ANN Video Headlines  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.

Comments (0)