Guatemala City, Guatemala…[Libna Stevens/IAD]
Thousands of viewers throughout the world witnessed Inter-America’s two week satellite evangelism series from El Progreso Adventist School Auditorium in Guatemala City from Oct. 17 to Nov. 1. The 16 live broadcasts was seen throughout the countries of Inter-America, North America, South America, Europe, South Korea, Malaysia and the Ivory Coast, according to Ivan Omaña, Ministerial Association secretary for the church in Inter-America.
With the theme “Words of Life and Hope”, the series emphasized the lessons of love found in the parables of Jesus. The series marked the end of evangelistic efforts which began in July throughout the Inter-American Division (IAD) territory.
Viewers were able to see the nightly one-hour broadcast, which included a theme song, special music, and an evening message with altar call, all produced by IAD’s production team and carried through Adventist Television Network for Latin America (ADSAT) and 3ABN for Latin America, as well as on the internet.
This year’s evangelism efforts for the series was not only to focus on the lost by reaching out with the love Jesus spoke about in His parables, but to fulfill prophecy, said Omaña.
“With this event, we are fulfilling Jesus prophecy ‘And this Gospel will be preached to all the world….’” says Omaña. “These two aspects of the gospel of the Kingdom are found in the parables of Jesus…the message of the kingdom is found in the parables. In other words, in preaching the parables of Jesus every evening, we have fulfilled the gospel of the Kingdom, and, more so, as we’ve launched it via satellite to the world, we are also fulfilling the prophecy.”
“This has been a wonderful experience,” said Omaña, as he spoke and thanked all who took part in the planning and carrying out of the series in his closing remarks during the final broadcast on Sabbath, Nov. 1.
Israel Leito, president for the church in Inter-America who also spoke during the final broadcast, said God wants open hearts to receive the message and the need for believers to spread the message of the gospel of Jesus.
Jim Cress, Ministerial Association secretary for the world church encouraged church members to unite.
“We are seeing Bible Prophecy take place throughout the Adventist church in Inter-America,” Cress said as he congratulated organizers and ministers on their efforts in Guatemala with work advanced through the satellite series as the world church approaches its initiative on the Year of Evangelism 2004.
Omaña, who became emotional over the successful outcome of the series expressed his gratitude to everyone involved.
“This has been the most gratifying experience of my life, because my projections had always been at a local level, and for a whole year I had to think in another level, at the world level,” Omaña said of the year-long planning of the event.
Evening speakers from IAD’s territory had to go through a process of selection and evaluation alongside other district pastors in their local fields and their union territories before they were selected to represent their region. Among the speakers representing the West Indies Union was Peter Joseph, who pastors an 800-member church in Nassau Bahamas.
“The fact that I’ve never been a part of a satellite series, it has done a lot of things for me, particularly given me the kind of exposure to evangelism on a world basis,” said Joseph.
“I think that the very passion for the lost is something that I’ll always take with me, the use of technology to get to thousands of people, who knows, maybe millions [of people]” said Joseph.
Hundreds of baptisms have taken place since the beginning of the evangelism efforts in the churches in July, but the total number of baptisms will not be known for a couple of weeks, according to Omaña.
Production of the series was made possible by the new production equipment the IAD purchased to produce the yearly satellite series and other events during the rest of the quinquennium, says Leon B. Wellington, vice president and communication director for the IAD.
The third IAD satellite series will take place in October 2004 in Trinidad.
