The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Health Ministries department recently presented its Medal of Distinction to a couple who for decades have promoted a model of health expos that Adventist churches have used in communities worldwide.
Charles and Phoebe Cleveland received the award December 19 during a graduation ceremony at a lifestyle education center in the U.S. state of Georgia.
Health Ministries director Dr. Peter Landless said the ceremony, held at the Wildwood Lifestyle Center, “was a wonderful opportunity to honor Charles and Phoebe Cleveland for their lifetime of service to health ministries throughout the world.”
Landless said the co-award was presented in recognition of the role both have played in the ministry and producing health promotional materials.
Charles Cleveland is president of Health Education Resources, a non-profit organization that produces health education materials in 40 languages. He is known for taking a health expo model first used by California’s Weimar Institute in the 1980s and making it more mobile, complete with health banners and activities.
Cleveland has helped pioneer lifestyle-centers and medical missionary training programs worldwide. He was a key founder of Wildwood’s Lay Institute for Global Health Training. He is also a member of Wildwood’s board of trustees.
In an interview, he said the medal “underscores that there is a close working relationship between self-supporting ministries and the Church.”
Cleveland said he felt “privileged” to accept the medal.
“We each have a passion, and the Lord uses us,” he said. “To me that’s a ministry and work that reaches out to different parts of the world and helping people understand how to prevent disease…. Little did I ever think that there would be a medal.”
Cleveland, who holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Public Health, served as an Adventist pastor. After being ordained in 1975, he shifted his focus to work in self-supporting ministries, serving as an administrator of the Uchee Pines Health Institute and later Vice President of Wildwood Lifestyle Center and Hospital in Georgia. He served as vice president of the supporting ministry Outpost Centers International from 2003 to 2006.
Dr. Viriato Ferreira, associate Health Ministries director, said the award “is a small token of acknowledgment of God´s wonderful work through their dedicated lives of service and care.”
At last weekend’s graduation ceremony, Landless delivered the commencement address and said the Adventist Church must continue embracing a health ministry that focuses on grace, is based on the Bible and the writings of Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White, and is backed by peer-reviewed, evidence-based research.
“I found this to be the direction in which Wildwood is working and making a difference in the world,” Landless said.