This is Osmar Domingos dos Reis Jr.'s last year studying psychology at Centro de Ensino Universitario de Brasilia. The 27 year-old Brazilian is one of 250,000 Adventist students studying on a secular campus globally. Before coming to this school he attend
This is Osmar Domingos dos Reis Jr.‘s last year studying psychology at Centro de Ensino Universitario de Brasilia. The 27 year-old Brazilian is one of 250,000 Adventist students studying on secular campuses globally. Before coming to this school he attended Adventist schools all his life. His reasons for studying at a secular school are similar to many of his peers. “By the time I started college, Brazil didn’t have an [Adventist] university providing a psychology degree,” he said.
For various reasons ranging from convenience, family constraints, expense, and limited degree programs, the Seventh-day Adventist education system is not an option for every Adventist student, particularly on the college or university level.
However, going to secular schools can be “healthy but fatal at the same time,” said Humberto Rasi, Ph.D., former director of the Education department for the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Attending school on a public campus leaves students facing decisions “not to attend lab or class or take tests on Sabbath or not to smoke or drink ... Still some end up experiencing a strong affirmation of faith on campus.”
Reis found the latter to be especially true for him. Going to a secular school “took me to a deeper comprehension of the beliefs I had been professing since birth. Also, it took me to a deeper study and dependence [on] God’s power [in] my life.”
Reis said he believes that “in every aspect of my life, I’m sharing my faith. The way I come to class every day, the way I behave in class and in the gatherings with [non-Adventist] friends, and also the way I treat everybody. I share my faith spontaneously, because my faith is the basis of who I am as a person.
“I truly believe in Adventist education,” said Reis. “The principles that are taught prepare not only for this world, but also for God’s kingdom.” Still, he said, if he had to choose to attend a secular school all over again he would make the same choice. “I cannot be a true Christian if ... I’ve not stood for what I believe, defending what I believe, and testifying for my God in places where it’s not usual.”
Shernese Woodbine, 27, who now lives in New Jersey in the United States, had a similar experience to Reis. She went to an Adventist college for a short time. She said while she found the experience spiritually fulfilling, the school didn’t have the degree she was interested in.
While Woodbine, who studied law, found that attending a secular university “opened up career doors and paths that would have otherwise remained closed to me,” she found some drawbacks as well. “There [was] not the same level of bonding on a family level that I experienced with my classmates at the Adventist college that I attended.”
This bonding is extremely important, said Dr. Garland Dulan, director of the Education Department for the world church, because students are not just in school to study. “Most long-term friendships are formed either in childhood or in college.”
Nonetheless Woodbine found the experience “really challenged me to re-evaluate for myself how I hold my personal beliefs and not to rely on my parents, my church or anyone else for the answers. I had to make a personal decision to relearn what I believe the truth to be and learn how to articulate that belief.”
Still one of the main reasons many Adventists trumpet an Adventist education is because they find that the campus atmosphere offers more opportunities to strengthen students’ faith. Twenty-six-year-old Lakisha Hull, who now lives in Florida, attended schools in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She said she found that on secular campuses where she went to school, “temptation ran rampant. The vast majority of my college friends, churched and unchurched, succumbed to many negative influences out of peer pressure.”
Dulan said although these same influences exist on Adventist campuses, there is an avenue for parents, students and teachers to talk and work through any problems.
Although he doesn’t have an exact figure, Rasi estimates that at least 30 percent of students on secular campuses worldwide leave the church. This sobering estimate upholds the need for the committee on Adventist Ministry to College and University Students (AMiCUS).
AMiCUS organized in 1987 with three departments of the world church: Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries, Youth and Education. Its aim is to “provide continuing support to those seeking to minister to the spiritual, intellectual and social needs” of Adventist students in secular colleges and universities, according to the Adventist Ministry on the Public University Campus handbook. AMiCUS publishes Dialogue, a quarterly magazine for students, organizes retreats and seminars and places chaplains on campuses.
Alfredo Garcia-Marenko, director for young adults in the world church Youth Department, is a member of the committee. He sees the handbook as critical in helping students organize. The handbook goes out to leaders and shares such information as: how to organize student associations, the AMiCUS philosophy and 15 years of stories from around the world, said Garcia-Marenko.
Despite AMiCUS’ efforts, Reis said there are no resources for Adventists on his campus. He said, the church “should prepare seminars and meetings for the [Adventist students attending secular colleges] so that they could find a place where their faith would be reaffirmed, their problems could be shared with others.”
There are Adventist student groups in other parts of the world that offer what Reis describes as missing on his campus. Many meet social and spiritual needs without diluting Adventist beliefs.
Organizing these groups, though, takes a lot of energy. When Hull and Woodbine started attending the University of Pennsylvania, in the United States, there was no Adventist student group on campus. So they started up the Philadelphia Adventist Network for all young adults, not just Adventist students.
They shared their story at a recent retreat, in Columbia, Maryland, United States, for students attending secular campuses. “We wanted to give students a place to go to instead of going outside the church,” said Woodbine.
The group started out in 2001 and now has a member list of 100. The two constantly kept other members involved by providing not only Bible studies, vespers, speakers, and rides to local churches, but they also planned social events such as potlucks and trips to amusement parks.
Rasi said Dialogue magazine which is available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, is perfect when “there are only a handful of Adventist students on campus with no time or energy to organize.” Rasi, editor-in-chief of the magazine, said it connects students with interesting subjects, articles on successful Adventist professionals and biblical responses to contemporary issues.
Woodbine says she feels that the church should provide more resources to its students attending secular campuses so they can still feel “connected to the church body.” She said when she first started going to the University of Pennsylvania, she felt “rather isolated and unimportant. But now I feel I’ve found a ‘family’ away from home.”
The AMiCUS ministry is small, so students may be unaware of it. Reis, Woodbine, and Hull had no chaplains on their campus and were unaware of other resources AMiCUS offered. Still, Rasi sees it as vital because in “some places these students are invisible.”
“The future of the church is in colleges and universities,” Dulan said, “Many of the skills learned in secular schools, the church will need in the future. So it’s very important that students feel that they are a part of the church.”
Twenty-one year old Esther Breure is in her second year at Utrecht University in Holland studying psychology. She has never attended an Adventist school before. Breure echoes the sentiments of many young adults when she says a secular education has made her faith stronger.
“If Holland had an Adventist University, would all of the [Adventist] youth go there?” Breure pondered. “If we all did, who would spread the Adventist message of hope in the secular schools?”
While Breure said she would love to have an Adventist teach courses at her school from a Biblical perspective, she concluded, “You can be a great testimony in places where there is hardly any Adventists or even a believing person. If you are certain about your faith and the testimony of God in your life, then you have many more people you can reach than when everyone around you is already a practicing Adventist.”
