July 7, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri, United States …. [Mark A. Kellner/ANN]
In a report that heralded exponential growth with more than 900,000 baptisms in the past five years, the Inter-America region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s president, Pastor Israel Leito, predicts “certainly there will be more than three million worshipping the Lord” in the area by 2010.
That confident statement flows from “Evangeliving,” a program of evangelization and outreach that melds community service, education and healing with the proclamation of the Gospel message. That region oversees 8,528 churches, 1,029 educational institutions, 10 hospitals, 15 radio stations; and 13 food factories and health food outlets. Among the educational institutions is Montemorelos University in Mexico, home of both medical and dental schools, the latter opened in 2004.
Evangelistic outreach in the area included several Sabbath-day campaigns in Puerto Rico, where church members went door to door offering magazines, books and Bibles, assembling in the afternoon for a worship service. More than 300,000 pieces of literature were distributed in this fashion, and some congregations are repeating the exercise monthly.
In the Dominican Republic, 20,000 Seventh-day Adventist Christians came together for a rally at the end of an “Evangeliving” seminar, and community outreach continues as a result, the report indicated, as it does in Mexico and Cuba.
Most impressive were family stories, such as the Venezuelan couple that were baptized and then married, after their children led them to the church, where they heard the Gospel. In Guadalupe, a mother’s prayers were answered when her son, Sylvestre Marie-Emile, was released from a 20-year drug addiction and found Christ. Now, the young man shares hope and healing with others on the island.
The owner of a top soccer club in Medellin, Colombia, Roderigo Tomayo, is constructing a church in an upscale neighborhood. In Haiti, scene of natural disasters and political turmoil, the church is seeking to survive amidst a myriad of challenges.
“God is not a myth. God is real and He needs real people to represent Him,” Leito declared, inviting the world session audience to participate in “Evangeliving.”
Copyright © 2005 by Adventist News Network.
