ADRA Workers Affected by Southern Sudan Ebola Outbreak

The World Health Organization (WHO) believes a new strain of the Ebola virus is responsible for four deaths in Yambio, southern Sudan. According to WHO, an additional 15 people are thought to be infected with the virus. The WHO has restricted public movement, public gatherings, and person-to-person contact, such as shaking hands. To prevent the spread of the virus, staff of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in southern Sudan are taking precautionary measures. Teacher trainings being implemented as part of ADRA’s Primary Education South Sudan II project have been halted in Yambio. [Todd Reese]

SEEDS Conference Goers Aim To Plant Churches

An estimated 300 church growth enthusiasts met at the ninth annual SEEDS conference at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, May 12 to 15. The event is sponsored by the North American region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “We get rather inward turned—this makes us look out,” said Marti Schneider, SEEDS conference coordinator. “[The conference] helps cast vision. By bringing people together we inspire.” SEEDS’ goal is to establish one Adventist Church for every 25,000 people of a community’s population. Small groups, or “cells,” are what make a SEEDS church. Each small group meets during the week and meets on Sabbath for worship. The next SEEDS conference is scheduled for June 2005, ending two days before the Adventist Church world session in St. Louis, Missouri. [Ansel Oliver]

World Church: Missionary Is Guest of Honor At Centennial Birthday

A special dinner will be held to honor the life of 100-year-old church worker and missionary Emanuel Pedersen at the Adventist Church world headquarters June 1. Born May 28, 1904, Pedersen was 10 years old when World War I broke out. He has served as a school teacher, an evangelist, and a department director for the church in Denmark. Pedersen went to Uganda when he was 37 years old and purchased the land for what is now Bugema University in Kampala. Associates call him a “diplomat.” He is fluent in three languages, and, with a Danish passport, could go to many places some church workers couldn’t, including Cuba. Pedersen served as lay activities director and executive secretary for the Trans-European region of the church, and then as lay activities director and field secretary at the Adventist world church headquarters. In the1970s he served as president of what was then the Afro-Mideast region of the church. [Ansel Oliver]