By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Felipe Lemos, with collaboration from Mauren Fernandes)

Both conventional and electronic cigarettes are devices for administering nicotine, which causes one of the largest known chemical dependencies. The electronic cigarette was initially to have an advantage over the conventional one. But is this a reality?
The South American Adventist News Agency sat down with pulmonologist Sergio Henrique Santos, a specialist for the Brazilian Society of Pulmonology and Tisilogy. Santos, a Seventh-day Adventist, also serves as a university lecturer and believes…

Source:: sda website

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

As Australia’s bushfire crisis continues, here’s an update on how Adventists have been impacted and what the Church is doing to support fire-impacted communities.
Cobargo the worst affected in NSW
Cobargo, in south-east New South Wales, has been the worst affected area in the state, with the township engulfed by fire. Seven Adventist families lost their homes, properties and businesses. The house that Cobargo church company—a total of 15 members including children—used to meet in has also been…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Southern Asia-Pacific Division Communication Department)

While the world welcomed the New Year on the evening of December 31, 2019, citizens of Jakarta, Indonesia braced themselves for torrential rains and severe flooding as monsoons and rising rivers submerged the Indonesian capital affecting the population of over 30 million people.
Local authorities initiated a city wide evacuation as landslides and electrocutions continued to raise the death toll. According to reports, 53 people were confirmed dead and many more were reported missing. 113,000…

Source:: sda website

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

Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have expressed their heartfelt sympathies for those impacted by the bushfires currently raging across Australia.
Jorge Munoz, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, said he is shocked and saddened by the unfolding tragedy.
“I extend my deepest condolences to those who have lost loves ones in these devastating fires,” Munoz said. “There is so much suffering, it is absolutely heartbreaking.”
In New South Wales, the fires have…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Ron Green)

Katherine Seventh-day Adventist Church attendee Rebekah Tierney was announced as “New Practitioner of the Year” for St John Ambulance Australia (NT) during an awards ceremony at Parliament House in Darwin on November 28.
Tierney moved to Katherine at the end of 2018 to complete her new grad year with St John Ambulance as a paramedic.
Of particular note for Tierney was the integral role she played in the rescue of a female hiker who became trapped under a boulder during a rockslide along the…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Ted N.C. Wilson, President, Seventh-day Adventist World Church)

As we come to the close of another year, I would like to invite you for a moment to consider the most amazing gift of Jesus Christ. While we do not know exactly when He was born, the important thing is that we know for certain He was born, and that He came to this Earth on a very special mission.
Foretold by prophecy and announced by a heavenly being more than 2,000 years ago, we read in Matthew 1:21—“And she [Mary] will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Emanuel Millen)

Commonly referred to as “The most wonderful time of the year”, Christmas sees an increase in generosity, families and friends gathering together, and Jesus celebrated. Yet some Christians have difficulty with this day.
In the mid-19th century, a Protestant minister, Alexander Hislop wrote a book called, The Two Babylons, in which he compared the Roman Catholic Church to ancient Babylon. In his zeal to prove such a connection, he jumped over a few facts on several occasions.1
The idea of…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Renata Paes)

For 40 years, smoking was part of 65-year-old Osvaldo Henrique da Costa’s life. Four decades of this habits brought him constant tiredness, a cough and difficulty breathing. The vice chained and anguished him.
Until one day he met a friend in his bar who told him: “Do you want to quit smoking? I’m attending a course and I’ve already stopped smoking.” Excited with the achievement, he did not think twice and attended the “How to quit smoking” course at an Adventist home in Bandeirinhas…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Lucas Rocha)

A November oil spill in Brazil has become the country’s worst marine environmental disaster. Now, the disaster has begun to impact the finances of the families in the northeastern region of the country. After collecting more than 5 thousand tons of oil from the Brazilian coast, people’s willingness to consume fish and other marine food lowered considerably. Environmental groups estimate that in the state of Pernambuco alone, sales of clams, crab and oysters fell by 90%, while fish sales fell by…

Source:: sda website

By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Ted N.C. Wilson, President, Seventh-day Adventist World Church)

Editors Note: Since May of 2019, the Adventist Church members in Burundi have endured ongoing persecution from the countries government. On October 24, the president of the Burundi Union Mission, pastor Lamec Barishinga, was arrested. This arrest was part of an escalating series of threats and attacks on the Seventh-day Adventist Church by the government of Burundi. For further reading about the situation of our Adventist brother and sisters in Burundi, please visit the Pray for Burundi…

Source:: sda website