ANN Bulletin
Adventist News Network
Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters
October 9, 2007

In This Issue:
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* Mission trip blinds young people for 24 hours
* Uzbekistan: court fines two Adventist pastors for home church
meeting
* Monument dedicated to Adventists killed during Stalin regime
* Adventist Risk Management will outsource to health care contractors
* Adventists Around the World
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Mission trip blinds young people for 24 hours
Bobbili, Andhra Pradesh, India .... [Wendi Rogers/Maranatha Volunteers
International/ANN]
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Caitlin Delaney wasn't born blind, but the 20-year-old recently learned
what it's like for those who are. For 24 hours, Delaney and nearly
three-dozen other teenagers and young adults experienced total
darkness.

Her group visited the Asian Aid School for the Blind near Bobbili in
the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as part of a mission trip for young
people run by Maranatha Volunteers International, which constructs
Seventh-day Adventist churches and schools around the world.

After helping to repair a local hospital, the group arrived at the
school to discover they would wear blindfolds for most of their stay.
Delaney said she was waiting for the punch line.

"I was standing there just waiting for him [the project coordinator] to
be like, 'Ha, ha. This is a joke. Just kidding.' And he wasn't," she
explained. "So we all put on these blindfolds that make it look
completely black. So we started our experience here at the school
without being able to see our surroundings or the children or anything
that we were doing."

Just like the students at the school. The only difference was that the
volunteers would remove their blindfolds in 24 hours and return to life
as usual. The blind students would never have that opportunity.

According to statistics from the Blind Foundation in India, more than
13 million blind people -- or one-third of the world's blind population
-- live in India. Two million are children, and only 5 percent receive
any education.

Asian Aid, a supporting ministry of the Adventist Church, opened the
school in 2004 with 100 students. Enrollment has since doubled. All
tuition and boarding fees are funded by individual sponsorships through
Asian Aid.

The volunteers had gone to the school to play with and pray for the
students but they didn't think they would not be able to see the
children. Project coordinator Steve Case said, "As it dawned on the
people, there was a combination of, 'Oh boy, this will be exciting,'
and, 'Oh no, you can't be serious. I can't go through with this.' But
for the most part people decided to go for it. And so from that point
on, we couldn't see anything. We were blind."

Delaney said she kept reminding herself that she would get to take off
the blindfold in a few hours.

"I really got frustrated with not being able to do things," she said.
"They tried to show me how to use Braille or write my name, and I
couldn't grasp the concept. I was like, 'Well, as soon as I am able to
take off my blindfold, I will really be able to see what I am doing and
what they are saying.' But then I think about them, and they don't have
that option."

Volunteer Bob Werle said the exercise made everything new. "Even going
to the bathroom is a new experience. Brushing your teeth is a new
experience. Eating is a new experience. Everything that I do daily has
become a challenge."

"I was not expecting that our own senses would be heightened so
quickly," added Case, explaining that the sense of smell, touch, taste
and hearing is elevated when sight is removed.

To help the volunteers find their way around campus, each one was
paired with a student from the school who acted as a personal guide.
Together, they explored the school, learning about Braille and how to
operate a computer without sight.

"I think that the blindfold broke the barrier for me getting to know
them," Delaney said. "I was comfortable with them touching me because I
was getting to know them in the same way. And I think that really
helped because I wasn't looking at their physical appearance or
wondering what they were thinking. I was kind of going through the same
experience."

Case said they visited Asian Aid School for the Blind to help the blind
students but the lesson they received was one in faith.

"So the primary spiritual lesson we were hoping for in this experience
is, without being able to see, can we trust that this school exists,
that these students exist, that the food exists that we ate with our
hands?" Case asked. "Can we actually believe that that is true even
though we can't see it? If that's possible, then we can have faith and
trust God, who we cannot see with our eyes right now, but we can feel,
smell and hear in different ways."


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Uzbekistan: court fines two Adventist pastors for home church meeting
Tashkent, Uzbekistan .... [ANN Staff]
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Two Seventh-day Adventist pastors were sentenced September 27 by a
court in Tashkent for "unduly organizing and holding worships,"
Adventist Church officials in the region said.

The ministers, whose names were withheld, were each fined 80,000 soum,
or about half a month's salary for a pastor, said Victor Vitko, Public
Affairs and Religious Liberty director for the Adventist church's
Euro-Asia region based in Moscow.

Two other church members will also have to pay a combined fine of
30,000 soum, Vitko said.

According to Vitko, two men in plain clothes originally came to the
home meeting the pastors were conducting and identified themselves as
from the Department of Antiterrorism. They also appeared in the court's
first meeting on September 26, Vitko said.

Adventist world church officials have said the Uzbekistan government
has enacted laws to thwart militant forms of Islam. Many jurisdictions
only allow religious meetings in a recognized church registered with
the government.

Registration laws have restricted the work of all religious bodies in
the central Asian country north of Afghanistan, including the Islamic
majority.

Last year the government reportedly closed down an Adventist church and
another Protestant church in Samarqand for "illegally proselytizing"
local residents. A similar home raid occurred in the city of Nukus near
the Turkmenistan border in 2003.

In sharing the developments, Vitko asked for Adventists worldwide to
remember the church's situation in Uzbekistan.

"Let's pray for our church and pastors there," Vitko said. "Let's pray
for religious freedom in region."

About 1,300 Adventists worship in 19 churches in Uzbekistan.


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Monument dedicated to Adventists killed during Stalin regime
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States .... [Ansel Oliver/ANN]
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Seventh-day Adventists and community members in St. Petersburg, Russia,
dedicated a monument on October 7 to Adventists killed during the Great
Purge political repressions under Soviet Leader Josef Stalin in the
1930s.

About 100 people, including a representative of the city's governor,
gathered for the memorial at the Levashovsky Cemetery, according to
Viktor Vitko, the Adventist Church's Public Affairs and Religious
Liberty director for the church's Euro-Asia Division based in Moscow.

Vitko said newly released data revealed that about 40,000 people were
secretly executed in St. Petersburg between 1937 and 1938. Five of the
140 Adventist victims have now been identified.

The cemetery remained classified by the Committee for State Security
(KGB) until 1989, Vitko said.

"I think this is of utmost importance to have that type of symbol now
in Russia," said Michael M. Kulakov Jr., an associate professor of
political science and philosophy at Columbia Union College near
Washington D.C., in a telephone interview. "It's crucial to remember
the price that millions of our countrymen paid for freedom of thought
and expression."

Kulakov said such a monument was long overdue. "But before 1992 there
was no possibility for Adventists or any religious group to build a
monument in public, let alone get permission," Kulakov said.

Kulakov's father, Michael P. Kulakov, once banished to Siberia, was one
of many Adventists who secretly continued the Adventist Church's work
in Russia during communist rule. The younger Kulakov recalled finding
secret compartments as a kid in his father's house in Kazakstan, one
even hiding a 1929 edition of the Adventist Church's Bible study guide.
In 1990 the elder Kulakov became the first president of the church's
newly formed Euro-Asia Division based in Moscow.

The new monument in Levashovsky is significant, Kulakov said, because
many younger Russians are far removed from the country's communist
past. "They have no experiential knowledge of the degree of repression
and suffering that Stalin's dictatorship brought to Russia," he said.

There are now about 45,000 Adventists worshiping in some 600 churches
in Russia.


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Adventist Risk Management will outsource to health care contractors
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States .... [ARM/ANN Staff]
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Adventist Risk Management, Inc., the risk management and insurance
organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America,
announced last week it will outsource major functions of its health
care operations and customer care services. Health care claims
processing and customer calls currently handled by ARM will be
transferred to two health care contractors over the next year.

Increasing health care costs and benefits in recent years has made it
impractical for ARM to manage all aspects of claims coverage, said
Paula Webber, ARM director of corporate communication. ARM executives
finalized the outsourcing deal -- which they anticipate will save $2
million -- in recent meetings with leaders from the Adventist Church in
North America.

"As we see the industry changing, it is becoming harder and harder for
us to ... benefit those we serve -- our clients," said Robert Sweezey,
ARM president, in an October 4 press release. He added that contracting
out some ARM services would enable the company to maintain its positive
bottom line and save clients money.

With the savings, however, come "significant" staff reductions. While
noting that the decision to outsource was "difficult," Sweezey said
ARM's primary focus is how best to serve its clients. "Without the
[Adventist] Church, there would be no Adventist Risk Management. So, it
is our obligation to provide the best solutions for our clients," he
said in the release.

The number of staff positions to be cut has not yet been determined,
Webber said.

Clients won't find any services compromised, Webber said. But, she
added, there will be someone else on the other line to field questions
when clients call about claims.

ARM has worked with the church in North America since the mid-1970s,
when it developed a self-insured program for employee health care
coverage. The program grew during the 1980s when ARM expanded to offer
claims administrative services to denominational entities. Saving the
Adventist Church money has long been the company's top priority, ARM
officials said.

ARM will still process member eligibility, handle client billing,
health care reinsurance, statistical reporting and claims appeals, said
Byron Scheuneman, ARM vice president.

ARM serves clients in North America, including the Adventist
Development and Relief Agency, Griggs University, the church's North
American administration and employees at the world church's
headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.


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Adventists Around the World
Warburton, Victoria, Australia.... [Sarah Greceal/Signs of the
Times/ANNStaff]
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Australia: Church magazine site awarded . The Signs of the Times Web
site received the "Best Web site having religious connotations" award
at the Australasian Religious Press Association (ARPA) awards on
September 22 in Auckland, New Zealand. Judges said the "site appealed
because it was addressed to the viewer/reader, rather than coming
across as self-focused." The Web site, http://www.signsofthetimes.org.au,
attracts nearly 10,000 visitors a month.
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ANN Staff: Ray Dabrowski, director; Ansel Oliver, assistant director;
Taashi Rowe, editorial coordinator; Elizabeth Lechleitner, editorial
assistant.

Portuguese translation by Azenilto Brito, Spanish translation by Marcos
Paseggi, Italian translation by Vincenzo Annunziata and Lina Ferrara
and French translations by Stephanie Elofer.