By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (ADRA International)

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread across Kenya, lockdowns, closure of schools, and cancellation of public meetings have caused immeasurable disruptions.
Even prior to COVID-19, persons with disabilities were living in a world of isolation, yet the effects of the health crisis have been keenly felt. Samuel Onang’o, a father of three, is a cobbler, or shoemaker, in Kibera—he is also physically disabled.
His wife and children travelled to another region of the…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (ADRA Ecuador)

The numbers of refugees and immigrants are increasing, as well as the precarious situation in which a large number of citizens from different countries currently live in different parts of the world. To date, 79.5 million people have been forced to live far from their homes, according to data released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Ecuador has the largest number of recognized refugees: 69,524 from more than 60 countries, the majority of whom are Colombians and Venezuelans who…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Kimberly Luste Maran)

On July 1, 2020, under a big white tent on the grounds of the North American Division (NAD) headquarters, more than 200 in-person and online guests bid a fond farewell to Daniel R. and Donna Jackson during a two-hour celebration of their ministry and leadership. Each ministry, service, and entity of the division had the opportunity to share memories and messages for the Jacksons, who officially retired on July 1.* Vice presidents of the division, union presidents, and special guests General…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Rosmery Sánchez, Nuevo Tiempo Peru)

A Seventh-day Adventist broadcasting network has created audio messages to encourage patients, doctors, nurses and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. Speakers throughout the Ate Vitarte Emergency Hospital on the east side of Lima, Peru’s capital, share the messages four times each week.
“If you love God, who is the main source of love, you will have an inexhaustible source of love to give to others,” one of the messages announces.
Ate Vitarte was designated a “Specialized Care…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Tracey Bridcutt)

Pioneer missionary Benny Tavodi and popular evangelist George Burnside are among the many individuals from the South Pacific Division (SPD) whose biographies feature in the new Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA), which launches this week.
ESDA is an exciting global project for several years in the making. Of the 8500 entries documenting the history and life of the Adventist Church around the world, 611 are from the SPD, with a further 19 currently being edited. The benefit of the…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Marion Bech Boilesen)

A three-month break from friends can be difficult – especially for children. This is equally true for church congregations as many have struggled to get the same intimacy and sense of worship from a live stream or video as they get from physically attending a place of worship.
Like everywhere else, Vejlefjord Seventh-day Adventist church members have missed meeting as a congregation. Denmark was one of the earliest European countries to close churches due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, due…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Maryellen Fairfax)

Janet Kues is a Grade 5 teacher at Carr Memorial Adventist Primary School in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. While teaching, she has begun keeping Sabbath and shares how the Bible summary reading program has helped her and her students walk closer with God. This is her testimony.
When I first came to Carr Memorial, it was totally different from the government school at which I taught before. The atmosphere, the environment, and even the smiling faces of teachers and students welcomed me to the…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Edyta Jankiewicz)

My daughter was six years old when she first encountered online pornography. It was during her “Angelina Ballerina” phase when one day, while she was looking for ballerina images online, a pornographic image popped up on her screen. She got a fright, shut her screen, but didn’t say anything to her dad, who was sitting right next to her but missed seeing what she’d seen.
Research suggests that the average age of first exposure to pornography is getting earlier.1 Many parents tend to assume that…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Victor Hulbert)

Youth Congress and the European Pastors’ Council will both move one year later to help with financial and logistic planning.
In a joint agreement between the Inter-European and Trans-European Divisions, the European Youth Congress planned for August 2021 in Lahti, Finland, will be pushed one year later to 2022. Following the COVID-19 lockdown across most of Europe, including Finland, the level of uncertainty about a ‘second wave’ that could hit and how the winter will progress, the executive…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Becky St. Clair)

Five years. Twenty-five regional editors. Thirty consultant editors. One thousand international authors. One final product: The Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA).
“Today is a historic day in the history of the church,” says Artur Stele, vice president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “Today we witness a moment Adventist scholars have been waiting to see for over 40 years. The significance of this new reality cannot be overstated.”
In the past, church historians and scholars…

Source:: sda website