Although they were not present, the lives of three Seventh-day Adventist pastors were changed during the Annual Council business meetings Oct. 12. Each was elected as an associate director of a department at the church's world headquarters.
Although they were not present, the lives of three Seventh-day Adventist pastors were changed during the Annual Council business meetings Oct. 12. Each was elected as an associate director of a department at the church’s world headquarters.
Pastor Wilmar Hirle of Brazil, a veteran of the publishing work in the church’s South American and Euro-Asian regions, will now be an associate director of the Publishing Ministries department, whose purpose is to present the Gospel to people around the world by means of the printed page.
According to Pastor Howard Faigao, Publishing Ministries director, Hirle “is the divisional director with the most experience in literature evangelism,” qualifying him to help lead a department charged with supporting this work.
Pastors Jonatan Tejel of Madrid, Spain, and Robert K. Lang of Tennessee, in the United States will join the world church headquarters Youth Department. Tejel has nearly a decade of practical experience as a youth ministries director, speaks four languages, and currently edits a youth ministries magazine for the Adventist Church in Spain.
Lang, who holds a master of divinity degree from Andrews University, has 18 years of youth ministry experience beginning as an intern in Kansas City, Kansas, United States. His successive youth ministries appointments have taken him around the country. Jere Patzer, president of the Adventist Church in the Northern Pacific area of the United States, told delegates Lang once turned down an executive appointment in order to remain active in youth ministry.
These appointments were the only new ones voted by the church’s executive committee during the autumn business meeting. Others whose positions were voted were already incumbent in their roles.
