so great, the three words are amazingly simple yet direct: Think.

Believe. Act. Taken together, they amount to a formula that’s useful in every community.

—Stephen Chavez

Marianne Thieme and the Party for the Animals Standing firm against the tide

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arianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in the Dutch Parliament,1 Netherlands, and a member of the Dutch House of Representatives, stood firm against a tide of ridicule when she and other animal advocates formed their political party that focuses on the interests of animals, nature, and the environment in 2002. In the 2006 election, however, the fast-growing party received 179,988 votes (1.8 percent), which gave them two seats in the Dutch Parliament. This made them the world’s first party to gain parliamentary seats with an agenda focused primarily on animal issues. Then with 335,214 votes (3.2 percent) won at the 2017 election, the Party of the Animals secured five seats. Since 2002, 18 similar parties have been established around the world.

Opponents today are no longer laughing.

DRAWN BY COMPASSION

A lifelong animal advocate, Thieme became a vegetarian at the age of 23 after watching a documentary on methods farmers use to increase milk and meat production from cows. At the time she was studying law at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Following graduation Thieme first worked for a land remediation and waste management company, then later as a policy official for a Dutch anti-fur animal welfare foundation and an animal welfare foundation that opposed industrial agriculture. Thieme has also since produced two documentary films on the environmental impact of meat eating.

Raised a Roman Catholic, Thieme learned about Adventists while studying vegetarianism and reading books by Ellen White. In an interview with Adventist Review in 2014 she said she was “struck by White’s message of compassion toward animals and her passionate plea for vegetarianism.”2 “Together with my beliefs and my animal advocacy, the Adventist Church appealed to me, and I became an Adventist in 2006,” she said.3 Thieme says Adventists should be proactive on environmental and animal welfare issues, and should “let people know what stewardship really means.”

—Sandra Blackmer 1 2 3

www.partyfortheanimals.nl See, for example, Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, Calif., Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1905), p. 314. www.adventistreview.org/church-news/pioneering-dutch-politician-finds-success-in-practicing-what-she-preaches.

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Global View

Kingly Power, Humility, and Prayer Pastor Ted Wilson occasionally invites other authors to present pertinent material. This article is adapted from a sermon delivered by Ron Kelly in December 2018 at the Village Seventh-day Adventist Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States. For the full sermon, visit www.villagesda.org/events/kingly-power-sermon-series.

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ewish rabbi and family therapist Edwin Friedman writes in his book A Failure of Nerve “the mind that has not trained itself to the hard disciplines of reasonableness and honesty, will assume, as its devils are cast out . . . to fill itself with their relations.”1 How are you pursuing truth in your life? If you have not disciplined your mind to reasonableness and honesty, you can make anything say anything you want it to say. Especially the Bible. We’re on a journey where God is looking to lead us into all truth; knowing the truth will set us free. But some have not disciplined their minds for reasonableness and honesty.

WELL-DIFFERENTIATED

In his book, Friedman describes a “well-differentiated leader” as one who can separate their own emotional being from that of their followers while still remaining connected. Vision, he says, is an emotional rather than cerebral phenomenon, depending more on a leader’s capacity to deal with anxiety than his or her professional training or degree.

Take courage. Here is a leadership consultant and psychologist reminding us that the person best suited to lead is one who can hold up to the emotional duress of occasionally displeasing people. Our history as a church bears this out.

Uriah Smith said of James White, “Some have thought that he was deficient in social qualities and sometimes rigid, harsh, and unjust even toward his best friends. But these feelings . . . come from a failure to comprehend one of the 16

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strongest traits in his character—his preeminent love for the cause in which he was engaged.”2 James White was God’s well-differentiated leader, prepared to get this prophetic movement onto solid footing. He and Ellen made tremendous relational and emotional sacrifices to protect and establish the church.

Friedman’s appeal, “From parents to presidents” is that a man or a woman who is not well-differentiated, who doesn’t know who they are and what their duty is, will be a poor excuse as a leader.

Leaders do what’s right because it is right. It’s about moving forward, understanding and caring for the needs of the people you serve.

KINGLY POWER

The phrase “kingly power” was used by Ellen White many times and in different contexts—sometimes referring to Jewish expectations of the Messiah, the power that Jesus left behind when He came to our world, or Dr. J. H. Kellogg’s grasp for control. In most cases, however, Photo: Pro Church Media

she used the phrase to refer to “the controlling power of one man or a small group of people over the administration of the church. At times she referred to the General Conference president, but more often to the treasurer or to leaders of the medical or publishing work.”3 “Kingly power” is also used to refer to unsanctified humanity and the human desire to be in charge.

At times she references the human ability to choose.

This leaves us with numerous references to kingly power in regard to church organization.

From small beginnings to rapid expansion, the church had to grow through organizational challenges.

Managerial power was centered in two or three people in Battle Creek. But at the 1901 General Conference session this problem was addressed when the church structure was reorganized into unions, which we still have today.

In 1903 Ellen White wrote, “The division of the General Conference into district union conferences was God’s arrangement. In the work of the Lord in these last days, there should be . . . no kingly power.”4 And in that same year she wrote, “All of God’s servants have a work to do in this vineyard. . . . Be very courteous in speech, very kindly in action.”5 Let’s be careful how we throw pejorative phrases around. If someone were to say to you as a manager, or parent, “You’re grasping for kingly power,” it would be an almost impossible accusation to defend against. The phrase has powerful negative emotion attached to it and ought not to be used carelessly or ignorantly, especially in regard to our church leaders.

POWER OF PRAYER

“If there were more prayer in the counsels of those bearing large responsibilities, more humbling of

their hearts before God, we should see abundant evidence of divine leadership and greater advancement in our work.”6 Do you sit on a committee? Are you a leader? Is prayer just one of those formalities you hurry and get out of the way so you can work?

“The Lord God of heaven is our leader,” wrote Ellen White. “He is a leader we can safely follow; for He never makes a mistake.”7 This is why prayer matters. “Those who walk in the fear of God, meditating upon His character, will daily become more and more like Christ.

Those who choose not to know God will be ostentatious and boastful.”8 As we approach the end, character will reveal those filled with the Spirit from those who are not. God could do the work without us, but He gives us a role to transform us and grow our faith. If we attempt God’s work on our own, we will be ruined in the process.

“There is a great work to be done,” wrote Ellen White in 1904 to church leaders. “My heart aches as I think of the many who are unready to meet their Lord, and the wasted time that has passed into eternity.

Oh God, have mercy on Thy people. . . . Grown-up men and women, leaders, are acting like little children. There is not a particle of excuse for the strife and alienation that exists among us.”9 Another time she wrote, “I know how pleased the enemy is when [Satan] can keep the hearts of those in the service of God filled with distrust and suspicion.”10 If you have distrust and suspicion toward a leader, from pastor to conference, union, or division president, or the General Conference president, the first thing to do is to get on your knees and pray!

Any group can become fractured, splintered, divided, but “unity existing among the followers of God is

“Leaders do what’s right because it is right.” an evidence that the Father sent His Son to save sinners. . . . Nothing short of the miraculous power of God can bring human beings, with their different temperaments, together in harmonious action. . . .

Strive earnestly for unity. Pray for it. Work for it. It will bring spiritual help, elevation of thought, nobility, heavenly mindedness. You will overcome selfishness,”11 urged God’s prophet.

God is calling for well-differentiated leaders. Know yourself in Christ and know others in a similar manner. Fulfill the role He has given you and do your best. God will be glorified in the example that you set. “Before the heavenly universe and the church, and the world, you will bear unmistakable evidence that you are God’s sons and daughters.”12 Edwin Friedmann, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 2007 edition, citing Gilbert Murray in Five Stages of Greek Religion, [1925], at www. sacred-texts.com/cla/fsgr/fsgr08.htm, p. 130.

2 Arthur White, Ellen G. White: The lonely years, volume 3, 1876-1891 (Hagerstown, MD: Review & Herald Pub. Assn., 1984), p. 164, quoting Uriah Smith.

3 A. Leroy Moore, “Kingly Power,” in The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, ed. Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 2013), p. 920.

4 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 8, p. 232.

5 Ellen G. White, Bible Training School, May 1, 1903.

6 Ellen G. White, Manuscript 144, 1903, par. 14.

7 Ibid.

8 Ellen G. White, This Day With God (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1979), p. 40.

9 Ellen G. White, Letter 61, 1904.

10 Ellen G. White, Letter 170, 1902.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

1

Ron Kelly is senior pastor of the Village Seventh-day Adventist Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States.

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Millennial Voices

Honey and Sandals

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he extremely hot weather had been the main topic of conversation for the entire day. Whether in Portuguese or in seven different Spanish accents, we all had the same complaint. Often nonverbally, we commiserated with each other while crossing paths in the little streets, among the tents, and especially in the showers. It was there that I met five bubbly young girls and suddenly found a story to tell.

“How many hours did you travel?” they ask in Portuguese, assuming that I understood their language.

“Thirty-six,” I answer, feeling a bit boastful. “And you?” I ask in my poor Portuguese.

“We traveled more than 80 hours. Three days on a boat, two planes, then many hours on a bus,” they reply enthusiastically.

When they see my astonishment, they feel encouraged to tell me more.

“We had to work very hard for two years in order to save enough money to get here. We sold boxes of honey, sandals, and many other things. When one of us reached the amount that was needed, we helped each other to earn the needed funds.”

I was startled by the tremendous effort of these sixth graders who were thrilled, enjoying the fruit of their hard work.

We talked for a little while longer. What had started as a casual conversation ended up a large circle of people from Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina.

We were part of the 50,000 Pathfinders who met in Barretos, São Paulo, Brazil, for the first part of the South American Division Pathfinder Camporee in January.

No matter where we came from, we were in need of water right then.

By the end of the day we all had the same needs as human beings. We were getting ready for the evening worship service and wanted to be clean after a long day of activities.

There is no way we can cross the barriers that sometimes separate us if we don’t recognize our common shared needs. We need to 18

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communicate with each other, listen to each other’s stories, and see each other as people whom Jesus came to save. It’s not a matter of color, race, or language.

No matter the distance of our journey, it’s crucial that we embark on it. There are always difficulties and obstacles. Other people might seem to achieve their goals faster, or need less to obtain the same results. That’s OK. Our God is a personal Savior. Comparison does not define His relationships. He is more than able to provide for everyone according to His will and in response to our faith (Phil. 4:19).

No matter the means of transportation and the places of origin, a focus on Jesus will help us walk in the same direction. We look at the same fixpoint when we pray, when we study His Word, when we see His handiwork in nature, or when we are committed to reaching others for Him. No matter how much we have accomplished in our spiritual lives, if we want to bear fruit we must remain in Jesus and share what He has done for us with others (John 15).

Salvation is a matter of faith, but we must remember that our actions and testimony can be a powerful blessing for others—even if it means selling honey and sandals.

“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, ‘In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.’ . . . But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are not destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved” (Heb. 10:35-39, NIV).

Carolina Ramos studies translation, English, and music education at River Plate Adventist University in Argentina.

She is passionate about mission and enjoys working with children and teens.

Spirit of Prophecy

The Lord Is Risen

earth trembles at his approach, the hosts of darkness flee, and as he rolls away the stone, heaven seems to come down to the earth.

The soldiers see him removing the stone as he would a pebble, and hear him cry, Son of God, come forth; Thy Father calls Thee. They see Jesus come forth from the grave, and hear Him proclaim over the rent sepulcher, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” As He comes forth in majesty and glory, the angel host bow low in adoration before the Redeemer, and welcome Him with songs of praise.

UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE

Christ’s resurrection is a preview of His return.

BY ELLEN G. WHITE

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he night of the first day of the week had worn slowly away. The darkest hour, just before daybreak, had come. Christ was still a prisoner in His narrow tomb. The great stone was in its place; the Roman seal was unbroken; the Roman guards were keeping their watch.

And there were unseen watchers. Hosts of evil angels were gathered about the place. Had it been possible, the prince of darkness with his apostate army would have kept forever sealed the tomb that held the Son of God. But a heavenly host surrounded the sepulcher. Angels that excel in strength were guarding the tomb, and waiting to welcome the Prince of life.

GOD’S MAJESTIC POWER

“And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven.” Clothed with the panoply of God, this angel left the heavenly courts. The bright beams of God’s glory went before him, and illuminated his pathway. “His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.”

Now, priests and rulers, where is the power of your guard? Brave soldiers that have never been afraid of human power are now as captives taken without sword or spear. The face they look upon is not the face of mortal warrior; it is the face of the mightiest of the Lord’s host. This messenger is he who fills the position from which Satan fell.

It is he who on the hills of Bethlehem proclaimed Christ’s birth. The

An earthquake marked the hour when Christ laid down His life, and another earthquake witnessed the moment when He took it up in triumph. He who had vanquished death and the grave came forth from the tomb with the tread of a conqueror, amid the reeling of the earth, the flashing of lightning, and the roaring of thunder.

When He shall come to the earth again, He will shake “not the earth only, but also heaven.” “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage.”

“The heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll;” “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” But “the Lord will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel.” Hebrews 12:26; Isaiah 24:20; 34:4; 2 Peter 3:10; Joel 3:16.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that Ellen G. White (1827-1915) exercised the biblical gift of prophecy during more than 70 years of public ministry. This excerpt was taken from her book The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898, 1940), pp. 779, 780.

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Devotional

A Staggering Debt and a Shocking Concession

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he story of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21-35) is one of Jesus’ most intriguing parables, and contains some interesting twists. It seems to be about a generous master who suddenly revokes his forgiveness. Upon closer examination, however, it is even more deeply shocking. We don’t really appreciate the extent of the servant’s debt. Furthermore, the master wasn’t revoking his forgiveness; he was doing something else.

A CURIOUS QUESTION

“How many times do I need to forgive my brother when he sins against me?” Peter asked Jesus one day.

Jesus glanced up at him.

“Seven times?” Peter blurts out impatiently, impressed with his own generous guess.

“No, even more than that. Seventy times seven,” responds Jesus.

This was shocking. The nitpicking Pharisees had set the number at three.1 Peter had gone beyond that, and Jesus had completely exceeded Peter. If Peter had said 100 times, Jesus would likely have said 100 million times because, judging from the story that Jesus proceeds to tell, Heaven is prepared to forgive infinitely.

A STAGGERING DEBT

A master is looking over accounts with his servants. He stops at an account that owes him a huge sum of money. He calls the servant to hear what’s happening with this account.

Jesus offers us more context in another parable in Matthew 25:14-28. Masters would handpick servants and entrust them with talents of gold according to their abilities. Some sources estimate that each talent typically weighed about 34 kilograms (75 pounds), with an estimated worth of US$1.37 million in current value. Servants were expected to invest the wealth wisely and return it to the master with interest. Servants who could not or would not handle the master’s money wisely would be fired.

The servant in our story owed the master 10,000 talents—340,000 kilograms (750,000 pounds) of gold. Today, that would amount to about US$13.7 billion. The master’s trust must have been infinite. Even more mind-blowing, however, is the fact that the servant was able to let it all slip through his fingers.

How can one squander such a large sum of money?

The master looks at the situation and decides that the most viable option would be to sell the servant, his family, and all his possessions to repay the debt. He must have had a good number of children and possessions to make that seem sensible.

The master must have suspected that the servant used the money for his own benefit. Immediately the servant pleads for mercy. It’s the only feasible thing to do. Then he makes the most absurd statement.

“I will pay back everything!”

That’s the “right” thing to say.

However, even if he worked as a day laborer every single day until the debt was paid, it would take about 200,000 years—more that 3,000 lifetimes.

A SHOCKING COMPASSION

The master does something shocking. Realizing that the servant can never repay him, he has pity on the servant and forgives the debt. He cancels the whole debt. The servant’s balance is now $0.00. The master just lost 10,000 hunks of gold.

There’s no indication that the servant lost his job. In fact, it seems that he still is part of the master’s household. People have been fired for much less serious mismanagement of money. He still has his family. The master didn’t even sell his possessions. The master has just pronounced him a free man.

A SWIFT REBUTTAL

The servant goes out to celebrate the master’s grace. He does this by strangling a fellow servant and demanding the repayment of any debt. The servant owes him a mere 100 denarii, which is equivalent to about 100 days’ wage—nothing in comparison to the money he himself had owed.

The fellow servant begs for mercy. He promises to repay

everything. But there is no mercy.

He is thrown into prison until the debt can be returned. Commentators have pointed out that this made it nearly impossible to earn the money needed to repay the debt. What a harsh response! The servant’s insistence on the severe punishment of his fellow servant suggests what he really thinks his own punishment should have been.

The other servants are so horrified and upset at the brutality they have witnessed that they go straight to the master. They report the happenings to the last detail.

Now the master is also outraged.

He must feel offended. The servant has clearly shown what he thought of his generosity.

The fact that the other servants feel that the servant’s behavior is something that would upset the master is indicative of the master’s character. He must be a man who cares about the well-being of his subjects.

A GENEROUS CONCESSION

Other servants have gotten cut to pieces without any warning for this kind of behavior (cf. Luke 12:46).

Instead, the master calls him in.

“I forgave you in response to your pleas,” the master cries.

“Shouldn’t you be able to forgive your fellow servant?”

He is asking a question. This is a conversation. He is creating a space for the servant to offer an explanation. The servant has no response. But is there a good excuse for demanding a grain of salt when you’ve been given the universe? The servant doesn’t even ask for forgiveness. There is no meaningful dialogue.

“Fine,” the master concedes.

“Send him to the jailer to be tortured until he can repay his debt.”

Is there a good excuse for demanding a grain of salt when you’ve been given the universe?

If the servant wants to be locked up in prison for the rest of his life, so be it. Note, it is only the servant that is sent off to jail. Not his wife.

Not his children. His possessions are not sold. The master is not even exacting punishment to the fullest extent of the law.

The servant wrote his own sentence. Yes, he demanded it. He rejected his pardon. Perhaps he didn’t even understand the depth of his debt.

“The ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God,” writes Ellen White, “but by our attitude toward others we show whether we have made that love our own. Wherefore Christ says, ‘With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’ Matt. 7:2.”2 God has written our sentence.

Will we accept it, or will we write our own?

Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1900, 1941), p. 243.

2 Ibid., p. 251.

1

Joneen Wilson writes from California, United States, where she works as a nurse. When she isn’t passing medications or working in her church’s audiovisual department, you might find her doing literature evangelism in a random place.

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Looking Back

No Matter the Cost When mission service meant leaving everything familiar.

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lorence surveyed her surroundings incredulously. Their two-story mud hut in Maragha, Persia (modern-day Iran), was nice by local standards.

She had a small kitchen with windows that allowed a light breeze to filter through; the first floor would be a perfect place to hold meetings, and the second floor provided two additional rooms, a living room and a bedroom. But how, she wondered, would she ever be able to keep the mud floors and walls clean? Her eyes grew misty as she thought of home and her family. She felt alone here, so very alone.

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Her new husband, Frank Oster, was accustomed to missionary life, having already been in the field for four years. Florence well remembered their first encounter.

They had been sitting side by side at a Foreign Mission Band meeting organized by Professor Harry Washburn at Walla Walla College, in the United States. Independently they pledged that if it was God’s will, they would become foreign missionaries. A casual friendship blossomed between them—until Frank left as a missionary in 1909.

With the new vision for foreign missions that emerged after the 1901 General Conference session, many young people had been chosen for overseas service, including Frank. He and his friend, Henry Dirksen, were the first

The Osters were faithful to their post of duty.

resident Adventist missionaries to enter Persia. They understood, as did most missionaries from the United States, that their commitment was long-term. They expected to be in the field for life.

LIFE AS A MISSIONARY FAMILY

Frank and Florence’s relationship began in earnest after he left, courtesy of the post office. Through a flurry of letters they knew that they were meant to be together, united as partners in service. They married in London, where Florence’s parents lived, then caught a ship to spend their honeymoon en route to Persia. It was 1913.

The introduction of To Persia, With Love, a biographical sketch of the Oster’s work in Iran, contains these words: “Islam . . . has from its beginnings elicited a level of fervor and loyalty among its people that has been seen only occasionally in other religions. Here the missionary task has proved to be perhaps the most difficult in the whole world. For the first fifty years of Seventh-day Adventist work in Persia (beginning in 1911) there were a total of twenty-nine missionaries. Frank and Florence Oster worked there alone for eleven years (1914-1925).”1 Ultimately, Frank worked for 35 years in the Middle East, 27 of which were in Persia.

The Osters created a niche for themselves in Persia.

Frank held meetings and Bible studies in their home, using Sabbath School materials.2 Florence busied herself with learning Turkish, the common language in the area, using the Bible as her textbook. She soon gathered a group of neighborhood girls to teach them English. While the girls learned English, she practiced her Turkish by expounding on the Bible verses she’d been reading. A few of the girls began keeping the Sabbath as a result of her language skills and willingness to embrace her neighbors.

Life was not easy for the Osters. They battled severe illness, fled Kurdish raiders during World War I, lost two children to disease, survived on limited funds, and faced loneliness on a daily basis. But they were faithful to their post of duty. When letters came from the General Conference offering them furloughs, they chose to stay in the field. It seemed that after all the years they had labored, the church was just on the verge of springing to life.3 Florence is quoted as saying: “No, Frank. God’s work will suffer if we leave. We can’t go now.”4 The Osters established schools, fed and clothed orphans, ministered to refugees, and little by little grew the church in the Middle East one person at a time. By the time they were transferred to Istanbul, Turkey, “the mission work had moved from pioneer ‘zero’ conditions to a stable consolidated mission with a competent staff of national and European workers.”5

Frank Oster GC Archives

When they did finally return home, it was because of World War II and mandatory orders to evacuate.

“They had given thirty-five years of their lives to the pioneering of the most ancient lands in the world. There had been high points and many low ones, too. And in retrospect it seemed that much time and energy had been given for pitifully small results—if one were to consider just the numbers.”6 AN ENDURING LEGACY

The Osters might have been tempted to think that their sacrifice was in vain, but in the final pages of their life story, they wouldn’t have changed a thing. Florence was once asked: “Has the burden been too great? Was the price of it all too high? Could you have given your life and talents to some better cause? ‘No—a thousand times, no!’” she answered. “Living in commitment to God’s will for all of these years, [they saw] His guiding hand too many times and . . . felt His Spirit’s soothing comfort too often to wish that anything had been otherwise.”7 The flicker of spiritual flame the Osters lit was all but swept away by the Iranian revolution in the 1970s. The “work in that ancient land remains unfinished, and the challenge is even greater than before. How God’s work shall be finished . . . remains in the hands of the new pioneers, working under the blessing of divine Providence.”8 Who will take up the banner and follow in their steps, doing hard things for God? Kenneth Oster and Dorothy Minchin-Comm, To Persia, With Love (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1980), pp. 9, 10.

2 Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, August 7, 1952, documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/ARAI/ ARAI19520807-V129-32.pdf.

3 Kenneth Oster and Dorothy Minchin-Comm, To Persia, With Love, p. 69.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, p. 160.

6 Ibid., p. 188.

7 Ibid., p. 190.

8 Ibid., p. 4.

1

Beth Thomas is a freelance writer and editor who lives abroad with her family.

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Faith in Action

“Defending the Weak and the Fatherless” Adventist-run agencies do their part.

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alking along the shore of the Indian Ocean in East Africa, rescue workers notice in the distance an object on the beach. Is it a log? Is it a small, beached animal? Drawing closer, they discover an infant girl about 18 months old—scantily dressed, shivering, and very scared—sitting next to a plastic bag. In the bag were some clothes and a piece of paper with the girl’s name written on it: Grace.1 Her mother either no longer wanted her or was unable to care for her, so she had abandoned her there on the beach.

Perhaps in that mother’s heart beat a prayer of hope that someone would find Grace and provide for her needs. If so, for Grace, those prayers were answered. Tragically, however, countless other children are not as fortunate.

REVIEWING THE STATISTICS

Statistics indicate that about 153 million children worldwide are orphans, and 263 million children and youth do not attend school.

Some 69 million children suffer from malnutrition, with nearly 24

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half of all deaths in children under the age of 5 attributed to this cause. Almost 70 million primary-school-age children go to school hungry in the developing world, 23 million in Africa alone.2 Such numbers are staggering, especially in light of our God-given mandate to “look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27)3 and to be “a father to the fatherless” (Ps. 68:5). Innumerable individual families have taken orphans into their homes and loved and nurtured them into adulthood.

Obviously, however, this doesn’t meet the needs of all the millions of children left parentless worldwide.

So several nonprofit Seventh-day Adventist-run organizations— together with agencies outside the church—have been developed by lay members to help rescue and care for suffering children. One of them is Restore a Child.

RESTORE A CHILD

In 1998 Norma Nashed visited her homeland of Jordan. While there, she noticed the many needs of orphaned and neglected children

Children supported by International Children’s Care (ICC) attend an Adventist ICC school in Guatemala.

Courtesy of ICC

in the community and felt compelled to help.

After returning home to the United States, she quit her fulltime job and started a nonprofit ministry then called Reaching Kids International. Soliciting donations and support first from family, friends, and church members, and later from organizations such as the World Bank and Help International,4 Reaching Kids International—renamed Restore a Child in 2011, a supporting ministry of the Adventist Church—has provided food, housing, rescue from trafficking, and/or Adventist education for about 17,000 children in 20 countries, including Jordan, Indonesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Congo, Tanzania, Chad, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Ukraine, South Sudan, and Haiti.

Restore a Child has financed or helped to finance the construction and running of eight orphanages, 12 Adventist-owned schools, and the digging of six wells to provide clean community drinking water.

It has paid school tuition for 2,000 students, provided medical care for thousands of children in Africa, and feeds about 3,000 children each day. Some 50 volunteers worldwide give of their time and

Norma Nashed, Restore a Child founder and CEO, holds Grace, whose mother abandoned her on a beach.

talents to help Restore a Child and the children they support.

“My heart’s desire is to take care of orphans and to teach them about Jesus and the values of Christian character,” Nashed says.

“Education is key. It gives children hope and a future.”

CHILDIMPACT INTERNATIONAL

ChildImpact International is a nonprofit supporting ministry of the Adventist Church that helps both children and adults who live in poverty. Founded in 1966 as AsianAID and renamed ChildImpact in 2017, the organization funds four orphanages, a school for the blind in Bobbili, India, and a school for speech- and hearing-impaired children in Kollegal, India.

Its main mission is child sponsorship, and it provides children in need with an education in Adventist mission schools in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea. Its Operation Child Rescue program rescues trafficked girls, children living in slum areas, and abandoned babies in India. ChildImpact is headquartered in Tennessee, United States.5 “Our key mission is to give needy children an education, introduce them to Jesus, and supply valuable funding direct to Adventist mission schools,” says CEO Jim Rennie.

INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S CARE

When an earthquake laid waste to Guatemala City in 1976, it also orphaned countless children. Ken and Alcyon Fleck, together with a group of laypeople from the northwest region of the United States, founded International Children’s Care (ICC) in response to that tragedy. Today the organization helps orphaned, abandoned, or abused children on six continents. Through sponsors and other supporters, ICC

builds and maintains “children’s villages,” which comprise family homes, educational facilities, industries, and a chapel. Children are provided with a loving and secure atmosphere, as well as educational and work opportunities.

In its 40 years of existence, ICC— headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, United States—has helped thousands of children worldwide.6 “Children need to know that there is love for them in the world today and hope for a better future,” says Rick Fleck, ICC president.

“International Children’s Care exists to provide that to children who are hurting the most, and who are so hungry for love—because every child needs a family.”

SPECIAL NEEDS MINISTRIES

In 2015 the General Conference (GC) of Seventh-day Adventists, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, established an initiative called Special Needs Ministries, headed by Larry R. Evans. Committed to “coordinate and promote acceptance, support, and inclusion of people who have special needs and those who care for them,”7 Evans oversees ministries regarding the blind, the deaf, mental health and physical well-being, caregivers, and orphans and other vulnerable children.

“This ministry provides ways to show compassion and deep respect for all people,” Evans says. “We are all adopted sons and daughters of God [see Eph. 1:5], so God calls us to reach out to those who have no father or mother. Ellen White reminds us that ‘the work of saving the homeless and the fatherless is everyone’s business,’8 and the way in which we care for those who need our love and sympathy is ‘a test of our character.’”9 “When we share our lives with others,” says Evans, “we often find

Courtesy of Restore a Child

that we ourselves are the ones who are changed.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO GRACE?

After finding Grace on that stretch of beach in 2017, officials took her to a Restore a Child orphanage, where she is being nurtured and cared for by the organization’s volunteers.

Sadly, countless children have not experienced the same positive outcome, but Adventist organizations and others committed to rescuing as many children as possible are “[defending] the weak and the fatherless” and “[upholding] the cause of the poor and the oppressed” (Ps. 82:3).

“It’s our mandate,” says Nashed.

“It’s what we’re compelled by love to do.”

Name has been changed. www.sos-usa.org/our-impact/focus-areas/advocacy-movement-building/children-s-statistics 3 All Bible texts in this article are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version.

4 No longer in existence following the founder’s retirement.

5 To learn more go to childimpact.org.

6 To learn more go to forhiskids.org.

7 specialneeds.adventist.org 8 Ellen G. White, The Adventist Home (Nashville: Southern Pub. Assn., 1952), p. 169.

9 White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 3, p. 511.

1 2

Sandra Blackmer is an assistant editor of Adventist World.

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Bible Questions Answered

Death by Fire?

Q

The Bible says that in some capital cases the person was to be executed by fire. Is this not cruel?

A

The Israelite legal system established that certain crimes were punishable by burning the criminal.

The daughter of a priest who “profanes herself by playing the harlot” was to be burned by fire (Lev. 21:9), because her conduct profaned the holiness of her father. If a man married a woman and her mother, the three were to be burned with fire to remove immorality from the people (Lev. 20:14). When Judah was informed that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, was a harlot, he commanded that she be burned (Gen. 38:24). Let me share some information that could be useful in understanding this legislation.

1. ACHAN, FIRE, AND STONES

The narrative of Achan, who violated the law of “extermination” (Hebrew: kherem), is particularly instructive. After the defeat of the Israelites by the inhabitants of the city of Ai, Joshua prayed to the Lord, asking for guidance (Joshua 7:7-9). The Lord informed him that the covenant had been violated by someone misappropriating that which belonged exclusively to God (verse 11). The divine instruction was that once the culprit is identified, he and “all that belongs to him” were to be burned with fire (verse 15, NIV).

Surprisingly, when Achan is identified and the penalty is to be inflicted, we find something slightly different: And “all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire [‘to burn completely’ (cf. Lev. 4:12; 6:23)] after they had stoned them with stones” (verse 25). In other words, the burning of the persons occurred after they had died.

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2. FIRE AND HARLOTRY

Another example comes from the punishment for charges of harlotry. Jerusalem was the Lord’s wife who prostituted herself through idolatry and political alliances with other nations (Eze. 16 and 23). As punishment for her sins, she would be stoned to death and sliced open by her lovers who would then burn the city (Eze. 16:40, 41; see also Eze. 23:47). Although it is not specifically said that the unfaithful woman was burned, the sequence of stoning is followed by the burning of the city, personalized as a woman.

3. FIRE AND BABYLON

The divine verdict against the apocalyptic city of Babylon, characterized by immorality and alliances with the kings of the earth (Rev. 18:3), is clearly stated: “Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death [Greek: thanatos, ‘death’] and mourning and famine.

And she will be utterly burned with fire” (verse 8). The plagues will kill her (Rev. 6:8), as is suggested by the use of the noun “death,” then she is to be burned. In Revelation 17 Babylon is represented by a woman, a harlot, whom the nations “will make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire” (17:16).

Eating her flesh signals her death (see 2 Kings 9:36, 37); her remains are consumed by fire. In Daniel the apocalyptic anti-God power will be killed then destroyed by fire (Dan. 7:11).

The legal system that required for some crimes death through fire is used to illustrate the ultimate legal defeat of evil powers. I suggest you consider the possibility that in the Israelite legal system execution by burning with fire was preceded by the of death the criminal.

Angel Manuel Rodríguez has served the church as a pastor, professor, and theologian.

Health & Wellness

Adventists as Influencers of Healthful Living Have we made a difference?

As an Adventist university student, I see increasing interest from secular peers in vegetarianism and health. Has the Adventist Church played any role in influencing health outside our church?

W

e believe so! As early as 1863 Ellen White counseled the fledgling Seventh-day Adventist Church on healthful living.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh–day Adventist pioneer, and his brother, William, were complicit in developing peanut butter (1890s) and cornflakes. Long before medical evidence emerged, Ellen White spoke out on the harmful effects of the use of tobacco and alcohol. She promoted a balanced vegetarian diet.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Adventist Church led the way in smoking-cessation initiatives worldwide by developing the famous Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking.1 Then followed Breathe-Free, and now the Breathe-Free 2.0 program.2 Time magazine (Oct. 28, 1966) reported the positive outcome of the first Adventist Health Study, describing the results—significant reduction in most cancers, and cirrhosis of the liver, and prolonged life expectancy (seven to nine years)—as the “Adventist Advantage.”3 Because of these compelling results, the National Institutes of Health initially allocated $19 million to conduct Adventist Health Study 2 (95,000 participants throughout the United States and Canada, with specific focus on diversity and a substudy on spirituality and health).

In November 2005 National Geographic emphasized the “secrets of living longer,”4 prominently featuring Seventh-day Adventists. The reporter, Dan Buettner, subsequently wrote the book The Blue Zones. A blue zone

Photo: Ashwini Chaudhary

is where people remain healthy and well, actively participating into their 80s, 90s, and even 100s! Adventists are featured.

In February 2009 U.S. News and World Report posted 10 habits that will help you live to 100! Number 8: “Live like a Seventh-day Adventist. Americans who define themselves as Seventh-day Adventists have an average life expectancy of 89, about a decade longer than the average American. One of the basic tenets of the religion is that it’s important to cherish the body that’s on loan from God, which means no smoking, alcohol abuse, or overindulging in sweets. Followers typically stick to a vegetarian diet based on fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts, and get plenty of exercise. They’re also very focused on family and community.”5 It’s great to live a few years longer, but it’s more important to do as Jesus and “do the works of him who sent me” (John 9:4, NIV).

Seventh-day Adventists believe that God has given consistent guidance on how we can be healthy, happy, and holy. It’s exciting to live in a time when science confirms the instructions given more than 100 years ago, which still positively influence health behavior widely!

We should live it, share it, and be the difference for all!

Developed by Dr. J. Wayne McFarland and Elman J. Folkenberg. www.breathefree2.com/welcome Gary E. Fraser, Diet, Life Expectancy, and Chronic Disease: Studies of Seventh-day Adventists and Other Vegetarians (Oxford University Press, 2003).

4 Dan Buettner, “The Secrets of Long Life,” National Geographic, November 2005.

5 U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 20, 2009.

1 2 3

Peter N. Landless, a board-certified nuclear cardiologist, is director of Adventist Health Ministries at the General Conference.

Zeno L. Charles-Marcel, a board-certified internist, is an associate director of Adventist Health Ministries at the General Conference.

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The Spanish Prayer Y

“May I Tell You a Story?”

BY DICK DUERKSEN

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ou ought to go as a student missionary.”

The voice was that of my campus pastor at the La Sierra campus of Loma Linda University, but the suggestion seemed totally crazy. I did not want to be a student missionary; I wanted to stay in California and finish my education. Why would I want to leave my friends and go away to a strange place?

“Bella Vista Hospital,” Pastor Dave said, “needs a chaplain for a year. Would you like to go home?”

My father had been the administrator at Bella Vista Hospital while I was in elementary school. I had made many friends, fallen in love with Puerto Rico, and spent hundreds of hours chasing butterflies in the thick bamboo jungle. “Going home” was a great idea. For all the wrong reasons. *** I began to dream, called my parents, and turned in a student missions’ application. Three months later I was flying from San Diego, California, to Miami, Florida, and on to San Juan and Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Twenty-one years old. Eager and foolish.

My first day on the job Chaplain Fred Hernández greeted me warmly and led me upstairs to the maternity ward.

“This is the perfect place to start as a chaplain,” Fred told me as we bounded up the stairs.

In the first room we met a very happy mother and father and their three children. We joined them in admiring the new baby, said a brief prayer, shook hands, and left.

That’s when Chaplain Fred glanced at his watch, blanched, and said, “Dick, I forgot that I have to be at a TV station in downtown Mayagüez in 20 minutes.

I have to leave right now. You did fine in the first room. I’m really glad you’re here!”

I was on my own—a student missionary chaplain who was training to be a minister but who didn’t know anything about being a chaplain.

The next door opened to a very sad 15-year-old unwed mother who was putting her baby up for adoption. I prayed in English and bolted from the room.

Downstairs I slipped onto the medical floor, looking for an “easy” patient. The woman I chose looked deep into my soul and asked, “Young man, can you pray in Spanish?”

“No,” I responded, terrified to have been caught pretending to be what I was not.

“Siéntate!” she said.

I sat, listened, and learned how to pray simple prayers in broken Spanish. *** During the next weeks I visited many patients with Chaplain Hernández and began feeling comfortable “listening” in patient rooms. Slowly, very slowly, I

began to feel a bit like a chaplain.

One afternoon I was called to meet with the Rodríguez family in the cancer ward. Grandma Rodríguez had been in the hospital for some time, and it looked as if she might pass away on that day.

I tightened the knot in my thin black tie, put on my blue chaplain’s jacket, gathered my thick Spanish Bible, and bounded down the stairs to first floor.

She was just one more patient visit before supper, and I was eager to be off duty.

Mrs. Rodríguez was in a four-bed ward, in the bed beside a large window that looked out onto a hospital garden. I slipped around the privacy curtain and looked into eight expectant faces.

My world stood still. Each person searched my soul for hope and encouragement, for a glint of spiritual strength that would make it easier for them to let Grandma go.

Their hopes revealed the empty desert of my soul.

I was a student missionary chaplain.

I was training to be a pastor. I knew enough Spanish to sound wise. I knew enough about God to get along. But these people wanted more than just words.

They wanted to feel God’s embrace through me. And I had nothing to give.

I wanted to run, to escape the piercing eyes and the smell of death, to get away from this place where my powerless faith was so boldly revealed.

Desperate, I collapsed to my knees, grabbed Grandma’s hands, and prayed.

“God, forgive me. I have nothing to give. Help me!”

Then I dashed from the room, ran out the hospital’s front door, past the giant mango tree, through the hospital laundry, and far back into a nearby banana plantation, to a good crying spot with soft wet grass.

I had destroyed everything. I had let God down. I had shown everyone that my Christianity was only a facade. Worst of all, I had let the Rodríguez family down when they had needed me the most.

They would tell Dr. Angell, and he had probably already packed my bags and purchased a ticket for me to fly home.

I had been proud; now I was humiliated. Broken.

I had let the Rodríguez family down when they had needed me the most.

Publisher The Adventist World, an international periodical of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The General Conference, Northern Asia-Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists®, is the publisher.

Executive Editor/Director of Adventist Review Ministries Bill Knott International Publishing Manager Chun, Pyung Duk Adventist World Coordinating Committee Si Young Kim, chair; Yukata Inada; German Lust; Chun, Pyung Duk; Han, Suk Hee; Lyu, Dong Jin

Later, after much confessing and pleading with God, I shuffled back to the hospital. I remember everything from that walk. The fruit rotting beneath the trees. The bright red and green poinsettia bushes. The mud-stained concrete steps where thousands of families had marched into the hospital to find hope.

My head hung low. I tried to be invisible.

Dr. Angell met me at the front door, grabbed my shoulders, and demanded to know what had happened in that room.

“What did you say to those people?”

I broke down, told him exactly what had happened, and begged forgiveness.

Before he could answer, we were interrupted by the Rodríguez family as they poured out onto the hospital steps. They all hugged me and said 1,000 things I did not understand.

When they left, it was only Dr. Angell and me.

“Dick, did you pray in English or in Spanish?” he kindly asked.

“English,” I whispered.

“That’s not what they said. They praised God for the wonderful compassionate prayer you prayed. The words were just perfect so they could let Grandma go. They thanked God for the prayer you prayed in perfect Spanish.”

Dr. Angell went back inside the hospital, and I sat alone on the red-dirtstained steps, thanking God for sending me as a student missionary.

Associate Editors/Directors, Adventist Review Ministries Lael Caesar, Gerald A. Klingbeil, Greg Scott Editors based in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA Sandra Blackmer, Stephen Chavez, Costin Jordache, Wilona Karimabadi Editors based in Seoul, Korea Chun, Pyung Duk; Park, Jae Man; Kim, Hyo-Jun Digital Platform Manager Gabriel Begle Operations Manager Merle Poirier Editorial Assessment Coordinator Marvene Thorpe-Baptiste Editors-at-Large/Advisors Mark A. Finley, John M. Fowler, E. Edward Zinke Financial Manager Kimberly Brown Management Board Si Young Kim, chair; Bill Knott, secretary; Chun, Pyung Duk; Karnik Doukmetzian; Han, Suk Hee; Yutaka Inada; Gerald A. Klingbeil; Joel Tompkins; Ray Wahlen; Ex-officio: Juan Prestol-Puesán; G. T. Ng; Ted N. C. Wilson Art Direction and Design Types & Symbols To Writers: We welcome unsolicited manuscripts. Address all editorial correspondence to 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600, U.S.A. Editorial office fax number: (301) 680-6638 E-mail: worldeditor@gc.adventist.org Web site: www.adventistworld.org Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible references are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Texts credited to NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

Unless otherwise noted, all prominent photos are © Getty Images 2019.

Adventist World is published monthly and printed simultaneously in Korea, Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Austria, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States.

Vol. 15, No. 4

Dick Duerksen, a pastor and storyteller living in Portland, Oregon, United States, is known around the world as “an itinerant pollinator of grace.”

AdventistWorld.org April 2019

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Growing Faith

Fun-filled pages for younger ages

Loving Deeper D

id you know that many people are lonely? Even in the middle of a crowd, or with lots of friends, they still feel lonely inside. Although people are around, no one takes the time to sit and listen or spend time with them.

Jesus tells us we should care for others. And we do! We give them food. We share clothes that don’t fit anymore. But 30

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maybe Jesus is asking us to do more. Maybe Jesus wants us not only to help people, but also to show them that we care by doing a little more.

Douglas Maurer, 15, was diagnosed with leukemia, a kind of cancer. His doctors explained the disease to him and told him that he would need three years of chemotherapy. They

said that he would lose his hair and that his body would swell up, but they thought they could stop the cancer. But Douglas knew what they weren’t saying.

He could also die. This made Douglas sad, and it seemed that no one could cheer him up.

His aunt heard about his sadness and called a flower shop.

She wanted to send flowers since he had just been diagIllustration: Xuan Le

BY MERLE POIRIER

nosed with leukemia. “Please make them bright and cheerful,” she told the clerk.

When the flowers arrived, they were beautiful. Douglas took the flowers and read the card from his aunt. But he did not smile.

Then he noticed a second card.

Pulling it out, he read: “Douglas, I took your order. I work at Brix Florist. I had leukemia when I was

7 years old. I’m 22 years old now.

Good luck. My heart goes out to you. Sincerely, Laura Bradly.”

Douglas’s face lit up for the first time since his diagnosis. For the first time since being in the hospital he was happy. Lots of doctors and nurses had talked to him, but it was a woman in a flower shop who took the time to write a note that made the difference for him.

We can make a difference too.

With whom do we sit? Whom can we talk to? Whose stories could we listen to? A friend? A grandparent? A neighbor? Find someone today and make a difference!

This first appeared in KidsView, January 2019.

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Short.

Shareable.

Unexpected.

On Demand.

artvnow.com