Even though Seventh-day Adventists in Southern Asia Pacific are a minority and live in many countries dominated by Muslim and Hindu religions they refuse to be stopped.
Even though Seventh-day Adventists in Southern Asia Pacific are a minority and live in many countries dominated by Muslim and Hindu religions they refuse to be stopped. To demonstrate their passion for movement, members of the church in that region drove a jeepney and a rickshaw onstage for their report shown in the Edward Jones Dome, in St. Louis, Missouri, during the Adventist world church’s 58th business session.
The reports gave a glimpse of just how the church is working in countries with the smallest number of members such as East Timor to even the church’s headquarters in that region. The territory covers 18 countries and 21,000 islands.
Jesus said “go”, and Adventists in the Southern Asia Pacific region take that command very seriously. They “go” through teaching in their extensive system of schools, through healing in their hospitals, teaching in their schools and spreading the story of Jesus through their publishing houses.
“Yes [Southern Asia] is on the go,” said Alberto Gulfan, president of the church in that region. “Today it is on the go preaching to [thousands of countries and islands] including the youngest nation of the world, East Timor, which started out with just 10 members.”
The church in Southern Asia Pacific also speaks of giving. In Sri Lanka, which is emerging from civil war, global mission pioneers run schools despite persecutions, in Indonesia more than 5,000 teachers work in Adventist schools with no salaries, and in Myanmar one college sends 40 student volunteers out every year.
The church is growing in even the most difficult countries to evangelize in. Places like Sri Lanka, which for the first time, baptized 300 people in one year. In Guam Micronesia, where baptisms normally average 200, the church there baptized 255 people last year. In Bangladesh membership has nearly doubled in the last few years. In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, whole villages have been baptized into the church by those who have themselves been recently baptized. Adventist World Radio also plays a big part by going to places that no missionary or evangelist can go.
With more than 1 million members, evangelism in that region is about reaching out to meet the community’s needs. In addition to sending out 1,000 missionaries, according to the report, the church in that region shares Jesus Christ through: “Eating together, talking and praying together, sharing hospitals, and being good neighbors.”
Last year in the Philippines around 50,000 gathered for a religion lay festival. Women in the church also play a huge part in the church region’s “on the go,” philosophy. In the last 5 years women have conducted more than 5,000 evangelism meetings and performed 35,000 baptisms.
