ADRA Worker Attacked ... Tito Mwamati, a water engineer for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Kenya was brutally attacked by a gang of individuals on Sunday, April 16. He was stabbed in the chest and neck, and then robbed. Mwamati was left to die, but was helped by good Samaritans and taken to the hospital for help. Mwamati is responding well to treatment and has been able to speak with fellow workers from the ADRA Kenya office. He said, “I know by God’s grace, I will not stay here [in the hospital] for long.” [Shannon Kornick/ADRA/ANN]

ADRA Responds to Heavy Flooding in Ecuador ... During the month of March, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) provided aid for 200 Ecuadorian families devastated by the intense rainfall that drenched the coastal region during this winter’s rainy season. The most severely affected areas lie in the coastal provinces of Los Rios, Manabi, Guayas, El Oro, and Esmeraldas. “More than 400 people have lost everything in the floods, while tens of thousands have lost their homes, businesses, crops, and livestock…many now are also suffering from diseases such as dengue and malaria, caused by mosquitoes and lack of potable water,” said Ruth Bejarano, project director for the ADRA office in Ecuador. ADRA has provided medicines and medical care, mattresses, bed linens, and mosquito nets. Additionally, 500 school children living along the hard-hit coastline received urgently-needed backpacks filled with school supplies from ADRA. [Nadia McGill/ADRA/ANN]

Health Food Company Opens Research Lab in Mexico ... Just a few months after a health food research lab was inaugurated on the campus of Montemorelos University in Mexico, nutrition students are using the facilities to experiment with new products to enter into a national conference in Mexico. The research center, which was inaugurated February 8, was built with the coordinated efforts of the Inter-American Health Food Company (IAHFCO) and Montemorelos University to provide new research on health foods to benefit its group of food companies, students and the body of the university, says Joel Zukovski, general manager of the IAHFCO. The Center has two offices and has four research laboratory rooms, a lab for the food technology, one for vegetarian cooking, one for microbiology of food and one for food analysis. The center itself is named after the missionary Paul Allred, a visionary in the production of healthy foods and pioneer in the production of soy products in North Mexico and the Inter-American region.  [IAHFCO/IAD/ANN]

Adventist Professor Receives Fulbright Scholarship ... Dr. Victoria Mukerji, associate professor of visual arts at Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, United States, has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Goa University in India for six months. Mukerji says she has dreamed of getting a Fulbright scholarship since she was a little girl and the news that she had been chosen took her by surprise. “I’m very, very happy,” she said. The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State and aims to foster understanding between countries through scholarly exchanges. Each year about 800 scholars from the United States are awarded lectureships to schools in more than 150 participating countries. In return, about 800 international scholars are sponsored through the program to teach or conduct research in American universities. The last Fulbright Scholar at the Seventh-day Adventist-owned college was Dr. Eric Anderson, who taught at Ionian University in Greece in 1992. [Daneen Akers/PUC/ANN]