The Divine and the Sacred:
Recent Ordinations Across the SECC “I want us to truly internalize that we are not just here for ourselves or immigrants coming to study at Loma Linda Medical School, but we are here for our community,” he said. “We may be a church established by the first generation of Chinese Adventists in the area, but we have a purpose far beyond that.”
Akira Chang In the 1990s, Akira Chang was not yet a pastor, but he was starting to get to know God. He was living in San Francisco, regularly studying the Bible with an older gentleman, when his mother came to visit from Taiwan. She shared that she, too, had been studying the Bible, with the wife of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. Later, Chang shared this with the elder with whom he was studying, and the man got a very odd look on his face and admitted that he, too, was an Adventist. Chang was floored. “I asked him how his religion could be so stubborn as to hold onto old traditions like going to church on Saturday,” Chang recalled. “He simply asked me when, in our six months of studying the Bible together, we had ever come across the word Sunday. I searched the Bible from beginning to end and couldn't find it anywhere.” In 1998, after attending seminary, Chang became a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. For the past three years, Chang has been a pastor in the SECC, and in February 2021 he was ordained at the Loma Linda Chinese Church. Chang leads his congregation with his family alongside him—his wife, Huiling, and his children, Andrew (19) and Anna (15). His vision for LLCC is that it will become a church that is focused on community outreach.
36 Pacific Union Recorder
Southeastern California Conference
Kayla Malit “I was trying to do everything else to find purpose and satisfaction,” said Pastor Kayla Malit, who was ordained at Bonita Valley church in January 2021, “and the only time anything totally clicked and felt right was when I admitted to myself that ministry was something I wanted to be part of for life, not just as an extracurricular.” Malit finds joy in being someone with whom others feel comfortable being vulnerable. It’s the relationshipbuilding she finds so fulfilling in her ministry. “When people decide they’re going to let someone in, it’s a journey,” she explained. “I’m so honored and I get so energized when someone decides to journey with me.” As her first full-time church, the Bonita Valley church made a collective investment in her, as she did in them, and Malit said their relationship is endearing and supportive. “They have allowed me to come into my own in my
