Chile's President-elect Sebastian Piñera and United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke with ADRA volunteers during a visit to the Santiago Airport Tuesday, March 2. ADRA is currently working to distribute food and clean water to earthquake survivors. [photo: ADRA Chile]

Four Seventh-day Adventist church members in Chile are confirmed dead in the wake of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck the southern part of the South American nation on February 27, church officials have confirmed.

Two church headquarters have been severely damaged, while more than 10 places of worship have "been almost completely destroyed," according to Pastor Erton Köhler, president of the church in South America.

At the same time, the division reports United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with ADRA volunteers at Santiago's airport on March 2 and commended the group's relief efforts.

"Thanks to those who prayed and continue praying for our brothers and all who have suffered from the earthquake that happened last Saturday in Chile," Köhler wrote in an e-mail message March 5. "We remain united in intercession and supporting our fellow Chileans."

Köhler added, "Until now we have news of four killed Adventists and some still missing. We're still waiting for more news. Furthermore, we have two headquarters, the South Chile Conference in Temuco and Central Mission in Talca, Chile, [that are] highly compromised. More than 10 churches have been almost completely destroyed and some [church-related] academies and schools suffered significant damage. Many of our brothers are homeless, struggling to find food, water and a place to stay."

According to Köhler, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is continuing its assistance in the region. "ADRA is supporting the delivery of food, blankets and tents, as well as having a Canadian team working with water purification and a group of nearly 100 volunteers helping in Santiago to arrange the food to be sent to needy regions," he reported.

According to Karen Cordovez writing for the region, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the outgoing Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and spoke with President-elect Sebastian Piñera while at the Santiago airport.

During the state visit, Project Coordinator for ADRA Chile Cristián Pincheira spoke with Clinton about the work that ADRA is doing in the country to help the earthquake survivors after Clinton approached the volunteers at the airport, Cordovez reported.

"Clinton expressed her appreciation for the work of the volunteers and related her own awareness of ADRA's work in the United States," Cordovez said.

With information from the Adventist Church in South America

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake, one of the most powerful in recorded history, shook the South American country of Chile early Saturday morning, taking hundreds of lives and damaging public and Seventh-day Adventist Church infrastructure around the quake's epicenter, some 200 miles south of the capital, Santiago.

The church's Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is coordinating with federal emergency officials to provide aid and a small crew is assisting with urban rescue efforts among collapsed buildings.

The Adventist radio station in Chile, La Radio Nuevo Tiempo, is announcing that fellowship halls at Adventist churches are available to the public in need of assistance, said Madigal Perez, executive secretary of the church's South American Division, based in Brasilia, Brazil.

More than 700 people have died in the disaster, an estimated 500,000 homes have been destroyed and 1.5 million others have suffered damage, according to Chile's National Office of Emergencies and Information (ONEMI).

Several Adventist Church buildings were destroyed in the city of Talca, including the Central Chile Mission administration office, an ADRA warehouse and the Talca Central Adventist Church, officials for the church in South America reported.

Church officials also reported structural damage to sanctuaries in Los Angeles, the Chile Union Mission office, located in Santiago, the South Chile Conference office, located in Temuco, and Chile Adventist University in Chillán.

"The ground was moving like ocean waves," said Nancy Roa Vidal, a resident of Santiago. "[The earthquake] lasted approximately two minutes. We're in a state of catastrophe."

Residents near the epicenter remain jittery as aftershocks continue. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has recorded more than 105 aftershocks stronger than 5.0-magnitude since the quake struck Saturday at 3:34 a.m. local time.

"People are out of their homes, and many are thinking of sleeping outside for fear of the aftershocks," said Jorge Alé, country director for ADRA in Chile.
ADRA dispatched a truckload of water, which left Saturday afternoon from Santiago to the cities of Talca and Concepción. Mattresses, blankets, and other basic necessities are also being procured for distribution.

ADRA's urban rescue team is also coordinating aid to the city of Villa Alemana, near Valparaiso.

ADRA International and ADRA of South America have pledged an initial $105,000 to help in relief efforts Chile.

Chile is no stranger to earthquakes. According to the USGS, Chile endured in 1960 a 9.5-magnitude quake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
The long, narrow nation lies near a fault line between the Nazca tectonic plate in the Pacific Ocean and the South American plate. While building codes in the past few decades were designed to withstand earthquake damage, Saturday's quake was nearly unprecedented.

There are some 120,000 Adventist Church members in Chile, worshiping in about 600 churches and 260 organized groups.

More information will be provided when confirmed reports are available.

Young Seventh-day Adventists should continue reaching out to peers and seek more active roles in church, the president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church said to church members during a live television broadcast earlier this month.

Jan Paulsen also told the group of young adults from the church's Inter-American region, to embrace peers who are considering leaving the church or acting out in rebellion.

"Let's love them back," said Paulsen, referring to Jesus' example of the Prodigal Son. "God is in the business of saving people."

The broadcast was the most recent installment of the Let's Talk series, in which Paulsen fields impromptu questions from youth. The series has run more than 20 times in locations worldwide. The February 6 broadcast included interpreters for the Spanish-speaking audience of 18.

During the unscripted broadcast at San Salvador's Channel 33 television studio, Paulsen reiterated themes from previous episodes. Again he encouraged youth to actively participate in church, and for church leaders to bring youth into positions of church leadership.

"To my colleagues ... trust them enough to give them responsibility," Paulsen said. "Many [young people] have said, if the church doesn't need me today, I'm gone tomorrow."

Paulsen also encouraged youth to share biblical principles with peers instead of feeing they need to adapt to other lifestyles to share the gospel.

"You don't have to change any biblical values. You just have to talk about them as values which can enrich their life ... both for a secure future and to shape the way we live now," he said.

Regarding teens in the church who act rebelliously, Paulsen said, "Teenagers are very sensitive and can feel guilty very easily. Support your young people, show that you care for them."

"Everyone makes mistakes," Paulsen said, including himself in the statement.

Regarding local ministry and education resources, Paulsen said regional leaders were the ones to make decisions for their own areas. Responding to a question about the possibility of each country in Central America establishing its own Adventist university, Paulsen said there is no limit to the number of institutions that could be built, but the needs of the community and the nation need to be considered.

"We want it to be top quality with whatever we establish," Paulsen said. The church now operates universities in the region in Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Venezuela.

Paulsen answered a question about sexual abuse, calling it a "huge challenge" for the victim, but saying that person should "not have any doubt that God loves them."

"That person should find a trusted person to talk to ... or some therapy. No one should have to carry that burden alone," Paulsen said. He said sexual abuse should be reported to the authorities. "Even if it happened in the church," Paulsen said, referring to the church's written policy requiring such charges to be reported to the police.

The next Let's Talk is scheduled for March 7 in the Netherlands.

 
Let's Talk El Salvador from GC Communication
on Vimeo.

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living under makeshift shelters face an increased risk of disease and poor sanitation in the coming rainy season, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) workers said.

The rains usually begin in May but could affect the region as early as March, the agency reported.

ADRA workers in Haiti said an early morning rainstorm last week soaked through bedding and clothing and collapsed cardboard shacks in some camps, giving a taste of what days of rain could bring.

"The humanitarian situation could become exponentially worse if the issue of shelter is not resolved quickly," said Frank Teeuwen, bureau chief for emergency management at ADRA International.

Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million Haitians are living without basic shelter, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said. Out of that number, roughly 272,000 people have already received emergency shelter support, the United Nations reported.

ADRA plans to distribute thousands of tarps and plastic sheeting and nearly 1,000 six-person tents over the next few days. The organization is also assisting a camp of more than 15,000 people on the campus of the Haiti Adventist University in near-by Carrefour.

Adventist Church leaders in Inter-America said they are also planning for the foreseeable future -- while members currently worship outside under tarps, leaders said they hope to begin repairs on the church buildings left standing.

"We want to make sure that our temples are functioning as soon as possible," said Israel Leito, president for the Adventist Church in Inter-America. "Plans must be ... in place to repair the churches that were damaged first. Then we can concentrate on rebuilding."

Church leaders said Adventist Risk Management employees have already made an initial visit to assess some of the damage to denominational properties insured before the quake hit, which will aid in reconstruction.

Inter-American church leaders said they have asked Maranatha Volunteers International, a supporting organization of the Adventist Church, to help with the recovery process. Maranatha will construct 185 churches in Haiti with their One-Day Church program, using prefabricated steel frameworks that can be assembled in about eight hours.

In addition, the Adventist Church in Puerto Rico is working with government officials and other organizations on the island to provide about 500 wooden hurricane-resistant two-bedroom homes to both church and community members. The homes can be assembled in one week, said Jose Rodriguez, president for the church in Puerto Rico.

The Adventist world church has pledged more than $2 million in aid to Haiti so far, said Filiberto Verduzco, treasurer for the church in Inter-America.
Adventist-run colleges and universities around the world have also promised additional fundraising and medical assistance, Inter-America church leaders reported.

Inter-America church leaders said they realize the promised aid is just the beginning to the recovery process.

"[Haiti] will be a long-term project, way beyond 2010," Verduzco said.

Mikhail P. Kulakov Sr., the first president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Euro-Asia region, and a pioneering Adventist leader who endured imprisonment in the former Soviet Union for his faith, died of brain cancer February 10 at his home in Highland, California. He was 83.

Once exiled as an enemy of the state, Kulakov in the 1980s was able to openly write in leading national Soviet publications on freedom of conscience, winning him respect from fellow believers, dissidents and human rights activists. He later helped to establish the country's first Adventist theological seminary.

"He taught us to dream big dreams, not to be afraid of trials and challenges," said his son Mikhail Kulakov Jr., who in Washington, D.C. coordinates the Russia-based Bible Translation Institute his father founded.

In his condolences to the Kulakov family, Pastor Jan Paulsen, Adventist world church president, referred to Kulakov as "a highly valued colleague of mine in the service of our church. We are honored to have had Pastor Kulakov serve the church in such an outstanding manner. He will long be remembered for that."

Paulsen noted that among the notable aspects of Kulakov's ministry is the fact that he served as the first president of the Euro-Asia Division, a pioneer Adventist leader in the former Soviet Union. "I am indeed grateful for Pastor Kulakov's influence in establishing the Adventist Theological Seminary in Zaokski. His legacy will be felt for many years to come," Paulsen said.

Born in Leningrad in 1927 to the family of an Adventist minister, who was laboring for conscience amidst state-enforced atheism, Kulakov endured persecution, relocation, and the periodic arrest of his father. After becoming the leader of underground worship services he, too, was arrested, and in 1945 sentenced to prison and hard labor. Upon his release in 1951, he was exiled to Kazakhstan.

Following his release in 1953, after the death of Stalin, Kulakov began an underground journal for ministers and established unofficial ministerial training courses. Throughout the next two decades, Kulakov endured several arrests on charges of defying the communist government, his son Peter said.

In 1990, Kulakov became the first president of the newly established Euro-Asia Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with headquarters in Moscow, a position he held until 1992. The same year, he founded the Russian chapter of the International Religious Liberty Association and as its first secretary advocated for the freedom of conscience.

Kulakov led in establishing the Zaokski Adventist Theological Seminary, near Tula, in 1988. He also established the Bible Translation Institute at Zaokski.

In 2003, the institute published a modern-day Russian translation of the Bible, which is heralded today as the top translation in Russia, his son, Peter Kulakov, an Atlanta-based minister, said by phone. The first five books of the Old Testament rolled off the institute's press on February 10, the day of his death, Peter Kulakov said.

"We have no doubt that this legacy will bring many people to salvation," Peter Kulakov said. "He was one to never quit."

Kulakov's memoirs were published in the 2008 book Though the Heavens Fall [Review and Herald Publishing Association].

He is survived by his wife, Anna, six children, 15 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

More than two weeks after the earthquake, relief agencies are fighting blocked roads and lack of centralized organization while attempting to distribute food and fresh water to Haitians around the capital of Port-au-Prince, workers said.
Tasks that would take a matter of hours under normal circumstances can take days, said Dan Weber, a videographer working with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

"Once you find out where [supplies are] sitting at the airport, you have to figure out how to transport them and then you have to arrange for security," Weber said. "That means you have to have [United Nations] troops there to guard the convoy as you're getting it through."

Medical supplies from Adventist-run Florida Hospital and partner organization Harvest International arrived in Haiti last Thursday morning, Weber said, but ADRA workers were unable to deliver them to the hospital until Sunday night.
"Half the streets are blocked," Weber said. "You have to know the routes -- we had maps of the blocked streets. You drive along and next thing you know you find a couple hundred people living in the street in tents."

Weber added that while the amount of aid pouring into Haiti can be beneficial, there are unavoidable side effects.

"Logistically, it's a nightmare. You have so many different aid groups trying to come in and help, which is wonderful, but trying to coordinate all that with the U.N. ... it's a tough process right now," he said.

Despite the obstacles, ADRA workers distributed 100,000 pounds, or 45 tons, of rice, beans and other food items to more than 15,000 displaced survivors still living on the campus of the Haitian Adventist University, the agency reported. The distribution, which took place Monday, was the latest of several ADRA-assisted projects.

ADRA and partner organization Global Medic also trained 20 Haitians with motorbikes to set up portable filtration systems in areas without access to safe water.

The drivers travel around the city, pumping clean water and handing out purification tablets. For their time, the drivers receive food, a small salary and reimbursement for their fuel.

ADRA workers in Haiti say they hope to have a total of 30 bike drivers soon.
The death toll for Adventist Church members is currently 600, church leaders reported. Half of the 115 collapsed churches in the region are considered a total loss, and roughly 25,000 Adventists are homeless. Local church offices and university dormitories also sustained heavy damage.

Scholars and health professionals joined to celebrate Seventh-day Adventist world church President Jan Paulsen's life of service and 35 years of denominational leadership January 23.

The recognition, which came during Saturday morning worship services at Loma Linda University (LLU) Church, included special presentations and a message from Paulsen.

Richard Hart, Loma Linda University president, presents the institution's Presidential Medal to Adventist world church President Jan Paulsen on Saturday. [photo: Rajmund Dabrowski]

Paulsen, world church president since 1999, was honored with a Festschrift, or a collection of articles and essays contributed by many authors to honor a colleague.

Entitled, "Exploring the Frontiers of Faith," the 463-page book was published by the German Adventist publisher Advent-Verlag and includes 28 essays by a range of contributors. Longtime colleagues and friends of Paulsen, Reinder Bruinsma and Borge Schantz, edited the volume. Contributors include Bert B. Beach, John Graz, Bryan W. Ball, Wim Altink and Niels-Erik Andreasen, as well as Bruinsma and Schantz.

A notable contributor to the volume is retired University of Tübingen missiology professor Peter P.J. Beyerhaus, a Lutheran, under whom Paulsen studied while earning his doctorate.

Presenting the Presidential Medal to Paulsen, LLU President Richard Hart said the world church leader "is a true academic. He led two of our academic institutions, the Adventist Seminary of West Africa, which is now Babcock University, and Newbold College. We truly consider him one of our academic colleagues."

"I appreciate this honor," Paulsen said after receiving the book and the LLU medal. During the presentation, Paulsen's wife, Kari, and son, Rein Andre, joined him on the platform.

Although a Festschrift, which is German for "celebration writing," is published either for a notable achievement, a birthday or retirement, Schantz noted that the book was prepared for the first two reasons and not the latter. The presentation came almost three weeks after Paulsen's 75th birthday.

"I have personally always greatly respected Jan Paulsen and have always regarded him as one of my role models," Bruinsma said. "He is the kind of leader who is honest and straight with you, while at the same time you feel safe. The book is a symbol of the deep appreciation of us, editors, authors, fellow-ministers and friends, for who Jan Paulsen is and what he has done."

For the morning message, "Lessons Learned Along the Way," Paulsen touched on six lessons learned as part of what he said was "a testimony of my experiences."
He said the "most valuable" lessons he learned "were when I failed. There is a certain honor in failure if you learn your lesson and move on." Leadership, he added, can be "very fulfilling and very frustrating; it can give you inner peace or inner conflict."

Noting that "no one has modeled leadership better than the Master Himself," Paulsen said it was "most fulfilling to serve, then you can look back and find purpose" in that servant-leadership.

Among the six lessons he said came from his decades of denominational leadership is that the leader "is not the owner of this business; God is," Paulsen said.

The sixth lesson, which Paulsen said he was still learning, was "to respect and value vision, humility and integrity." He added that vision is the "clear view where you are going, humility defines the climate in which you make the journey and integrity is the character which will describe your engagement." Paulsen concluded his message by noting John the Baptist's words about Jesus, as recorded in John 3:30: "He [Jesus] must become greater; I must become less." (NIV)

"I pray," Paulsen said, "that in my service, I [have] lifted Him up."
Following the first service, church member Gary Thompson, who lives in Loma Linda, said the sermon was "great; the whole [service] was great. I really enjoyed it." Thompson said he was impressed with Paulsen's candor about the ups and downs of leadership.

Also participating in the day's activities was Dannielle Wuchenich, an attorney and a member of the University Church. She recalled first meeting Paulsen at Newbold College. Wuchenich compared the encounter now to "40 years ago and in a different setting," noting Paulsen was a generous teacher. "I remember how well he handled the questions from his students," Wuchenich said.

A strong aftershock struck near Port-au-Prince this morning causing heightened anxiety among the local population, including thousands of displaced survivors from last week’s disastrous earthquake who are receiving emergency assistance from the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), reported agency staff in Haiti.

“It is still not safe to go home. I don’t think it will ever be,” said Michel, 26, a man who is among an estimated 25,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) staying in temporary shelters on the campus of the Haitian Adventist University and the Adventist Hospital of Haiti in Carrefour, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, where ADRA has set-up a command center.

The magnitude-6.1 quake follows a more powerful seism that leveled large areas of Haiti’s capital on January 12 forcing high numbers of city residents to become displaced.

“Thousands of people remain in makeshift camps where the food and sanitation situation is precarious,” said Richard Jaqua, a staff member who is helping to coordinate the logistics for ADRA’s emergency response in Haiti.

On January 18, ADRA distributed nearly 13,000 rations of high-energy nutritional biscuits donated by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in several sites in Port-au-Prince, primarily to the thousands of IDPs staying on the grounds of the university and hospital. Each ration contains enough food for a person for five days. The distribution of food aid is crucial as supplies in the capital’s stores and marketplaces have become limited and extremely expensive, reported Jaqua.
Among ADRA’s other primary concerns are the provision of clean drinking water, sanitation, and medical assistance to the group of displaced persons.

Already, ADRA, working with a team from Canada-based partner GlobalMedic, has set up a water distribution center to serve the 25,000 displaced persons on the university campus, and three new water points in the area. This will enhance ADRA’s water distribution capacity significantly.

Due to limited sources of energy and battery supply, ADRA staff have had to find alternative means to generate enough power to operate the water systems. In some cases, motorcycles were used to power the units, according to a staff member.

ADRA also plans to increase the number of water points in the region, providing 20 additional ones, and expects to distribute more water supplies provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Already, beneficiaries are receiving thousands of water purification tablets. Each tablet can purify a liter of water in 20 minutes.

In addition, sanitation, which has already become critical among the thousands of IDPs, will likely improve with the initial construction of 60 latrines.

ADRA will distribute a shipment of 1,000 pounds of medical supplies received from International Aid, and medical supplies worth $15,000 donated by Heart to Heart International. Other partners include Food for the Poor, which is working with ADRA to distribute medical and food supplies; Johanniter International, a non-profit association that provided medical supplies for hospital staff; GARSA, a Colombian rescue and relief group in partnership with ADRA Colombia; International Relief and Development (IRD); and donors in Puerto Rico.    
To continue to improve the speed and fluidity of relief operations, ADRA will provide distribution training for its volunteers. The procurement of additional food and medical supplies is ongoing.

ADRA network partners, who have pledged $572,000 for the initial response, include ADRA International, ADRA New Zealand, ADRA Czech Republic, ADRA United Kingdom, ADRA Australia, ADRA China, ADRA Denmark, ADRA Switzerland, ADRA Norway, ADRA Canada, ADRA Ireland, ADRA Portugal, ADRA Sweden, ADRA Netherlands, ADRA Austria, and ADRA Japan.

ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity.

For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org.

A week after an earthquake leveled Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, both aid workers and survivors are struggling -- the first to quickly distribute food and clean water and the other to get their share of emergency supplies.

Only 50 percent of Haiti's population has access to clean water under normal circumstances, but that percentage has drastically decreased since the earthquake, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) workers reported.
"Water is at a premium," said Raymond Chevalier, an ADRA employee currently helping to coordinate relief work in Haiti. "In the following days, we expect civil unrest to grow -- especially in some of the overcrowded areas where people have sought shelter -- unless an abundant supply of water and other forms of aid are quickly made available to them."

Global Medic, an emergency response team working with ADRA in Haiti, will distribute over 2 million water purification tablets in the next few days. The group's doctor and paramedics are providing assistance to the injured, performing amputations and other emergency procedures.

The group plans to set up an inflatable field hospital that will stay in place indefinitely.

Global Medic is also setting up a water purification system at the Adventist hospital for refugees and patients camped on the grounds.

Lesly Archer, a doctor at the hospital, said the staff is in dire need of basic medical supplies, including IVs, gauze and antibiotics. The once 70-bed hospital is currently home to 400 patients, with more arriving every day, said Matt Herzel, an ADRA employee currently in Haiti.

The hospital building itself is unusable and the staff is working outdoors, ADRA workers report.

A Loma Linda University medical team, as well as physicians from the Caribbean island of Martinique, is scheduled to arrive early this week to aid the understaffed and overworked doctors, said Elie Honore, health ministries director for the church in Inter-America. Honore, a physician, is coordinating Adventist medical teams going into Haiti.

Leaders for the Adventist Church in Inter-America said the death toll among church members is still uncertain. The church leaders, currently in Port-au-Prince, are helping search for the missing people as well as coordinating relief funding.
So far, five of the Adventist Church's 13 world regions have promised $125,000 toward church rebuilding and assistance. Adventist world church administration has promised $200,000 to go directly to "organizational needs," said Juan Prestol, undertreasurer for the world church.

"This is in addition to the money our churches are donating to general relief efforts," Prestol said.

For more information, visit adra.org and interamerica.org.

As Seventh-day Adventists worldwide gear up for a new decade, their church's president, Jan Paulsen, celebrates his 75th birthday, affording the veteran leader an opportunity to reflect on a different decade -- the nearly ten years he's spent at the helm of the 16-million member global Protestant denomination.
During those years, Paulsen said he has seen Adventists unite to focus perhaps more deliberately than ever on their mission to spread the church's message of hope.

Adventist Church President Jan Paulsen celebrates his birthday during morning worship at world church headquarters on January 5. [photo: Rajmund Dabrowski/ANN

"It's against that backdrop that the significant growth we've seen in the past five, six years should be viewed," he told Adventist News Network the day before his January 5 birthday. "Our mission is reflected in our agenda and continues to drive our budget."

The success of that mission, Paulsen said he's observed, depends in part on a commitment to greater openness -- from administrative and financial transparency to a willingness to "acknowledge, validate and work with diversity within the church."

Paulsen's long-running Let's Talk television program, consisting of unedited, unscripted conversations with teenagers and young adults worldwide, helped the church embrace its younger generations and, more recently, Adventists About Life, a YouTube channel offering an Adventist perspective on current issues, is opening the church to yet another audience.

Openness also involves engagement beyond the church pews, said Paulsen, who has long stressed that churches should serve as community centers, where the church's message of hope finds its practical expression as members offer friendship, spiritual support and humanitarian aid to their neighbors.

As the Adventist Church enters the New Year, Paulsen said he's particularly troubled by the continued pervasiveness of poverty. "The church has such a huge responsibility to not only address poverty and alleviate suffering, but also to engage politically to affect change in the interest of those who are disadvantaged. We must carry the interests of those who cannot do it themselves," he said.

Paulsen, who was born in Narvik, Norway, completed an early ministerial internship and pastoral work in his native country. Later, a missionary stint in Ghana, posts as professor and principal of Babcock University in Nigeria and afterward at Newbold College laid the foundation for what is now more than 50 years of denominational service.

Paulsen served as general secretary and director of Education of the church's Trans-European region, and later its president, bringing to each post broad experience and an educational background in theology -- Paulsen earned his master's degree from Washington Theological Seminary, a bachelor of divinity degree from the Adventist Theological Seminary and a doctorate in theology from Tubingen University.

A post as a general vice president of the world church began in 1995, ending with his election in 1999 as world church president.

Empowering people, Paulsen said, is one of the greatest lessons he has learning during his years at world church headquarters.

"People may be your most complicated -- and, at times, troubling -- assets to handle, but they are your most important," he said, adding that it's members, not administrators, who are ultimately the church's "owners." Paulsen added that he hopes they continue to invest in their church and, as a unified force, shape its future.

Beginning January 3, 2010, State Television in the Czech Republic will broadcast a series of special programs prepared for young people by the Czech Hope Channel. The programs,  called Beyond Horizons, will be broadcasted every Sunday morning for six months.

"Our goal is not to present ready-made solutions but to offer secular viewers an alternative perspective," explains one of the authors of this new Christian youth TV magazine. The program will be hosted and moderated by professional actor and presenter Matous Ruml and Adventist pastor Jindrich Cernohorsky.

“Beauty”, “Relationships”, “History”, “Play”, “Crisis” and “A Star” are a few of the titles of the various episodes. Each of the twenty-six episodes presents, in language understandable to young people, an important topic that all people must face during their lives.

For each topic, organizers invited an interesting and well-known personality who in some way represents the discussed subject. Viewers will have the opportunity to hear freestyle motocross rider Petr Pilat, who appears in the episode on extreme sports; astrophysicist Jiri Grygar, who takes part in the discussion on astrology; and violinist Jaroslav Svecený, who  talks about traditions. Each episode features music from contemporary artists and ends with a short reflection that offers a Biblical alternative to the prevailing contemporary consumerism.

Bedrich Jetelina, Director of the Czech Hope Channel, explains: “This series of programs is the fruit of a long term collaboration between our Media Center and the editorial office for religious programs of the Czech State Television. Our main goal and motivation in preparing this series is to help a young generation of our fellow-citizens – mostly postmodern and secular – to discover that the Bible and Christianity can offer a valuable alternative to the prevailing worldview and lifestyle and that the Biblical approach to life’s issues is realistic, functional and fulfilling.”

The programs will be available at www.zaobzorem.cz.

The international paper for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Adventist World, is adding new languages in both print and online editions to benefit language groups in Europe and Asia, thus increasing the number of church members who have access to the paper.

Six months after the online launching of the German-language edition, around 25,800 Adventist homes (45,000 church members) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will begin receiving monthly print copies of Adventist World in their own language. The German edition is currently in print and will be distributed in January 2010.

The print launch is in partnership with Advent-Verlag, a church-owned publishing house based in Lüneburg, near Hamburg, Germany, which at the same time is also launching a new free denominational magazine (Adventisten heute) for its membership area. The Austrian Union also plans to launch a new magazine with Adventist World as an insert to be distributed throughout Austria.

Officials of the Seventh-day Adventist Church think this represents an essential development for German speaking church members. “We at Advent-Verlag are excited on behalf of our readers in the German-speaking territories,” says publishing house editor Eli Diez-Prida. “We have always published short news articles from around the world in our magazine, but now the relationship and the identification with the world church will be promoted much more. It will do us good to widen the national and European horizons.”

Adventist World also launched a Vietnamese online edition in October 2009.
The move came about a year after the Adventist church in Vietnam received official recognition by the government and will be available to some 14,000 Vietnamese members who, for many decades, have felt that they were only marginally involved in the world church since they could obtain very few materials. According to Vietnamese government officials, there are more than 300,000 Sabbath keepers country-wide who meet in homes. They will now be able to read Adventist World in their language and in this way identify with the world church.

Two additional versions of Adventist World will be introduced on the Web in January 2010. The new editions will be in Romanian, with about 100,000 Adventist members, and Urdu, Pakistan’s dominant language, with around 12,000 members. Although this group is relatively small, it is “worth being supported,” says Claude Richli, marketing manager and co-editor of the magazine. “These people live in a mainly Muslim society and need to get encouragement by better communication with their brothers and sisters from around the world. Besides, we have knowledge of non-Adventist Christians living in Pakistan who would love to deepen their Christian faith and might be very happy to read the magazine in their own language.”

By 2010, Adventist World will be published in seven languages in print editions and 11 language in online editions, including Russian, Chinese and Korean.
Adventist World was launched by the Seventh-day Adventist world headquarters in 2005. The magazine aims to “lift up Jesus Christ and unite Seventh-day Adventists around the world, in their faith and life, and in their hope and mission.” The editorial offices are located in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, and in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

The first edition of Adventist World in the German language is in print and will be ready for disbursement in January 2010. For further information, visit www.adventistworld.org. For the German edition visit http://de.adventistworld.org, www.adventisten-heute.de or www.advent-verlag.de.  

During the first week end in December 2009 the Adventist Church in the Euro-Africa region started a program that offers a unique opportunity to parents who wants to pass on their children Christian values. The program knew as Kids in Discipleship (K.I.D) helps primarily parents to live out every day a personal, practical, meaningful, and fruitful relationship with Jesus Christ, and equips them to teach their children to do the same.

Most parents today don’t have a problem spending time with their kids when it comes to sports, homework, and other daily routines, but they find problems once they have to connect spiritually with their kids. When it comes to faith and spirituality, many parents don’t know where to start or how to do it .

K.I.D. is a ministry that both calls parents back to their children and equips them on how they can disciple their children to Jesus Christ and build faith in the home. The K.I.D Program is based on the Biblical principle stated in Deuteronomy 6: 4-7: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

K.I.D Ministry was developed in 2002 by Pastor Don MacLafferty at the Collegedale Seventh-day Adventist Church in Collegedale, Tennessee. Gradually it was used by the Adventist Church in North America and worldwide. Since then, the Kids In Discipleship Ministry has grown tremendously. It is now represented in 9 out 13 Seventh-day Adventist world regions and has trained more than 250 church teams worldwide.

The program seeks to equip church congregations, parents, and key mentors to implement the biblical model of discipleship that will help foster a family’s ability to use their gifts for worship, ministry, and mission. Through interactive small groups using K.I.D.’s Footprints curricula, families learn to reconnect spiritually each other and build a strong personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

As explains Elsa Cozzi, Children Ministries Director and Director of the K.I.D Ministry in the Euro-Africa region: “I am glad that at the beginning of this December we were able to launch our first training for trainers and also our first practical schooling for local churches, which will help them to implement the program. This training program for local congregations is called K.I.D. University. We were happy to have as participants teams from Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Switzerland.

The first K.I.D. University Training event in the Euro-Africa region took place in Portugal because Portugal already started the ministry at the beginning of 2009, with the Setubal local congregation as a ‘pilot church’. It has been really inspiring for all 60 participants to see how Setubal church families are living this ‘new’ experience.”  

Some participants expressed their impressions: “Very strong and meaningful time…Wonderful to see the effects on the families…The Holy Spirit was visible…Moving and motivating”

As one of them said: “I’m sure that K.I.D. Program is a real blessing for our churches and families as well as for me personally. It will help me and my church to come across a spiritual renewal. Mostly, I hope that children in my church may meet Jesus as Savior, personally and permanently”

Cozzi also said: “I will be more than happy to help other EUD territories to learn more about this program, to help them preparing the trainers’ teams , receiving material and tools they need to start the K.I.D  in local churches. I am persuaded that this program has an enormous potential and is the answer to many of our questions, worries and problems as parents and spiritual mentors of children. K.I.D is an unique chance and a blessful opportunity for our families and our local congregations.”

Mission of the K.I.D Program is to “mentor children to be empowered disciples of Jesus, NOW!” and it has a systematic approach of creating relationships, to help implement discipleship principles that will build a child’s faith to become a lifestyle.

To learn more about the possibilities to implement K.I.D. Program in the Euro-Africa region, contact Elsa Cozzi. To learn more about the program, visit the K.I.D web site.

In 2009, “The Missionary Book of the Year” project reached its fourth edition in Romania. Each consecutive edition has set a new record for the number of books sold. This year, the project consisted of the mass production and distribution of the book Signs of Hope by Alejandro Bullon, a well-known Adventist evangelist from South America.
 
The book was proposed by the Publishing Department of the church and accepted as the missionary book of the year in several countries in the Euro-Africa region. Nevertheless, the 2,350,000 copies of the book printed in Romanian and distributed mostly in Romania not only represent a record number of copies distributed but also brought numerous experiences and testimonies of God’s love. On average, every church member in Romania bought and distributed 35 copies of the book, offering them to friends, colleagues, family members and neighbors. All who participated in this effort were rewarded by uplifting experiences.

Pastor Daniel Dinca and his congregation decided to give this book to every family in 40 nearby communities. Once the mission was completed, he discovered that over 52,000 copies had been handed out.

Valentina, a 21-year-old woman, read the book her mother received while waiting in line at a pharmacy. She was impressed by what she found in the book and searched the Internet to find out more about the author. She found a lot of information and even an evangelistic series posted on the web that she watched again and again. As she watched, she compared it with the Bible, and God’s Spirit worked to convict her heart. She started looking for a Seventh-day Adventist Church; and, a few weeks ago, she was baptized.

While this type of project, called “The Missionary Book of the Year,” is relatively new in Romania, it has galvanized the church as nothing else before. The Publishing House, with help from the Union and local conferences, produces a full-color book at a price lower than a bus ride in the city. Church members are thrilled to have a witnessing tool that looks nice and is so easy and affordable to hand out. Youth are also encouraged to give books to friends and to distribute them door to door. Once in a while, they discover that someone else has already left the book in a particular home. Church members are eager to learn what the next project will be and to continue sharing the hope that is in Jesus with more and more people.

On the weekend of November 27-28, 2009, the North France Conference of Seventh-day Adventists - numbering more than eight thousands church members - celebrated the official opening of the House of Hope, a spiritual and cultural center located in Paris.

Purchased in 2005, the House of Hope facility was reconstructed in order to comply with regulations for public buildings and allow access to people with disabilities. The cost for the purchase and reconstruction of the House of Hope totaled 3 million Euros. The money was supplied from the building funds of the North France Conference and a special offering given by 20 million Adventists around the world.

The House of Hope is a meeting place to promote cultural diversity and help people discover the ways of God and of other people. Every Sabbath morning, four different Adventist congregations will share the facilities: the French speaking Church of Hope, the Romanian church, the Portuguese church and the Hispanic church. A Baptist congregation will rent the facilities on Sunday mornings. Each of these congregations has 80-100 members. The building has room for over 300 visitors. During the week, the center will offer a variety of biblical, social, educational and health programs in collaboration of a variety of partners.

During the opening ceremony on Friday, November 27th, the deputy mayor of Paris, Mr. Jean Tibeiri, said, "It's good that a church like yours is open to society. It's a good thing to have created a cultural and spiritual center, and I am delighted that a house like yours is situated in the Latin Quarter of the 5th district of Paris.”

The minister of the Baptist community that will use the center, Roger Abotsivia, expressed his hope that other similar “houses of hope” will be erected in France and also thanked the center's director, Philippe Leduc, for leading this initiative in the heart of Paris.
 
The President of the Adventist church in the Euro-Africa region, Bruno Vertallier, stated, "We want to live together with Christian hope in the heart of the city instead of with the stress that our society usually suffers.”
 
On Saturday, November 28, Adventist pastors from the Paris region gathered at the center for a religious ceremony. Officials from the Euro-Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists, Franco-Belgian Union and North France Conference presented messages of exhortation and gratitude, and the "Crescendo" choir and others performed musical selections.
 

For the first time in history, French Protestants decided to jointly celebrate the jubilee of the Reformation, John Calvin’s 500th birthday and the vitality of their religious communities. This joint celebration is a testimony of a common faith and solidarity.

The Protestants Celebrate national festival took place in Strasbourg from October 30 through November 2, 2009, and was hosted by the French Protestant Federation (FPF). The celebration met with considerable popular success, drawing almost 15,000 visitors from all over France and representing all aspects of Protestantism.

In his welcome address on Friday evening, Claude Baty, the FPF President, stressed the “diversity of Protestantism, stretching from the old Huguenots to the new evangelical groups without roots.”

French Protestantism succeeded in making itself visible by allowing a great diversity of different faith communities to present their particularities. The program featured more than a hundred different activities such as Bible studies, lectures, shows, performances, concerts, youth activities and more. The various tents and booths erected throughout the city of Strasbourg and its surrounding areas allowed contact to be made with numerous visitors.

The Village of International Solidarity constructed at the central square of Strasbourg attracted the most people. This centerpiece brought together diverse Protestant associations all specializing in humanitarian and social work and in the defense of human rights and religious liberty.

The French chapter of the International Association for the Defense of Religious Liberty (AIDLR) had its booth there and offered two public lectures on “Religious Liberty in the World Today”. 500 copies of the Conscience et Liberté magazine and 500 copies of Liberté bulletins were distributed to visitors.

The humanitarian organization ADRA-France also presented its activities. The Health Ministries Department of the Franco-Belgian Union organized a Health-Expo in the Temple-Neuf Church – a trail of 8 booths offering various tests and supervised by Dr. Gentiane Breuil.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church took part in this unique event because Adventists consider themselves to be a part of French Protestantism. In its October 22, 2009, issue, the Réforme magazine featured a report on the Seventh-day Adventist Church entitled “Christians Zealous for the Law and the Sabbath,” and the website of this magazine featured an interview with Jean-Paul Barquon, the Secretary of the Franco-Belgian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

On Saturday night, the Protestants Celebrate rally was held on the outskirts of Strasbourg. The rally included a four-hour concert with a palette of musical styles aimed to satisfy the diversity of generations and tastes. The Sunday morning program attracted some 15,000 participants.

“It was a union of Protestants rather than of Protestantism that was manifested in Strasbourg,” said Jean-Paul Willaime, a sociologist of religions, to the correspondent of the ENI press service, “It did not clear away deep, lasting differences.”

Sociologist and historian Sébastien Fath stressed that the Strasbourg meeting “had broken a number of trite clichés about Protestantism,” particularly concerning its “austerity, elitism and fragmentation.”

Dozens of Seventh-day Adventists are dead after flooding and mudslides destroyed roads and bridges and buried homes last week in El Salvador.
Hurricane Ida caused more than 170 deaths in the country, including 30 Adventists. Sixteen church members are still missing after the category 2 hurricane passed through El Salvador November 9.

"In all the years that I've been associated with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in disaster response, I have never seen such a heavy loss among our church members in Inter-America," said Wally Amundson, ADRA director for the church in Inter-America. "We are saddened by how this is impacting the members of our church in El Salvador and pray our leaders will have the endurance to face the immediate challenges."

ADRA is responding to the affected municipalities of San Salvador, La Libertad, De La Paz, San Vicente and Cuzcatlan. More than 40,000 people have been affected by Ida, and thousands of displaced families are scattered among 85 emergency shelters, said Jorge Salazar, ADRA director for El Salvador.

Most of the deaths occurred in the central rural part of the country. More than 100 ADRA volunteers are assisting the community, as well as rescue teams, Salazar said. The government has also offered three helicopters to deliver ADRA supplies.

In addition to the funds released by ADRA and the church in Inter-America to assist the disaster relief effort, Hope for Humanity has sent special funds to assist affected communities and the general public surrounding the literacy circle program.

Some 345 Adventist families were displaced by the storm, 206 of their homes were damaged and four church buildings were also destroyed.

Treasurer for the church in the Mid-Central America region Saul Ortiz said one church member lost 15 family members.

"It will be some time before we can rebuild these churches and families can return to their communities," Ortiz said.

Church leaders for the region are providing special funds to affected Adventist families who will need to relocate soon. In the meantime, members whose home church was destroyed will meet in small group settings for worship, Ortiz said.

Another landslide last week in northern Tanzania claimed the lives of more than two dozen Adventists. Four days of heavy rain triggered the slide, which killed 24 members of one family. Several people are still missing.

The regular year end session of the committee governing the Adventist Church in the Euro-Africa region took place November 1-4. For the first time, the meeting was held on the campus of Saleve Adventist University in Collonges, France.

EUD administrators, from the left: P. R. Kunze, Treasurer, B. Vertallier, President, G. Maurer, Secretary.

The committee is composed of some fifty regular members representing Euro-Africa Unions (administrative units usually covering one country), church institutions (hospitals, media centers, educational institutions, etc.) and church membership. These regular committee members were joined by several guests and invitees from additional regions and by Elder Lowell C. Cooper, General Vice President of the General Conference of the Church, and Elder Larry R. Evans, General Conference Undersecretary.

The committee dealt with many customary and routine issues such as reports on different activities and projects reflecting church activities during past months, information about developments and problems that the church faces. The committee also voted plans and a budget for next year’s operations. The members received detailed information concerning the General Conference Session – the administrative and spiritual assembly of the worldwide Adventist Church – planned for 2010.

The committee spent a substantial part of time devoted to questions concerning youth in the church, children and families.

Dr. Manuela Casti, a lecturer at Newbold College in the United Kingdom, presented a partial and introductory report on the results of the Valuegenesis survey conducted among young Adventists throughout Europe. This survey was inspired by similar polls conducted by the Adventist Church in North America, where the survey focused primarily on the function and impact of church schools.

The survey in Europe, however, strived to determine the roles of local congregations, church youth organizations and families in the process of shaping the faith of young people, and to determine the interaction, interdependence and importance of these three factors.

The decision to conduct the survey was made in 2005. The Centre for Youth Ministry located at Saleve Adventist University was entrusted with the realization of the project, prepared the questionnaire and supervised the poll.

Youth aged 14 to 25 were invited to participate in the Internet survey between the months of September 2006 and May 2007. More than 5,000 young people attending Adventist churches in Europe (about 20% of eligible participants) took part in the poll and anonymously answered questions about their faith, involvement in the life of the church, practical ethics and lifestyle.

Adventist Church headquarters in participating European countries have already received partial reports showing the results from respondents within their territories. The full report containing a thorough analysis of the collected data, recommendations and an action plan will be made available next year.

As Casti said: “The Valuegenesis project is like a health check performed on the Church. One of the strongest evidences emerging from the survey is the fact that it takes the whole Church to minister to our young people. We need to refocus youth ministry as a ministry whose objective is to build mature Christians and adults. In many Evangelical churches, as soon as young people graduate from the youth department, they also ‘graduate’ from the church and leave it.”

“We need to build bridges and integrate young people into the life of the church much earlier. They need to feel that they are a valued part of the ‘adult’ church from the beginning. Their ideas and gifts need to be taken into account. They need to be trained and involved in church responsibilities. They need their questions to be answered in an open, non-judgmental way to allow them to shape a personal faith and commitment. At the same time, we need to support parents in their role as spiritual leaders of the family – their roles are the most enduring and influential in helping young people grow, but relatively little is put in place to help them.”

Corrado Cozzi, youth leader for the Adventist Church in the Euro-Africa region, assured the committee members that the full report of the survey will be available spring 2010. As he said, “Valuegenesis was promoted with the catchphrase: Who will change the Church? You, with your mouse! The focus is on accountability to change what really needs to be changed, according to the answers that our youth have provided in this survey. We made a promise to our young people. They sent us a message. Now it’s our turn as leaders of the church to honor our promises in order to build up a new generation of members ready to accomplish the mission that Jesus gave two thousands years ago and which needs to be achieved very soon.”

Some of the most important moments of the committee session were the morning and evening devotionals presented by different committee members and invitees. The most memorable devotional occurred when several committee members shared their testimonies – experiences with God that they have lived during the past few months showing God’s guidance and grace.

At the beginning of the session, President of the Adventist Church in the Euro-Africa region, Bruno Vertallier, used an image from the Biblical book of Nehemiah (chapter 3) to encourage committee members to work closely together to “build side by side the walls of God’s city” and provide an example of unity and unified efforts.

In his closing remarks, Gabriel Maurer, the Secretary of the Church in the Euro-Africa region, reminded committee members of a passage from the book of Acts, chapter 2, emphasizing the words: “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (verse 39) We regard ourselves as “People of Hope” – claiming God’s promises for ourselves and proclaiming them to the whole world. That is the message and mission of the Church.

The son of famers in rural Nigeria, Egwakhe now finds himself in a position of encouraging Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in West-Central Africa to abandon the phrase "I'm poor."

"I disagree with that mentality, I don't accept it," says Egwakhe, an associate treasurer at the Adventist Church world headquarters in the United States.

George Egwakhe, an associate treasurer for the Adventist world church, addresses church leaders in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Monday, November 9. He and other church leaders are urging a more deliberate focus on local church regions becoming self reliant. [photo: Ansel Oliver/ANN]

His comments come during an interview over lunch at the church's West-Central Africa regional headquarters, where church leaders are holding year-end business meetings.

Following the morning's treasurer's report, several delegates asked for an increase in appropriations for their regions. Both Egwakhe and the division president put the kibosh on that idea.

"Don't tell me about poverty," Egwakhe told some 30 delegates during an animated response to the floor discussion. "If you do not believe in self support you are in the wrong place."

Later, over lunch, Egwake says that most foreign church leaders wouldn't be able to respond the way he did that morning. He grew up in the region and had to work as a farmer for five years following elementary school to earn his way to high school. "I believe it is possible for [this region] to change its financial picture," he says.

Egwakhe is one of three world church officers attending the meeting. Each of the church's 13 world regions typically hold their own business meetings following the world church's Annual Council at the world church headquarters in October.

The West-Central Africa region, home to more than 830,000 Adventists, faces some of the most daunting challenges in the denomination, local church leaders say. In addition to being a malaria zone, it's a volatile region, politically and economically. Currencies can fluctuate wildly -- the region this year lost nearly 30 percent of its appropriation from the world headquarters because of varying currency rates. Also, transportation in the region is expensive -- it can be cheaper to fly to Europe or the United States than to travel across the region's territory.

Still, the biggest challenge, Egwakhe says, is fighting against a mindset that thinks money will always come from other world church regions.

Many in West Central Africa are subsistence farmers who live on a few dollars a day. But, as Egwakhe pointed out to delegates, it was the rural eastern region of Nigeria that was the first area of that country to become self-reliant more than 30 years ago, not the wealthier suburban areas.

The church's West Central African region is home to more than 830,000 Adventists. [graphic: courtesy adventist.org]

"They were farmers, and I see some of them here today," Egwakhe told delegates. It's not the amount of wealth that matters, but how that wealth is managed, he said. "My great-grandmother could manage her wealth," Egwakhe said.

Earlier this year, the division held its first Stewardship summit, which drew nearly 300 delegates to Ghana, the only country in the region to deliver a clean audit this year.

Similar conferences are scheduled around the region next year to emphasize responsible living and wealth management.

"We're hitting that point hard," said Mike Ryan, a vice president of the Adventist world church, who is also attending the meeting. Ryan spent the previous week delivering the region's strategic plan, which calls for a strong stewardship emphasis to meet the church's policy requiring that local regions aim toward self reliance.

"Research shows that [regions] that have a stronger stewardship program tend to be closer to becoming self reliant than those that don't," Ryan said.
In his response to delegates, regional President Gilbert Wari put his index finger to his temple, saying, "Development starts here, prepare your mind for development."

"Let's tell our members, even to tithe their poverty," Wari said. "They eat, don't they? So if they can eat, they can tithe that too and God will bless."

Steve Vistaunet oversees six Seventh-day Adventist Church Communication departments in the United States' Pacific Northwest. Yet only three of them, he says, have made the financial commitment to hire a professional communicator to serve in the position.

Many church leaders point out that department directors are often given the role in addition to other responsibilities.

"I don't think it's a lack of desire, it's a lack of finances," said Vistaunet, assistant for Communication to the president of the church's North Pacific Union.
 
For many local church administrative offices it's often a luxury to have a full-time communication professional working to report on church business meetings, write feature stories on church life and liaison with the media.

Vistaunet and other leaders are now encouraging local church administrations to hire communication professionals.

"And for those who can't, we're developing resources to help them increase their communication awareness and expertise," he said in an interview following this month's annual convention of the Society of Adventist Communicators (SAC), of which he also serves as president.

The convention, held in Newport Beach, California from October 15 to 17 brought together 140 participants, including church communication employees and college students, for workshops and networking opportunities. The society originally began 20 years ago in the church's Southern Union in the United States. In 2000, the group's annual convention expanded to include communicators from all of North America and now includes international participants.

Leaders are urging church communication employees to become certified through their church region's Communication Certification Program. Launched in 2007, the program will soon have its first person fulfill requirements, a church spokesperson said.

Vistaunet also said he hopes to bring together other groups of communicators, including Adventist radio professionals and participants of the Global Internet Evangelism Network.

The church's communication roots were set in 1912 when the Adventist world church headquarters hired Walter Burgan, a reporter with the Baltimore Sun newspaper, to establish the denomination's Bureau of Press Relations, the precursor of today's Communication department.

Today, many are urging the church to re-examine its commitment to hiring qualified spokespeople to work for the Adventist world church, an organization with some $20 billion of assets in more than 200 countries.

"I think a big challenge is that the church may not understand that management of corporate communication in the 21st century is not a luxury but a necessity," said Abel Marquez, dean of the School of Arts and Communication at the church's Montemorelos University in Mexico.

Marquez, who also serves as associate Communication director for the church's Inter-America region, said the church in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean will soon launch the certification program. Already, he said, the church in his region has held multiple communication seminars and other continuing education programs to educate local pastors about what effective corporate communication can accomplish.

College students at this month's SAC convention supported the church's communication goals, some pointing to areas where it could improve.

"I think the church now realizes it's time to update technology and communication and methods to better reach the world around us," said Rebecca Barcelo, a junior at La Sierra University in Riverside, California. She said she appreciated the fact that each of the nine unions in North America have their own magazine to connect members. She one day hopes to write for one.

Kortnye Hurst, a senior at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, said she thinks the church's world headquarters tries to let members know what's happening, but communication can stall at the local administration level. She said, however, that it's getting easier for members to learn about church initiatives and activities.

"I think communication in the church is moving toward more horizontal communication than hierarchical, which is good," she said.

Hurst said the SAC convention offered potential for professional growth and networking. "The amount of growth I experience depends on me tapping into that," she said.

The Bucharest town hall represented by the City Mayor Prof. Dr. Sorin Oprescu and the Muntania Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, represented by Pastor Lucian Floricel, conference Secretary, Pastor Cristian Modan, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Director and Pastor Viorel Dima, signed on Monday, September 28, 2009, an agreement of cooperation.

The agreement establishes partnership in funding and implementation of programs, services or projects and activities of interest to the general public:

• Joint programs in social work and fight against poverty
• Restoration and maintenance of church buildings
• Construction of new churches
• Accomplishment of fire-stop and fire-prevention measures.

At the same meeting representatives of other churches signed similar agreements of cooperation based on possibilities and needs specific to each of them.

"Bucharest Municipality has the duty and the opportunity to help all churches, not only the Orthodox Church as all inhabitants of Bucharest contribute to the local and state budget. It is therefore natural that they receive the same attention, regardless their religion," said Oprescu.

Pastor Lucian Floricel, presented some of the social projects implemented by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bucharest, saying that they could be extended if the church could work together with the local authorities.  Oprescu said he was aware of the influence of the Adventist volunteers, stating that they will never forget the impression left by the students participating at the AMiCUS Congress held in Bucharest last year.

"The agreement represents an opportunity for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bucharest to collaborate with a strong institution and to develop more social projects. The Adventist volunteers’ force is remarkable, but collaboration with other institutions and organizations is vital to ensure the projects’ continuity and long-term effects", said Cristian Modan, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Director of the Muntania Conference.

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Women's Ministries department joined together to stop violence against women yesterday during the launch of a new advocacy campaign.

Titled EndItNow, the campaign calls Adventists around the world to work in their communities to stop violence against women and girls, campaign organizers said.

The EndItNow campaign features a signature drive, aiming for 1 million signatures representing each of the 200 countries with an Adventist presence, campaign organizers said. The signatures will be presented to the United Nations upon completion.

"It's a global crisis, and as a church we need to be involved and be aware," said Heather-Dawn Small, director of Women's Ministries.

One out of three women around the world is a victim of physical or psychological repression, while approximately 135 million girls have undergone female genital mutilation, ADRA leaders said during the EndItNow presentation.

ADRA President Charles Sandefur said violence against women can be a silent and subtle threat that impacts hundreds of millions of lives.

"[EndItNow] gives us a common voice and calls the rest of the church to follow," Sandefur said.

ADRA and Women's Ministries presented the joint initiative to church delegates during the 2009 Annual Council meetings.

Coordinators asked the delegates to sign the EndItNow banner to kick off the signature drive. Adventist world church President Jan Paulsen signed first, saying the campaign was "a strong, powerful" statement.

"I hope and I pray, and I will do my part so that this will make an impact, and that the position that we take as a people, giving the highest value to women, will become widely known and supported across ... religious, cultural and national boundaries," Paulsen said.

The church's Ministerial Association Secretary Jim Cress expressed his strong support for the campaign.

"Ministers everywhere will join with this in affirming the dignity of young people, of women, of anyone who has been suffering from violence," Cress said.
The Women's Ministries department promotes the church's annual Abuse Prevention Emphasis Day, held every fourth Saturday in August. The department also provides scholarships for young women around the world who would not otherwise be able to afford higher education, Small said.

ADRA, the humanitarian organization of the Adventist church, funds programs benefitting women and girls, including female genital mutilation prevention, anti-human trafficking initiatives, and women's literacy programs.

Lorna Grace Okotto, a lay delegate attending the meetings from Kenya, said she felt the campaign was a major step in the right direction.

"It can come as a surprise to some people, but violence against women is right [inside] in the church of God, sometimes even by elders, sometimes even by pastors," said Okotto. "Thank you so much, my sisters and ADRA for taking this initiative."

Enditnow campaign message.

Watch a video.

For more information, visit enditnow.org.

Lorna Grace Okotto, lay delegate from Kenya, thanks ADRA and Women's Ministries for the campaign. [photo: Rajmund Dabrowski/ANN]

Around 150 experts from all over the world attended the Global Internet Evangelism Network Forum (GIENG) in Orlando, Florida, September 2009. All of the participants were experienced in Internet technologies, evangelism, and church growth.

From the left: Klaus Popa and Sascha Schuster from the Stimme der Hoffnung and Danny Houghton from the NetAdventist.

During this event the Internet team of the German “Stimme der Hoffnung” (Voice of Hope) received two awards for outstanding, innovative and creative Internet projects. As a representative for the “Stimme der Hoffnung” Internet team, Klaus Popa was given the adventist net award for developing visually creative websites and applications. The Communication Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters offers this award each year to recognize meritorious contribution to the SDA church’s online ministry through the avenues of Internet and related technology. “We are glad that the SDA Church world headquarters recognizes involvement in creative online mission outreach projects. The award is a great motivator to tackle future projects with the same passion,” Popa said. Much appreciation was also given for two other Internet websites, created on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany, by Tobias Klepp and Klaus Popa (www.adventisten.de; www.adventjugend.de).

The second of the netPrize winners in the category of evangelism was Martin Meier, a student working with “Stimme der Hoffnung”. He developed a module by which it is possible to view HOPE Channel TV stations all over the world, on the websites of the net Adventist platform.

The netAdventist platform is a do-it-yourself kit for creating church websites. It was developed by TAGnet, a mission network from the U.S., and made available to all Seventh-day Adventist churches around the world.

The HOPE Channel, with its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, runs seven TV stations and over 40 broadcasting centers worldwide. It provides a large variety of international and multilingual programs which can be received all over the world via satellite, cable and the Internet. These TV stations reach millions of homes. Since March 2009, the German “Stimme der Hoffnung” media center has aired programs in the German language from its own TV and radio stations, called “Hope Channel deutsch.”

With its round-the-clock coverage, the “Stimme der Hoffnung” provides programming on relevant topics. One of the station’s aims is to encourage people in an understandable and up-to-date manner to personally study the Bible and become acquainted with the Christian faith.

World church president emphasizes cross of Christ as central to Adventist message.

Without preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ, "there is no gospel," declared Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, on Sabbath, October 10 during a morning worship service held at the church's world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

In a wide-ranging sermon, Paulsen noted areas where tensions may rise within the movement, which claims over 16 million baptized members and more than 25 million people attending weekly worship around the world. For example, he said, "people by the millions are on the move from their home countries into another. How will we receive them?"

While noting that some may question the cultural differences of these newcomers, Paulsen said he hoped that a message of "come into my church and you will be loved" would prevail: "The Seventh-day Adventist Church must be like that," he said.

"The cross has made us all into brothers and sisters with no one of lesser or greater value," Paulsen told a packed auditorium in a service that was broadcast globally via the Adventist Church's Hope Channel satellite television network.

"In God's family, we don't value people on the basis of wealth, position, status, education, race, gender, color of skin, language, culture or dietary habits. There must be no sense of superiority or inferiority in any of these," Paulsen said. "The cross of Christ is the catalyst [and is the] great equalizer that levels all of us. Regardless of who we are, or where we come from, we each have the same value in God's eyes, and this reality must shape all our relationships."

Paulsen also called for world church divisions and unions to consider adding young people into more leadership roles, saying "in these matters, we haven't done well."

He added, "I long for the day when a much larger spectrum of those who are half my age - half my age - will sit on the committees which make the decisions of the church and will occupy positions of elected leadership. They do it in politics, in selecting national leaders ... why can we not do it in the church?"

Paulsen cited Ellen G. White, a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, as saying that men and women and young people had a role in the mission of the church: "'Let not the youth be ignored; let them share in the labor and responsibility,'" he quoted Mrs. White's statement in "Testimonies for the Church," volume 6, p. 435.

In calling for the addition of more women in leadership roles, Paulsen also turned to Ellen White's counsel, from the book "Evangelism," page 469: "When a great and decisive work is to be done, God chooses men and women to do this work, and it will see the loss if the talents of both are not combined." To those words, he added, "We have a large segment [of Adventists] that needs to be brought in from the cold."

He asked, "How can all this be done? The cross of Christ is the catalyst that transforms relationships, that helps us see each other differently, that removes barriers that divide and are obstacles on our journey. Reconciliation always affects relationships!"

Basing his message on Paul's remarks to the believers at Corinth (in 2 Corinthians 5:14-20), Paulsen noted that the ancient role of an "ambassador," the word the apostle used to describe himself, was different in the first century A.D.

"When a territory was conquered, the ambassador accompanied the victorious general and arranged the terms of peace for the vanquished people, [and] determine [the] boundaries.... In a sense, the ambassador was responsible for bringing people into the 'family' of the Roman Empire. So Paul thinks of himself as a representative of God, who presents the terms by which people may become citizens of God's kingdom and members of the royal family of God," he said.

That responsibility falls on today's followers of Christ, Paulsen added: "The implications of this are breathtaking: Preaching the gospel is not talking about God; it is God talking through us."

In his address, Paulsen also alluded to recent controversies involving Adventist education: "I appeal to you as leaders to reach out to your scholars and teachers," he urged the dozens of church administrators present for the service. 

Of teachers in Adventist schools, colleges and universities, Paulsen said, "they perform a valuable service both to our youth and to our church as an institution. Frankly, we could not be what we are and do what we do without them. They hold a very high position of trust: they teach our young people, they counsel our youth, they help them make the decisions, [and] they help them set the direction for their lives."

These teachers' "search is in the discovery and clarification of truth," Paulsen added. "I have to tell you that I have the highest respect for them and for their integrity. In their quest for truth, they will sometimes state positions and argue findings in which we think they are wrong; and we will tell them. We will address that challenge."

However, he added "we will not walk away from them and I do not want them to walk away from the church, with the values which define and identify us. If there are aspects of our identity which need to be reexamined and maybe adjusted, fine, we'll talk about it and we will test it by the writings of Scripture and of Ellen G. White. But we must talk openly, honestly, respectfully and carefully, and then we must journey together, bonded to each other by the power of God's reconciliation."

Later in the message, Paulsen returned to the importance of churches, pastors and educators all presenting the core beliefs of Adventism: "Let me be absolutely clear: Seventh-day Adventists have been entrusted with a broad range of truth-filled messages which we will proclaim. We will preach the biblical prophecies of Daniel and Revelation; we will preach the sanctity of the Sabbath; we will preach the health message; we will preach about the state of the dead and about judgment; we will preach and present the moral and ethical values that define the Christian life; and, yes, we will preach about Creation as recorded in Genesis [chapters] 1 and 2."

However, Paulsen added, "as true and loyal ambassadors, the first thing we must tell the world of unbelief is that God has reconciled humanity to Himself by the death of Jesus Christ. If not, our ambassadorial assignment has lost its meaning and we have failed. We are not there to be interesting or entertaining; we are there to preach the Gospel."

The worship service helped inaugurate the church's Annual Council meetings where leaders will consider a variety of administrative matters, some in preparation for the quinquennial General Conference Session of the movement, which is planned for June 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. Sabbath Sermon Annual Council 2009.  More information.

On Saturday, September 26, 2009, members of the Association for Former Prisoners of Conscience enjoyed the hospitality of the Adventist Church in Ploiesti.  This was already the 17th annual meeting of those persecuted for their faith during the previous regime.

Organized under the motto "Faithful in trials and afterwards" (Luke 22:28), the meeting was attended by Nelu Burcea, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Director of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Romania, Valeriu Petrescu, Adventist Media Center Director, Virgil Peicu, Director of Retirement Fund and Gabriel Vasilescu, President of the Retired Ministers’ Association of the Adventist church, showing the church’s appreciation to those who suffered under the communist persecution.

Former Adventist prisoners, aged between 52 and 82, recalled their experiences of faithfulness to God during the communist persecution, especially between the years 1950 and 1980.

Those were hard days.  Days of forced labor at the Danube - Black Sea Canal.  Days of suffering reducing humanity dignity - in prison cells, in dark solitary confinements, in chains and handcuffs.  Days of hunger and beatings...

Why did something like this happen in the 20th century in one of the European countries?

According to Titu Ghejan, President of the Association of Former Prisoners of Conscience and organizer of the event: “It is the same spirit that drove Cain to kill his brother, Saul to hate David, and religious leaders to kill the Savior of the world, which generated centuries of hatred against the followers of Jesus Christ.”

According to a conservative estimate some one thousand Adventists suffered from communist persecution because they stood for their faith, wanting to be faithful to God’s Law, and desiring to observe the Seventh-day Sabbath.  Sometimes it was just because they dare to talk about faith in divine inspiration of the Bible and the need for the only Savior and Mediator between man and God, or even because they simply requested the non-combatancy status.

The participants shared these things with the visitors with a spirit of, "not what we have done, but what God did for us.”  As one of the Association members said: “We praise and give thanks to our God and Savior who has sustained us and used us as a testimony of the fact that we can be and remain ‘believers throughout any challenge’ and at any time.”