When Jacob Harris was 8, his family moved from the African country of Liberia to the U.S. state of Maryland so his father could serve as a Lutheran minister. Harris was bullied in school because he was not from the United States. He decided that he didn’t want to be different and started hanging out with gang members. That decision led him to an unhealthy lifestyle including drugs, fighting, and crime.
Weet-Bix, a Seventh-day Adventist-made breakfast cereal, has become a hot product in China after being featured on a Chinese television show, with people paying up to U.S.$39 for a box of cereal that usually sells for $4. Enterprising people are filling shopping carts with boxes of Weet-Bix in supermarkets in Australia, where the high-fiber, low-sugar biscuit is produced by the Adventist Church-owned Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, and then reselling them on Chinese commerce websites, news reports said.
Seventh-day Adventist volunteers have assisted in the construction of the first church in Cuba in 16 years under the auspices of Adventist supporting ministry Maranatha Volunteers International. Thirty volunteers traveled to Cuba in June to work alongside local crews in raising the two-story church in Cárdenas, a popular coastal tourist resort of 137,000 people located 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of the capital, Havana, as well as to hold dental clinics and children’s outreach activities.
Rick McEdward, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Middle East and North Africa, joined Adventist believers across the region in praying for those affected by deadly suicide bombings at Istanbul’s main airport — an attack that felt particularly close to home because regional church administrators and their families often fly through the Turkish air hub.
All eyes focused on computers, tablets, and smartphones as thousands of deaf people across Brazil watched a special Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic series live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube. The number of viewers soared to 31,489 for the second annual “Evangelibras” (Evangelism in Sign Language) event, which aims to both share the gospel message and undergird the Adventist Church’s commitment toward the deaf community, organizers said. Last year 3,239 people watched the program, which was only aired on YouTube.
On Thursday, June 23, the British people voted by a margin of 3.8 percent to leave the European Union. With a turnout of 72 percent, 51.9 percent of the electorate made the historic decision, changing 43 years of European history since the United Kingdom joined the European Community in 1973. Many students of Bible prophecy see Brexit as a fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 2:43, which predicts that the various nations of Europe “shall not cleave” one to the other. This was well expressed by an Adventist Review TV special released Friday.
Solomon Maphosa, a Zimbabwean national and longtime administrator in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has been elected president of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID). The General Conference Executive Committee voted Wednesday for Maphosa, who most recently served as the division’s executive secretary, to replace Paul Ratsara as president.
Meet Vinícius Metzker, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Brazil who shares God’s love with his community through a surfing ministry. Surfing is huge in Brazil, and so is Metzker’s commitment to reaching surfers for Jesus. Several times a week he goes to the beach to teach free classes, to mingle with people, and to give them an unusual gift — a waterproof Bible.
Andrews University Press noticed something unusual in 2011: A woman in Wyoming was purchasing scores of copies of the Andrews Study Bible at full retail price of about $70 each. Surprised that someone could afford so many Bibles, the staff at the academic publishing house in Berrien Springs, Michigan, sought to learn more.
Less than 36 hours after the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, the Forest Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church in the nearby city of Apopka announced on Facebook that it would host, free of charge, funeral services for those killed. The post said the church “is extending their availability for FREE funeral services for any LGBT victims of the #thePulse shooting.” The church also offered to stream the services live on the Internet for family and friends who could not attend.
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) released the following statement in honor of World Refugee Day. This World Refugee Day, there are more than 60 million people around the world who are internally displaced, seeking asylum, or living as refugees in other countries. The United Nations has described the Syrian crisis, which has displaced approximately half of the country’s population, as the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.
Students from Washington Adventist University cleaned streets, painted houses, and conducted a health screening clinic in Havana, Cuba, marking the first time that a Seventh-day Adventist university in North America has sponsored a humanitarian mission trip on the Caribbean island in living memory. A group of 11 student and faculty volunteers painted 20 homes and treated 186 people at the health screening clinic during the 10-day visit, the university said this week.