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For those of you that do not know, Stan has a little hobby of matching couples together. I met Imelda (who I call Céline) online as a result of Stan inviting me to join Adventist Dating. Internet technology not only allows the two of us to visit each day but to study our Sabbath school lessons, cook, go shopping, sing, play guitar and even go on vacation together. Céline is often in my home via video chat on the Ipad which allows her to interact with my children, Alex and Shania. The same technology allows me to interact interact with her son, Gabriel, who loves playing basketball and is an avid fan. At the time of this announcement, we have been dating for eight months. We chatted online for one month before we officially started dating. I am on track to complete my master’s degree in family counseling in fall of 2020 but will not be changing careers. My work in counseling will be a part-time ministry. I have already been ordained by a non-denominational ministry so that I can work as a pastoral counselor and not have issues with the Texas Department of Health. Let me tell you a little about her. Imelda, or Céline, was raised in a Seventh-day Adventist home on a farm in the Philippines. There she played in rice fields and practiced martial arts with her brothers. She attended an Adventist elementary school and was in Pathfinders. She was ROTC captain in high school. She went to Central Philippines Adventist College (CPAC) where she earned a business degree. She speaks six languages, although not fluent in all of them (English, Tagalog, Visayan, Mandarin, Arabic and French). She is 42 years old and has an 18-year old son, Gabriel, now attending CPAC. She never married and has worked in Beirut, Lebanon as a caretaker for ten years to pay for Gabriel’s Christian education. She has also worked in Taiwan and Dubai. She enjoys playing volleyball and basketball. At age 39, she won the last beauty pageant she competed in. It was the third time she had won such a contest. I used to be very active here but when my first marriage started experiencing problems, my activity here dropped off. For those who were not here when I was or don't remember much about me, here is my brief bio. I was also raised in a Seventh-day Adventist home. My family moved throughout the United States often. I lived in eight different states by the time I was 18 years old (Nebraska, Utah, Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Washington and Minnesota). I was a soldier for five years in the United States Army, serving a tour in Panama. Later I was a missionary in El Salvador, studied Spanish in Guadalajara, Mexico and graduated Minnesota State University, Mankato with a business degree. While in college, I ran a ministry on campus for three years. I moved back to Texas after college and have worked in commercial building construction since that time. I have custody of my two children, Alex and Shania (17 and 15) from a previous marriage that lasted 18 years. As mentioned above, I am currently a graduate student, studying online at the Adventist university in Mexico. I know many of my church friends are concerned for me. I have been married twice and the concern is that perhaps I should not marry again. I appreciate that. I was married to my first wife for 18 years. She had a mid-life crisis and left me for another man (who was and still is married to someone else). I tried to save the marriage but was not successful. Broken-hearted, I rushed into a second marriage, against my better judgement – marrying only 30 days after my divorce was final. (We actually had lunch with Stan on our honeymoon at the 2015 GC) We blended families. The kids didn’t get along and I developed PTSD as a result of the high-conflict divorce with my first wife. I ended the marriage, under the guidance of a counselor, because of health issues. I had developed high blood pressure, acid reflux, insomnia and weight gain. It was simply bad timing. I needed time to recover from the divorce with my first wife. I got treatment for the PTSD and recovered my health. This time I have been taking it slow. My children are older and have recovered from the divorce and support this decision. With God’s grace things will work out this time. I have enjoyed being a single-parent raising my children for over three years. Actually, more than enjoyed, I have absolutely loved being my kids; dad. It has been a joy and an honor. It cost me thousands of dollars to win custody. I will actually finish paying off the lawyer loan this year in April. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to continue raising my children for God. It is a privilege that most divorced fathers never have. My parents divorced when I was young. I never had a real father figure. I lived on the streets as a teenager before sobering up in Alcoholics Anonymous at the age of 16. I learned how to submit to authority, how to listen, how to learn from my own mistakes and even more, how to learn from the mistakes of others. I read books about being a husband before I got married and about being a father before I had children. While I am a construction project manager and have built projects valued at more than $10 million, I am a family man. I am the father to my children that I never had. I have worked hard to maintain a healthy relationship with my ex-wife so we can co-parent our children together. The average time a man waits after a divorce to remarry in the US is 3 years. That is what it will be for me. A recent study showed that 61% of divorced Adventists never remarry. That is almost the opposite of the population in general in which 60% do remarry (and many more cohabitate). The Bible teaches it is not good for man to be alone and multiple studies confirm the benefits of marriage. It is unknown why so many divorced Adventists stay single. Those who experience the forgiving grace of God have no need to perform penance for a failed marriage. Divorce should be a wake-up call to take inventory, repent of sins and start a new path. Many second marriages fail because people blame their ex and don’t learn from the divorce. That certainly is not the case with me. This place was like a second church for me for a long time. I grew a lot spiritually from interacting here and I am sure there are many Adventists that are isolated or in churches that are not very active and could benefit a lot from this forum. I liked the name Club Adventist better but,,, who am I? Maybe the GC didn't share my opinion. I still pop in here every now and again but life is extremely busy right now. In a couple of years I will be done with graduate school, both of my children will be adults, and I will be married again. Those are all big changes and hopefully all positive ones.

She wrote her first book at the age of seven (7). Now, at the age of nine (9) she is workig on publishing her 3rd book. What does she write about that would cause people to purchase her book? For the answer, see: https://spectrummagazine.org/interviews/2019/nine-year-old-author-shares-story-her-books

I'm sorry B/W but this is Adventist history. I read some books such as "With Cloak and Dagger" which complains about how ideas came in to the church in the 1950s. Also those who are critical of the trinity has a quote spreading around the internet saying that the trinity was brought into the church in the 1950s by Froom. Yet when I was at Andrews, in the White Estate I read similar complaints of ideas that "With Cloak and Dagger" said came in the 1950s, only these complaints were written in the first decade of the 20th century, 50 years too early, for "Cloak and Dagger" and of course the villains from the complaints written in the early 20th century was whining about these heresies being brought in by the post 1888 Mrs. White and people such as Willie, Prescott and Daniels. Much of what I read in "Cloak and Dagger" was a repeat of the complaints of the early 20th century, only the names and dates changed. Also, that statement that the anti=trinity statement is saying about Froom, is almost (if not identical) to a quote from the first century of the 1900s only instead of blaming Froom for brining in the trinity in the 1950s, it blamed Prescott for brining in the trinity in the 1890s. The minister's who's views grew into what became the so called "Historic Adventists" and who's views are reflected in Folcrum7, have a history of spreading a gospel of the good news that the church is going to hell in a handbasket and that they are the only true and faithful Seventh-day Adventists. And if you read these publications they started out with the list of heretics bringing in a new, false theology, starting with blaming the post 1888 Mrs. White, and the other names I repeat. But as time goes by they no longer have the post 1888 Mrs. White as a heretic bringing in these ideas but pretend that the ideas they are criticizing are newly coming in and the people who their great grandparents criticized as horrible heretics, are later pictured as faithful to this train of thought. If time was to last and history were to repeat itself in about a century Historic Adventists would hail Elder Jackson as a firm supporter of the ideas of Folcrum7 and have a new person to blame.

GREGORY ALL I can say is WOW this young girl is very talented dgrimm60

Free from sin

My apologies, I did not do that I just did the quote and your name came up. I truly don't know why because it was phkrause that I quoted from?

Congregations are founded by young men and laid to rest by old women!

In the following link, there were a number of interesting points. Included are a couple of them: 4. Evangelical men must choose between masculinity and belonging. Evangelicalism tends to be culturally Marxist. What do I mean by this? It holds a disdain for capital, so that the desire to accrue capital is perceived as morally evil (or at least undesirable). For this reason, the neuroeconomics of evangelical culture incentivize men who want to do well within evangelicalism to become the sort of men which women distinctively and generally find unattractive. 6. Evangelical company men are incentivized not to understand masculinity. I have had men consistently critique my perspective on masculinity, and others voice profound agreement. Without fail, those who disagree are white collar men who look and talk like pansies, and those who agree with me have been professional weight lifters, hunters, police officers, and working salesmen. This basically proves my point. https://pulpitandpen.org/2019/01/10/beautiful-women-dont-want-evangelical-company-men/ Above is a line underlined for my persistent naysayer to my posts!

Oh Pulease! Who has been the villain of the liberal left of the church ? Who even has a well known Adventist writer comparing him to Hitler?! Sorry, Jackson does not get to join any such list! Seriously, it is well past time for the Wilson haters to do some serious Biblical study on the concept of "lawlessness."