Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters
April 29, 2008
In This Issue:
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Church bonds strengthened, members remember after disaster
Attendance, giving are up six months after Mexico floods; community involvement brings opportunity despite tragedy
April 25 Ostuacan, Chiapas, Mexico
New memorial scholarship for women in communication
Church employee Friday loved young communicators, former co-workers say
April 25 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Adventist Church extends AIDS Ministry to Masai Land
Diet of semi-nomadic group could jeopardize health of those infected with HIV, AIDS, church leaders say
April 28 Johannesburg, South Africa
Review of Adventist flagship journal turns out awards
Article on abuse noted for 'courageous effort'; Canadian Adventist magazine also awarded
April 29 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
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Church bonds strengthened, members remember after disaster
April 25, 2008
Ostuacan, Chiapas, Mexico ... [ Ansel Oliver/ANN ]
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"We had no time to take stuff out," says Adventist Church member Pedro Moreno of last year's flooding at his house in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Though residents of the coastal plain are used to flooding, water last year rose from ankle to chest level in five hours, he says. [photos by Ansel Oliver/ANN]
Salomon Javier shows the highest point of floodwaters last year at the Alijadores Adventist Church in Villahermosa, Tabasco.
Students at Nicanor Gonzalez High School say their classes aren't bothered by construction of an Adventist university nearby. Church leaders note curiously that the approval process for the Tabasco extension campus of Montemorelos University moved faster after Adventists demonstrated their community involvement during last year's flooding disaster.
Pastor Antanacio Ramirez Ramirez looking over what once used to be the village of Juan del Grijalva, Chiapas. Construction crews are digging a canal through a landslide that blocked the river six months ago. Ramirez lost 14 of his church members in the flooding disaster.
"This used to be my house," Teodoro Sánchez Morales says of a concrete foundation in what was once Juan del Grijalva. Crews are still dredging the swollen river after a landslide and floods destroyed the village in November.
Adventist Church member Carolina Hernandez Cruz, 17, has completed the ninth grade but no longer attends school. The former Juan del Grijalva resident lost her father and two sisters in a landslide and now lives in a camp of wooden shelters in the town of Ostuacan.
Carolina Hernandez Cruz doesn't go to school anymore.
She's suffering post-traumatic stress after losing her father and two sisters in a landslide during last year's flooding in Southeast Mexico, one of the worst disasters in the nation's history.
The 17-year-old remembers wanting to be a lawyer when she grew up. Now Cruz spends her days as a cook for surviving residents of her village living in camps of government-built wooden shelters. She's stumped when asked seemingly simple questions, such as "What do you like to do?" and "What are your hobbies?"
"I've seen this before," says her pastor, Atanacio Ramirez Ramirez, 36, speaking through a translator. "People can for awhile lose interest in self development."
Ramirez has suffered his own hardships ministering after the disaster destroyed four of his 15 churches and killed 14 of his nearly 200 members.
"It was sad and difficult at the same time," Ramirez recalls. "I couldn't attend all the funerals. Some were held simultaneously."
Despite grief and loss, Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders here and in surrounding regions say a curious thing has happened in the six months since: attendance, giving and spiritual commitment has increased, mirroring the generous mood then seen throughout the nation. This district's "thank offering" was up this year 16 percent from last.
"This is something we can't explain," says Felipe Dominguez, communication director for the church in the Southeast state of Tabasco, which experienced similar generosity. "How come people without jobs were still able to be so generous?"
While some smaller affected communities, having lost everything, are still suffering, others have recovered or are rebuilding. And amid all this, church officials can't help but notice that approval for an Adventist university in Villahermosa is now faster in coming, five years after the necessary applications were submitted. Community involvement during the disaster helped the Protestant denomination gain such a school in the state, church leaders there say.
"The church here in Tabasco has a history of helping people in the community," says Hebar Garcia, the church region's president. "We've invested in a mobile clinic and were able to help during that time," he says, acknowledging help from church administrative regions nearby and overseas.
Along with many national organizations, the Adventist Church received special recognition for its relief efforts, which included well-run shelters and mobile clinics staffed with volunteer physicians, many of them medical students from the church's Montemorelos University in Northeast Mexico.
On a recent afternoon in Villahermosa, some locals are all too eager to point out water mark stains from when 80 percent of the state of Tabasco lay submerged, in some areas for as long as a month. Heavy rains in October coupled with full dams caused flooding and landslides. Sandbags stacked as high as 10 feet still cover hundreds of yards of sidewalks, even blocking bus stop shelters.
In Juan de Grijalva, church member Teodoro Sanchez Morales stands on a concrete slab next to the still swollen Grijalva River. "This used to be my house," the 57-year-old says. His father died in the landslide. Nearby, workers in trucks, backhoes and bulldozers chip away at the mountains of dirt that still partially block the river.
The needs for this community now are housing and water, says Ramirez, the district's pastor. "They have potable water but it tastes horrible," he says.
He says his members also want the feeling of being settled again. "They want to know, this is my house, this is my life, I'm here."
Earlier that day, while standing on a hill overlooking the destroyed town, Ramirez pointed down the valley and across the river to a barely visible yellow dot.
"That's the church," he said.
"How did it get there?" a visitor asked.
"It used to be up there," he said pointing up the river. "But it was swept downstream about 100 yards."
About 30 surviving residents of the town gathered that morning at the Ostuacan Adventist Church near their camp of wooden shelters to share their experiences during the tragedy. A young girl walked up the center aisle and handed a tissue to a woman shuddering with grief.
"I'm thankful to all the nations and the church for their help," said Maria Guatalupe Cruz, 34, the mother of Carolina, who is suffering post-traumatic stress. Maria lost her husband and two children in the disaster.
"All we have to live on now is generosity."
-- Raul Lozano contributed to this story
New memorial scholarship for women in communication
April 25, 2008
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States ... [ Taashi Rowe ]
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Rajmund Dabrowski introduces a scholarship fund named for former administrative assistant and friend Lynn Friday at the Adventist Church world headquarters April 24. Friday, who died last May, "loved young communicators," Dabrowski said.
[Photo: Taashi Rowe/ANN]
The Communication and Women's Ministries departments at the Seventh-day Adventist world church headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland are honoring a beloved co-worker's memory and helping women get an education at the same time.
The two departments introduced the Lynn Friday Scholarship Fund for Women in Communication at an April 24 reception at the church's headquarters, in honor of Friday, who was an administrative assistant in the world church's Communication department. Friday died last May after working for the church for more than 30 years.
"Lynn was, forgive me for saying this, not 'just an assistant,' she was an institution," said Communication director Rajmund Dabrowski. "We all knew her faith, generosity and passion to be a people person."
Many who knew Lynn said a scholarship fund for communication is the perfect way to remember a woman whom they considered masterful at communicating compassion.
"She was a communicator ... who mixed care with attention to detail." Dabrowski added.
Dabrowski said Friday's 10 years in the Communication department were invaluable not only in daily work but integral to staff during two world church business meetings -- in Toronto, Canada in 2000 and in St. Louis, Missouri in 2005. There she worked with hundreds of communicators, staff members and volunteers. In 2005, her contribution was recognized with a Bridge Award -- given to Adventist communicators who have made "outstanding contributions to Seventh-day Adventist communication."
At the recent reception, former co-workers spoke about what made Lynn so special.
"The relationship she developed with us here in Communication, in the building and around the world serves as an example of how we can effectively and genuinely communicate with one another," said John Torres III, a media relations manager in the Communication department. "This scholarship is a very appropriate way of remembering a life dedicated to honesty, compassion and transparent communication."
Raquel Arrais, associate director for Women's Ministries, said Lynn touched many lives in the building with her generosity. "This memorial fund in her name will continue her generosity and help many women fulfill the dream of becoming a communicator and serving the church," Arrais said.
The Women's Ministries scholarship program has given more than 1,000 scholarships to women in approximately 105 countries since its inception in 1991.
For more information about the Women's Ministries scholarship program, visit the Women's Ministries Web site at
http://wm.gc.adventist.org/ and click on "scholarship" or call (301) 680-6672 or (301) 680-6636. Donations may also be sent, with the notation "Lynn Friday Scholarship," to: GC Women's Ministries, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904.
Adventist Church extends AIDS Ministry to Masai Land
April 28, 2008
Johannesburg, South Africa ... [ Taashi Rowe/ANN ]
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The Masai tend to keep to their own semi-nomadic traditions making HIV and AIDS resources scarce in their communities. Adventist missionary doctors are making inroads in Masai communities by offering HIV and AIDS training in Adventist churches. [Photo: Rajmund Dabrowski/ANN]
An unbalanced diet among the Masai -- a small, semi-nomadic people group living in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania -- could compromise the survival of those infected with HIV and AIDS, doctors say.
The Masai diet of mostly milk and occasionally blood for protein can be detrimental to those infected with HIV or AIDS, according to Drs. Oscar and Eugenia Giordano, Seventh-day Adventist medical missionaries based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
For the estimated 500,000 Masais, who live on semi-arid lands, food is almost exclusively derived from cattle. But it's important that those infected with the disease eat a balanced diet of various fruits, vegetables, grains and protein, Dr. Oscar Giordano explains.
The Giordanos direct the Adventist AIDS International Ministry and for four years have worked to turn Adventist churches throughout Africa into support centers for the communities in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Two years ago they started working with the Masai in the Kisaju region--about two hours outside of Nairobi.
Outsiders don't usually go into Masai territory but for us the door is open through Adventist Masai, Dr. Oscar Giordano explains. "In time we hope to go even further into the territory."
"They live in a very primitive way," Dr. Eugenia Giordano explains. "They don't have a balanced diet and they don't eat a variety of food. They are acutely affected and infected by HIV and AIDS."
Learning balanced dietary habits is important because "HIV and AIDS is not rare even among the Masai," says Dr. Fesaha Tsegaye, Health Ministries director for the Adventist Church in East-Central Africa. "Culturally they have been set aside and marginalized so it's good that the church is using compassionate ministry to reach them."
However, the Giordanos were able to reach some of the Masai through the Ntorosi-Kajiado Seventh-day Adventist Church. They held training seminars, translated educational materials on HIV and AIDS into the Masai language and established support groups at the 180-member church. The importance of eating a balanced diet is often emphasized in the seminars.
There are now seven support groups in Kisaju working on income-generating activities that include gardening, baking, running a barber shop, sewing uniforms and selling beadwork.
Dr. Alan Handysides, health ministries director for the Adventist world church, says working with the Masai is a challenge because of their traditionally closed culture.
Solomon Lenana, an HIV and AIDS coordinator and volunteer pastor to the 800 Masai Adventists in Kisaju, says this kind of HIV and AIDS support or intervention initiative is a first for church members.
Dr. Oscar Giordano and Dr. Tsegaye say while there are no reliable studies on how many Masai are infected with HIV and AIDS, rates could run anywhere from 7 percent to 12 percent.
Last year a drought devastated their crops--which would have given them a more varied diet-- leaving them to rely on animals for their food. Still, the training that the Giordanos have led at the church has made Lenana and other Adventist Masai optimistic about reaching all 3,000 Masai in the Kisaju region.
Nasieku Sitat, a support group leader says, "We as young mothers are able to talk freely on how to avoid this [HIV and AIDS] epidemic since some of us have taken adult literacy classes so we can explain the things that contribute to the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
Review of Adventist flagship journal turns out awards
April 29, 2008
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States ... [ Kimberly Luste Maran, Adventist Review/ANN Staff ]
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Roy Adams, left, associate editor of Adventist Review, with Carlos Medley, who edits the magazine's online version. The Review won four awards during the recent Associated Church Press convention in Westlake, Texas. photo: Stephen Chavez/Adventist Review/ANN
The flagship journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Adventist Review, continues to win awards from North America's oldest interdenominational press association.
The Associated Church Press, a community of Christian communication professionals, awarded the Review for its noteworthy articles and Web site design during the group's annual convention, held April 20 to 23 this year in Westlake, Texas. The Review has taken home similar awards since it first submitted material to the ACP in 1987.
The October 11, 2007 Review cover story, "Abuse in the Adventist Church?" garnered top prize in the Personally Useful category. Judges called the article a "courageous effort" and noted its pragmatic tone -- "the article shows the reader the problem and ... that there are steps to be taken to deal with it." The article also won a merit award in the Feature Article: Magazine category.
The Review also received top honors for its online version. Judges said the design was "clean and professional" and made good use of graphics and photography. Judges also noted the site's intuitive navigation and intelligent writing.
For its relevance to a target audience, judges awarded the April 26 cover story on the International Religious Liberty Association a merit award. The article, "Setting the Table for Faith," written by Review editor and executive publisher Bill Knott, was also noted for its wealth of information and "elegant yet readable" prose.
The Adventist Review began publishing 14 years before the Adventist Church was formally organized in 1863.
Another Adventist publication, the Canadian Union Messenger, received two awards of excellence and a merit award for the two-part piece, "Connecting Canada to Christ and the Church."
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ANN World News Bulletin is a review of news and information issued by the Communication department from the Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters and released as part of the service of Adventist News Network. It is made available primarily to religious news editors. Our news includes dispatches from the church's international offices and the world headquarters.
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ANN Staff:
Rajmund 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.
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