August 16, 2005 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Compiled by ANN Staff]
*Fanja Michel Rakotomanana, 40, chief technical advisor for the Food Security project for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) office in Madagascar, was killed Aug. 10 when his motorcycle collided with an unlit parked truck. The ADRA Madagascar staff mourns Rakotomanana’s death. His father, wife, and two children, ages four and seven, survive him.
*The Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has added 900,000 members in each of the past five years, is one of the world’s fastest growing faiths, according to The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. In a report that was reprinted in several American news outlets, the Tribune noted Adventists are growing at a rate roughly 3.5 times that of the Mormon Church, which calls Salt Lake City home.
*Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Jamaica passed an important milestone recently, The Jamaica Observer reports. The school, which gained university status six years ago, awarded its first two doctorate degrees, both in education. Daniel Fider, the school’s vice president for admissions, and George Dawkins, a mathematician, earned the degrees, which were granted Aug. 14.