Top Seventh-day Adventists leaders and staff of the Inter-American Division (IAD) took time for spiritual reflection during the churchs annual week of spiritual emphasis, which concluded on Sabbath, June 17, 2017. The more than 75 church employees working at the IAD Headquarters in Miami, Florida, and their families spent time in prayer and fellowship, praising and worshipping as they studied Gods Word.
I started to drink after getting married at the age of 20, and then I started to smoke. Soon I was an alcoholic and a chain smoker. I loved going to parties. My wife was baptized after attending an evangelistic series by a pastor named Richard Perez at a Seventh-day Adventist church near my home in the Mexican state of Tabasco. But I refused to get baptized. Twice. My lifestyle took a toll on my body after 13 years, and my back began to ache badly. I went to the local medical services, and they gave me medicine that didnt help. The next day, I went to the Southeast Adventist Hospital. Doctors ran a battery of X-rays, blood tests, and other exams, but they couldnt find anything wrong.
elcoming three-dozen women from a correctional institution in San Juan, is one of the biggest highlights of the year for Pastor José Alberto Rodríguez, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Puerto Rico, and his wife, Christina. The couple, who live in Mayaguez, have opened their home to these women every year for the past six years. The institution in San Juan is a type of halfway house facility for those with criminal backgrounds serving the final period of their sentences. The bus ride to Pastor Rodríguezs home in Mayaguez takes about three hours, and when the women arrive they wear nothing but smiles on their faces. It is an opportunity for them to spend time away from their problems, their troubled past, and an uncertain future.
Mavis Burrell Spencer wasnt sure what to do with her familys high-end tailoring business when her husband died a decade ago. Her husband had established three, flourishing tailor shops in Jamaica, including a main outlet with 25 employees in a shopping center in the islands capital, Kingston. Mavis saw that she was at a crossroads, and she ultimately decided to run the business by herself.
Electoral officials in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have made changes to the upcoming general election to ensure no Christian will have to vote on their day of worship. After the announcement was made that polling would run from June 24 to July 8, a concerned Kepsie Elodo, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in PNG, wrote to the Chief Electoral Commissioner noting that these dates included three Saturdays. For Seventh-day Adventists, Saturday is the seventh-day Sabbath that, following Bible commands, church members keep as holy (Exodus 20:8-11.)
With growing governmental concern over tobacco use, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bangladesh responded with a health rally on May 31a day designated as World No Tobacco Dayas part of its ongoing community health efforts. Government reports in Bangladesh indicate more than 40 percent of its residents use tobacco products, and the number is rising. Alarmingly, the Smokeless Tobacco and Public Health: A Global Perspective report released in 2014 by the Center for Disease Control noted that Bangladesh and India are home to 80 percent of the worlds smokeless tobacco users.
A book on red meats impact on health and the environment, which includes the work of two Adventist dietitians, won first prize in in its category at this years Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Carol Zeuschner, from the Sydney Adventist Hospital, and Angela Saunders, from Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing, together with Kate Marsh, from the Northside Nutrition Clinic in Sydney, wrote a chapter in a 400-page reference book entitled Impact of Meat Consumption on Health and Environmental Sustainability, which was produced by Curtin University in Western Australia.
More than 150 diplomats, religious liberty advocates, and guests gathered on June 1 for the 15th annual Religious Liberty Dinner held in the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C. The annual event is held to celebrate and bring attention to a central human right: the freedom of religion or belief. U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, delivered the keynote. During his address, Carson made the clear distinction between simply being free to worship and being free to exercise religion not only in the public sphere, but in private businesses and institutions. Carson praised the United States stance on religious liberty.
Final filming of a new childrens television series called Cataplum wrapped up at Montemorelos Universitys UMedia Center last month. The series will soon air on UMTv, the universitys television channel, as well as Hope Channel Inter-Americas Esperanza TV. Each 28-minute episode of Cataplum features children ages of 6 to 11 playing and learning of Gods marvelous creation of the human body.
My father grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist home in Puerto Rico, but he left the church when someone criticized his fiancée for wearing blue jeans to church. My father was 19 at the time, and he showed up on Sabbath with my future mother, who belonged to a Sunday-keeping denomination. My father grew furious when someone told my mother that she wasnt dressed appropriately, and he abandoned his faith.
Dozens of religious freedom scholars, advocates, and supporters met on June 1 at the Washington D.C. Religious Freedom Center to commemorate and discuss the implications of the Protestant Reformation for religious liberty and freedom of conscience. The one-day event, themed Commemoration of the 500-year Anniversary of the 16th Century Protestant Reformation: Conversations on the Reformation, Christian Identities, and Freedom of Conscience, sought to delve into the multiple connections between the watershed 16th-century event and our ongoing contemporary quest for freedom of conscience and worship.
From the moment he found out that General Manuel Noriega, a former military dictator in Panama serving a sentence in France, was going to be extradited back to Panama in 2011, Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Jose Daniel Sánchez knew he wanted to meet him. Noriega, who died in prison at 83 last week, was captured when the United States invaded Panama in 1989, and sentenced him to prison for drug trafficking, money laundering, and other charges. Noriega served 17 years in the Federal Correction Institution in Miami until 2007, then served a sentence in France, and was serving a two-term 20-year sentence for money laundering and the murders of his opponents in Panama.