ANN Video Full Episode transcript - November 9, 2012

This week on Adventist News Network, a new church for a growing Adventist community in Belarus

… a skills-training center supports Jamaica’s homeless population

… and we sit down with the director of Adventist Community Services for an update on the church’s response to Hurricane Sandy

These stories and more, coming up.

This is Adventist News Network, a service of the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Thanks so much for joining us this week.

First in the news, the church in North America has set aside five hundred thousand dollars for an emergency relief grant to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. The move comes in response to pleas from church leaders in the Northeast U.S. who are at Adventist church headquarters this week for business meetings. Leaders say a November ten offering collected at churches across North America will raise additional funds. Later in the news, we’ll tell you how these funds are being used.

But first, Adventists in Belarus welcomed world church President Ted Wilson this week. Wilson’s visit marks the first time a sitting Adventist Church president has visited the Eastern European country. While there, Wilson helped dedicate a new church building in the city of Minsk. The building provides sanctuary space, apartments for church workers and studio space for the newly established Hope Channel Belarus. Wilson also visited with government leaders. Officials said they were impressed by the “deep faith” Adventists share and their emphasis on strong families and drug prevention.

Adventists in the United Kingdom converted a derelict building into a skills-training center during a recent mission trip to Jamaica. President for the church in South England, Sam Davis, led a team of more than thirty volunteers who spent two weeks on the project. The building is part of the Open Arms Drop-In Facility in Kingston, which serves the homeless population nationwide. The team from England painted, re-roofed and installed new plumbing and electrical work. Facility leaders say the renovated building will allow them to expand training to include computer literacy, sewing, art, welding, block making and barbering.

After years of planning, Adventists in a remote indigenous community in Australia are finally worshipping in a church. Volunteers from as far away as Perth traveled to Aputula in central Australia to work on the project. They finished the new building just minutes before the first worship service. Supporters from across the country were on hand to dedicate the new church. Already, leaders say community members are making decisions for Christ.

Adventist World Radio recently announced plans to reach a wider audience in Africa and Asia. In a board meeting last month, ministry officials approved a twenty percent increase in airtime budget to fund local language programming. The move also increases broadcast hours for close to two-dozen languages AWR regional directors have identified as underserved. This latest step is part of a wider expansion of Adventist broadcasting in the Eastern Hemisphere. In July, Hope Channel announced plans to fund more programming in Africa, especially in local languages.

Adventists in the Northeast U.S. and the Caribbean are expanding relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It’s been more than a week since the superstorm devastated coastal regions, and affected communities are still dealing with widespread flooding, power outages and property damage. In the Caribbean, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency is distributing water, food and blankets. Along the U.S. East Coat, residents still without electricity are bracing for a winter storm expected to complicate recovery efforts. Meanwhile, ADRA is coordinating with Adventist Community Services to provide electric generators, hot meals, temporary shelter and emergency kits.

The Greater New York Conference is responding in a positive way, both at the conference level and at the local level and local church.  Many of our neighbors in New York have lost so much – flooding, their homes have been destroyed.  Right now, a lot of New Yorkers are without power so, one of our local examples will be Old Westbury Church that has brought a generator to the community so that the neighbors can plug into that generator, their fridge, their boilers so that they can get heat in this time because it is getting down into the 30s and rain is coming again so they’re providing heat to these people through this generator.  A way of ministering to this community because both the rich and the poor have something in common at this point and that is – we have no power and as a result of that our church is responding to the need.

To learn more about relief efforts, we sat down with Adventist Community Services director Sun Kwon. We caught up with Elder Kwon just before he left to support relief efforts in New York and New Jersey. 

In spite of this devastating challenging situation ACS disaster response volunteers are working with the local church members to distribute personal care kit items, and cleaning supplies, and blankets, and generators and so forth. 

As you get on the ground, what do you suppose will be some of the greatest needs that you will face?

First of all, I would like to seek after prayers for our victims of this devastating situation and pray for our volunteers.  This is a very difficult time for our community to experience this challenging situation.  Please help us to secure necessary items and so financial support will be very much appreciated.

I am sure our viewers are wondering how they can become involved, where should they go to find out how to contribute? 

First of all you can visit our website, communityservices.org and also facebook – Adventist community services and we are updating daily the latest challenges and the needs of the situation.
 
Thanks so much, Elder Kwon. Coming up next, we have a preview of the latest issue of Adventist Review. 

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Welcome back. Let’s turn to Bill Knott for a look at this week’s issue of Adventist Review.

One of the jobs you inherit as editor of the Adventist Review is becoming the local historian of a hundred and sixty three years of Adventist Review production.  People come to you with all kinds of questions and one of the ones I get most frequently is, “who is the most published author in the Adventist Review?” It really doesn’t take long to come up with an answer, Ellen G White, the prophetess, the founder of this Movement was published regularly from the eighteen seventies through the time of her death in nineteen-fifteen and selections from her writings have been placed in the magazine over the (almost) hundred and sixty of the hundred and sixty three years.  But it has been quite a while since an article by Ellen White appeared on the cover of the Adventist Review.  I decided as we began looking at this special issue to take a piece, a beautiful piece written by Ellen White about the glories of God in the natural world and put it in front of you so that you too can appreciate what sometimes gets left or lost in those red books on the shelf.

This week’s copy of the Adventist Review with the title, “Then sings my soul” is a evocation of the glory of God as seen in the natural world.  At a time of year when many of us are aware of more than usually the beautiful world around us, this piece celebrates God’s creative handiwork.  I hope you’ll take a look at it and again restore your relationship with the work of Ellen White.

Adventist Single Adult Ministries supports the millions of single adults in the United States raising children in single-parent homes. Andrea Hicks has more.

There are over fourteen million single parents in the US today and over a half a million in Canada, the Bermuda 2000 census reports that ninety six percent of children live in one- parent households.  These are staggering numbers and the overwhelming majority of these parents are divorced, less than two percent are widowers.  Statistics show that divorce is not an emotional blow to a family but also a financial one.  Single parents are not broken families, wholeness is found in Christ, not in marriage. 

Let’s talk about how can we minister to single adult parents?  We can start by ministering to their unique needs, coping with raising a child in a one-parent environment.  Some single parents have the responsibility of raising a child on one income, child-care needs and etc.  There are female head of households and male head of households all must provide for and still nurture their children. 

ASAM – Adventist Single Adult Ministries can educate our single adults to be better parents and to be a support group, once these tools are met we can meet those needs in such a way that the single parent family will be strengthened and be drawn closer to Christ.

For our Adventist social media feature this week, Megan Brauner asked our Facebook and Twitter friends to share stories of God’s protection.

Hurricane Sandy recently caused destruction throughout the Caribbean and along the east coast of the United States. As the cleanup and rebuilding process continues, I asked our Twitter and Facebook followers to share their stories of divine intervention and send us any prayer requests.

Rosalie lives near JFK airport in New York state, and she sent us a story of praise that no one in her neighborhood was harmed, despite fallen trees and high winds.

Members of the Beth Shalom Adventist Church offered thanks for a church member who was found safe in her home in the middle of flooding.

Pastor Damion in Mount Vernon, New York said that he and his family were without electricity for many days, but he thanks God that they are all safe.

AnnMarie said she praised God for keeping her safe during the worst storm New York ever had.

Kathyann Harper of the Solidrock Adventist Church asked for prayers for people located in FarRockaway Queens New York. She said the local church was destroyed in the storm.

Do you want to help? Both the Adventist Development and Relief Agency and Adventist Community Services are collecting donations for hurricane relief. You can contribute online at adra.org or to Adventist Community Services through the Great New York Conference website. Visit gnyc.org to donate to ACS. And you’ll have a chance to give in person on November 10 during a special relief offering collected in North American Churches.

Got a story to share? You can tell us all about your hurricane experiences on Facebook or Twitter. 

An observation by a young boy during a recent Bible distribution in Costa Rica was an eye-opening experience for the whole ministry team. Robert Costa explains.

Earlier this year, the evangelical churches of San José, Costa Rica decided to blanket the city with Bibles. They purchased thousands of Bibles, but when the time came to distribute them, there was a disagreement among them, and the project was paralyzed.

Someone remember the young university student Christian group. What a perfect solution! They will distribute the Bibles! God was opening a new door for service in their city, and was even providing the Bibles free of charge!

One Sabbath afternoon this past April, they went in groups of two to distribute 1,000 Bibles and to offer them Bible studies.

Two of them were visiting a home, sharing the Bible with a family, when one of the children in the house cried, “Mommy, mommy, look!” At first, no one paid attention to him, but he was very insistent, crying out again, “Mommy, mommy, look, look!” Finally, the mother asked him what was wrong, and he said, “Who is that shining man behind the man with the Bible?” Everyone turned to look, but there was nobody there, so our young people continued with their presentation. Again, the child insisted there was a shining man standing behind the visitors. Finally, one of our young men, understanding the situation said, “It must be angel the Lord that is with us.” It was a solemn moment not only for that family, but for our young people.

There is a growing hunger for God’s Word around the world, and God is working miracles not only in favor of those who will hear the message, but in favor of those who are willing to step out in faith and engage in the work of evangelism in small cities and in big cities as well.

Still ahead on Adventist News Network, how science can help explain faith. 

But up next, this week’s Tech Corner.

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Welcome back. Have you ever used your camera flash, only to still end up with underexposed photos? Daryl Gungadoo has a solution to that problem on this week’s Tech Corner.

Have you ever been in a stadium and on the other side of where you were sitting, you see a lot of flashes triggering.  Well flash doesn’t really illuminate that far from the camera itself.  A professional flash like this would illuminate an object up to about thirteen meters, anything past that is really underexposed, underexposed means that there is just not enough light to light that object so it looks dark – almost black. 

On the other hand, a camera, a camera phone or a point and shoot camera – with those little tiny flashes, well that only illuminates up to three meters, past three meters, again the light is not strong enough to illuminate that bit and it’s dark.  So, my suggestion to you is to disable the flash if you are going to take a picture where the object is further than three meters for a camera like this or thirteen meters for a professional camera that uses this kind of flash.

How should Christians tell others about their faith in biblical Creation? Tim Standish shares resources from experts in the field on this month’s Geoscience feature.

It’s hard to know where to start discussing God in the creation.  Yet the bible tells us in Revelation fourteen, six and seven that the everlasting gospel calls ALL people to worship the creator God.  How can Christians share something so amazing that we can’t fully understand it ourselves?  Well this is a challenge, there are excellent resources available for those seeking to share an informed perspective about the creation.  This book, Understanding Creation addresses twenty commonly asked questions.  The authors are all experts in their fields and provide thoughtful understandings of subjects ranging from, “What does the fossil record tell us?”  To “How do dinosaurs fit in a biblical perspective?”  Another resource is this just released, “Thinking Creation” DVD set.  Programs address everything from the Christian roots of science to God and the big bang. 

Thinking creation is for teachers wishing to teach from a biblical perspective and lay people seeking an informed discussion of creation with neighbors.  The creation is not an irrational belief, it is an informed way of thinking about reality that deserves to be shared with the world in a thoughtful way.
   
Now let’s turn to Linda Koh for this month’s Children’s Ministries feature.  

We believe that children are our future, therefore it is important to begin developing leadership in children from a very young age.  God has given children many talents and abilities and they can be trained to use these gifts to serve the church and the community.  Children’s Ministries in different parts of the world are training children to preach, lead a choir, conduct health seminars, tell stories and to give bible studies.  In fact, in Philippines, leadership program called little trumpets was organized nine years ago and it is still going on strong and this is a program where they engage children every summer for ten days in a workshop that trained them to develop skills in relationship building, communication, sermon preparation and developing action plans for service projects in the community and many more. 

In the Southern Africa Indian Ocean region, a new initiative that is similar to this was just organized last December, it was launched and they have engaged children in doing all these different skills building so that they can become the future leaders and the preachers. 

Yes, we believe that tomorrow’s missionaries, tomorrow’s leaders, preachers or teachers begin with today’s children. 

When we come back after the break, the news you reported this week.

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Welcome back. Let’s turn to Jitesh Ram for this week’s iShare report.

Welcome to iShare where you bring us the news.  This week we have a story from Southern Adventist University journalism student Brian Castellanos.

Committed is not your typical gospel group, they sing acapella; instead of using instruments they use only their voices.  The group started as a quartet but later expanded when the singers enrolled at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama.  Two years ago Committed appeared on the NBC television show “The Sing Off” and won the competition.  Throughout the competition the singers faced challenges but group member Justin Pierre says they stayed strong to their Seventh-day Adventist faith.

You know, God can place you in an environment where you can be a witness to others and so never limit God.  Often times we try to box God in but you know, don’t box Him in, just let Him lead you.

The group Committed has just finished their concert and are now doing their meet and greet as you can see in the background.

With all the fame and stardom these six men remain humble and willing to follow where God leads.

Thanks for watching iShare, and don’t forget to visit news.adventist.org/iShare to send us your stories.

Church leaders in Nigeria recently learned about a small community of believers who began keeping the Sabbath, despite never having met an Adventist. Dowell Chow explains where they heard the church’s message of hope.

I’d like to take you on a trip with me to the northern part of Nigeria, where sixteen people began listening to our programs in the Hausa language, Hausa is one of the major languages produced in Nigeria.  News came to the president of the union there were people keeping the Sabbath in that part of the country and wanting to know what was going on, he himself took it upon himself to go there and travel by train, and by boat, and by motorbike, and walking to this church and he found a group of believers meeting in a small church on a land donated by one of the believers in the community.

Elder Owolabi, the president of the union met with these people and his words are, “This was the best Sabbath I have ever spent in my life.”  He was so thrilled to hear what was happening with the radio programs, he came back to the union and asked the committee to allocate funds continually to support the radio programs in his country.  Today, there is a church in that region and there are many more communities surrounding this area hearing about the programs of Adventist World Radio through the radio in the Hausa language.  Today the church in northern Nigeria is growing stronger and stronger thanks to the radio programs that we air in Igbo language and Hausa language, our producers are preparing programs that will reach the hearts of the people and teaching them the way of the Lord through the gospel message of Adventist World Radio.

Now let’s turn to David Trim for a look at Adventist history. This week, a literature evangelist transforms the church’s publishing ministry. 

Welcome to this week in Adventist history.

On November 4, in 1906, George A. King, a Canadian Adventist who pioneered new methods of literature evangelism, died in New York. It was King who developed the idea of subscription sales of Seventh-day Adventist books to the general public, which transformed Adventist publishing. He was a mightily effective literature evangelist himself as well as an enthusiastic recruiter and trainer of colporteurs.

On November 9, in 1952, Pênfigo Adventist Hospital opened in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

On November 10 in 1900, Elder A. W. Bartlett conducted the first known SDA baptism on the island of Bermuda, baptizing six Bermudians.

Seven years later, on November 10, 1907, Dr John Harvey Kellogg was disfellowshipped by the Battle Creek Tabernacle Church. Kellogg had been one of the most important leaders of Adventism’s second generation, but his ideas on theology, on women’s health and eugenics became more and more bizarre, and he also came into conflict with the leaders of the General Conference over who would control Battle Creek Sanitarium. In the end, despite repeated efforts by church leaders to reconcile him, he persisted in his views and so was disfellowshipped, 105 years ago.

And that was this week, in Adventist history.

Thanks for watching Adventist News Network. Join us next week for more news from the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In the meantime, check out our Facebook page. You can connect with other Adventists worldwide and find links to all of our stories, photos and videos. Just visit Facebook dot com, slash Adventist News.

Our good news for this week comes from John chapter fourteen. Verse twenty-seven says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

That’s our show for this week. And remember, you can always visit news dot Adventist dot org for daily news and videos. Until next time, God bless.

-- transcribed by Carol Little

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