2001 closes with headlines dominated by uncertainty and violence. In Adventist News Network’s Year in Review, we look back at just a few of the stories covered by ANN this year—stories of faith, of action, of tragedy, but most of all, of hope. In an address to church leaders in September, Seventh-day Adventist world church president Pastor Jan Paulsen reminded believers that Adventists are people of hope.

“God is the one who owns the future and who decides finally how it shall look,” he said. “God will end it all, at His chosen hour, but until then we must attend to our personal readiness and we must attend to the mission we have been given by Him to accomplish.”

Reflecting on the events of September 11, Paulsen spoke about the false sense of safety and security offered by material things. “As I wake up every morning I must be clear about what I can walk away from without my life collapsing,” he said. “As I lie down to sleep every evening I must be able to know for myself, personally, that when all is said and done, when the ‘lid is closed and the ribbon is tied’ on all my earthly possessions, to know Christ is quite enough.”

“I can do without the goods I have collected,” he added. “I cannot do without Christ. That is how I would like to face the end-times.”

“Fear and questions about what will come next are constantly pressing in on us and our communities,” Paulsen added.  “That is the way the world is, and we are part of the suffering world. But we are also Adventists, and we long for Him to come back and close this chapter on human suffering. And to that end we live our lives, make our choices, and engage in His mission.”

Adventists and Mission

“Go One Million,” a plan to recruit, train, and equip 1 million Seventh-day Adventist lay people for evangelism before the next Adventist World Session in 2005, was approved April 19 by the Adventist Church’s executive committee. Global Mission director Michael Ryan said the plan “builds on the commitment to mission that already exists within the international Adventist community.” From France, to Peru, to Tanzania, ANN covered stories that graphically demonstrated this commitment to sharing the Christian message of hope with those who need to hear it.

More than 3,000 people were baptized in Butuan City, Mindanao, Philippines, on January 27 following a three-week lay evangelistic effort. In Cuba, an evangelistic outreach series in February drew 15,000 people a night, marking the first time in 42 years that a Protestant evangelistic program had been held in a public venue in Cuba.

Hundreds of Adventist women across Mozambique participated in an outreach education program in February organized by Carolina Lubambo, women’s ministries director for the Adventist Church in the region. Some 500 hundred women completed the three-week course. Lubambo reported that several hundred people were baptized as a direct result of the enthusiasm and activity of these women.

In March, Adventist leaders in Eastern Africa committed to train and equip 100,000 Global Mission pioneers to establish new Adventist congregations in so-called “unentered areas.”

Also in March, Global Mission reported that the number of Adventist Church members in Bangladesh had more than doubled in the past five years to more than 25,000.

An estimated 100,000 people gathered at a stadium in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, July 6 for the opening night of an Adventist satellite evangelistic series that was broadcast live around the world. Some people traveled for days from remote regions of the country to attend the two-week event.

In June, Global Mission announced that a major construction project of 100 new elementary schools and 150 new churches had begun in Myanmar, formerly Burma. The project is being organized and funded by Adventist Laymen’s Services and Industries.

In Mwanza, Tanzania, 15,000 people gathered each evening at a stadium for a three-week satellite broadcast that reached hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, India, and Europe. “Africa for Christ 2001,” held in June, represented a “historical technological event” for the country of Tanzania, said the regional commissioner for Mwanza, who opened the satellite meetings. Following the series, more than 10,000 people were baptized in what Tanzanian Adventist Church leaders called the largest baptism ever in the history of the church in East Africa. Some 40 Adventist pastors from across Africa baptized more than 2,800 people at a single site at Lake Victoria. On the same day, more than 7,000 people were baptized at sites around south Nyanza and surrounding regions.

Bold Batsukh was ordained August 4, becoming the first Mongolian to enter the Adventist Church ministry. Ten years ago, there were no Adventists in Mongolia.

In September, leaders meeting at the Adventist Church’s world headquarters voted a “Hope in Crisis” initiative, to be implemented by each of the church’s 12 world divisions. It is a plan for the church to be intentional about “connecting people with eternal values in times of crisis.”  Adventists in North America are pioneering the initiative in New York City as part of their response to the terrorist attacks. Each of the church’s 58 conferences in North America has been challenged to send at least one pastor, evangelist, or lay person to New York for six months to live, work, and get to know people in their neighborhood, said Don Schneider, president of the church in North America.

Youth in Action

Youth leaders from more than 150 countries gathered in Aguas de Lindoia, Brazil, for a Youth Leadership Congress March 22 through April 1. Also in April a record 5,000 youth delegates from the United States, Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Africa attended the United Youth Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The young people marched through downtown calling for an end to school and community violence.

Pathfinders, an Adventist organization dedicated to assisting the social, spiritual, and physical development of young people, received special recognition from the Brazilian House of Representatives April 26 with more than 350 uniformed Pathfinders present at the ceremony.

John Hancock, a driving force behind the Adventist Church’s international Pathfinder Club movement and its student missionary program, died on February 22 in Yucaipa, California, at 83.

Religiously active youth have higher levels of self-esteem than their counterparts who are not religious, according to a study presented at the American Psychological Association annual convention. Researchers said religious involvement appears to have the largest impact on how early adolescents evaluate themselves. “This affirms that church changes lives,” said Baraka Muganda, youth director for the Adventist world church. “We build good citizens by providing skills they can apply in their own lives.”

Freedom and Faith

In the last quarter of 2001, religious conflict, intolerance, and religious fundamentalism have been under the public media microscope. Throughout the year, Adventist News Network continued its coverage of the Adventist Church’s response to these trends. For more than a century, Adventists have promoted principles of religious liberty, arguing that the decision to believe, or not to believe, is an intensely personal, God-given choice, which society has a responsibility to protect.

Religious intolerance and religious extremism are on the rise, according to the 2001 Religious Freedom World Report released late this year by the public affairs and religious liberty department of the Adventist world church. The goal of the annual survey, which is sent to governments and human rights organizations around the world, is to “promote values of religious freedom and to give a voice to all those around the world who are suffering for their faith,” said John Graz, the church’s public affairs and religious liberty director.

During 2001, the government of Turkmenistan continued its widespread campaign of repression against religious minorities, despite its pledge to protect the basic human rights of its citizens. News agencies reported in January that police raided Christian gatherings in private homes and, in some instances, were confiscating homes used for worship services.

“Freedom to worship is a God-given right and should not be compromised; principles of freedom of conscience should be respected,” said Adventist Church president Pastor Jan Paulsen during his two-day visit to Fiji in late February. Paulsen urged reconciliation, an issue high on the nation’s public agenda. Last year, Fiji was thrown into a violent confrontation in the wake of a national coup.

Delegates attending an International Religious Liberty Association conference in Bermuda passed a resolution March 16 condemning religious freedom violations, focusing in particular on the central Asian country of Turkmenistan.

In May, the French Senate voted in favor of a controversial law aimed at regulating religious minorities. The law may encourage and, in some ways, legalize discrimination against religious minorities in France, said John Graz, public affairs and religious liberty director for the Adventist Church.

In the United States, the Supreme Court ruled in June that members of a Christian youth club could meet after hours on public school property without violating the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state. It was a decision applauded by Adventist leaders who said that the Constitution does not mandate state hostility toward religion.

In August, three Adventist organizations joined a legal challenge against a National Labor Relations Board ruling that a religious college in Montana must allow its faculty to organize a labor union.

The Nigerian Association of Adventist Lawyers met with government officials in October, requesting that future elections, exams, and other mandatory activities not be held on Saturdays so that Sabbath-keepers can also participate.

Principles of religious liberty must be understood and embraced not only by Romania’s political leaders, but by members of the general public as well, said Viorel Dima, key organizer of an unprecedented series of public meetings and seminars held in October throughout Romania. Hundreds of people representing a broad cross-section of Romanian society attended the public rallies and training events.

In November, ANN learned that the order to destroy an Adventist church in Turkmenistan November 1999 came from the president of the country. Also in November, six Adventists were arrested while meeting in a private apartment in Turkmenabad, Turkmenistan. Several hours later the group was released from police custody, but authorities seized all their religious books and audio and video materials.

Venezuela’s first national association dedicated to the promotion and defense of religious liberty was launched in November by the International Religious Liberty Association, a non-sectarian organization started by Adventist leaders last century.

September 11

ANN began its coverage of the Adventist Church’s response to the terrorist attacks just after midday on September 11. “Even in the face of this disaster, we cannot just throw our arms up in despair,” said Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist world church, at a special meeting with staff at the church’s world headquarters two hours after the first attack.

“We have been brutally reminded of how fragile our lives are, and how fragile the structures that surround us are,” said Paulsen. “We need our Lord. We desperately need for our Lord to return, He is the only secure future we have.”

Nine Adventist Church members were among the thousands of people killed in the tragedy that hit the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. On the weekend following the attacks, Paulsen along with Don Schneider, president of the church in North America, addressed the world church in a television program entitled “A Seventh-day Adventist Response to the U.S. Tragedy,” which was broadcast over the Adventist Church’s worldwide satellite network.

In the aftermath of the attacks, religious liberty director of the Adventists world church John Graz said that it is vital to guard against stereotyping of people based on religion or ethnicity. “There is a very natural reaction of wanting to assign blame,” he said, “but in this time of international distress, we must be sure that the innocent do not pay for the acts of the guilty.”

Expatriate Adventist Church employees and their families were removed from Pakistan following the terrorist tragedy and police guards were placed outside church buildings during all meetings.

ANN also tracked the tremendous volume of response from Adventist Church leaders and members around the world, printing just some of the hundreds of messages of support and expressions of horror that began pouring into the Adventist world headquarters from every continent. Children from Germany sent hand-painted sympathy cards, which included messages such as “Dear children in America, I think of those who have lost loved ones and pray for them,” and “I have compassion for you.” In Washington D.C., a pastor developed a page of talking points to help families talk about their reactions to the tragedy.

In the weeks following the tragedy, Adventist Church president Jan Paulsen challenged Adventists to look beyond their preconceived ideas of Afghanistan and to see the immense human suffering of the Afghan people. “There are 25 million people in Afghanistan, 99 percent of whom are victims,” he said. “And they are as much human beings, loved by God, as you and I are.”

Health and Health Care

The tragic impact of the deadly HIV virus was the focus of a speech by Botswana President Festus Mogae, speaking at an Adventist youth conference in Gaborone, Botswana, early this year. “There is no greater tragedy that has hit the world than the AIDS epidemic,” said Adventist health director Dr. Allan Handysides, who also spoke at the event. “This is an issue that the church has recognized as a problem. The difficulty is that it’s not a simple problem.”

Cameroon’s ambassador to the United States said the Adventist Church in his West African nation is well-positioned to play an important role in responding to the country’s HIV/AIDS crisis. “The best thing we can do is to concentrate on prevention,” he said in a May reception at the Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.

Church administrators voted September 27 to establish an office that will provide “leadership and focus” for the church’s response to the HIV epidemic. The new Office for HIV/AIDS Ministry will initially be established on the continent of Africa, which has some 25 million of the world’s 36 million people currently living with the virus. The example of Jesus’ healing ministry on earth impels the church to take this step to bolster its response to HIV/AIDS, said health ministries director Dr. Allan Handysides.

In 2001 the Adventist Church had many opportunities to affirm its anti-tobacco stance. In June the church voiced its support for a new Canadian law that requires tobacco companies to include more visual health warnings on their packages.

Adventist health leaders spoke out against tobacco companies in the United States that continued to buy advertising space in youth-oriented magazines. Violating a 1998 agreement, four companies spent a total of $127 million promoting brands popular with youth.

Dr. Allan Handysides, director of health ministries for the Adventist Church, said that Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco company, was shown in its true light after it issued an apology for a study commissioned by one of its affiliates. The study showed that the Czech Republic saved money on health care, housing, and pensions due to smokers dying prematurely.

During April, the church launched a new stop-smoking program aimed at cutting rates of smoking among women. “For the first time, rates of smoking among women are drawing equal to those of men,” said Ardis Stenbakken, women’s ministries director for the Adventist Church worldwide. “The ‘Breathe-Free for Women’ program is a direct response to this trend; it has been developed by women, for women.”

Adventist Church leaders in Russia voiced strong support for legislation, passed June 22 by Russia’s lower house of parliament, which aimed to restrict smoking in public places.

In November, the governor-general of Papua New Guinea launched “Action on Smoking and Health—Papua New Guinea,” an Adventist-driven organization aimed at combating the country’s rising rates of tobacco addiction.

The Guam Adventist Medical Clinic was torn by violence in February when a man fatally shot two women, including his ex-wife, and wounded four others.

The sale and closure of the 90-year-old Warburton Hospital and Health Resort in Victoria, Australia, during March marked the end of an era. The Adventist owned and operated institution was well known for its wholistic health programs that attracted guests from around Australia.

Adventist Church leaders spoke out against the world’s first euthanasia law after the Netherlands passed legislation in April outlining conditions for legal “mercy killings.” Church health director Allan Handysides said Adventists have a role to play in helping others see the vast moral gulf between withdrawing life support systems in some circumstances, and engaging in euthanasia.

In May, a medical team at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital implanted the world’s smallest pacemaker—just 12.8 grams—in a two-month-old baby.

A new medical research center to be run by Loma Linda University, California, was opened at the Kabul University Medical School in Afghanistan on July 4.  After the outbreak of war in the region two Adventist nurses postponed their planned move to Kabul to work at the center. 

Results of a 12-year health study of 34,000 Adventists in California, United States, were released in July. They showed that lifestyle habits practiced by many Adventists contribute to a longer-than-average life expectancy. The group of Adventists appeared to be the longest-lived population that has ever been studied and described in a formal way.

According to another groundbreaking Loma Linda University health study, eating a handful of nuts a day, specifically pecans, can significantly lower cholesterol and risk for heart disease.

Church Matters

As one of the world’s fastest growing Christian denominations, the Adventist Church is facing the challenge of caring for its rapidly expanding global community, and ensuring that new members are nurtured and sustained in their faith, said church leaders meeting at the world church headquarters in April. They voted a strategic plan that will help chart the future course of the Adventist Church worldwide. The plan identified three core values—quality of life, unity, and growth—as strategic values the church must embrace in order to move forward in mission and be prepared for future challenges.

In May, Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist world church, challenged believers everywhere to transform the spirit of Adventist churches, making them places where people “feel warm and wanted, safe, secure, accepted and free.” Speaking at Southwestern Adventist University, Paulsen said, “Our churches are not to be an exclusive club for those who are good enough, or worthy . . . [Sinners] are meant to be received warmly into our churches, for that is their rightful home. What kind of spiritual climate are we creating in our churches?” He added, “If your church is not the most appealing and attractive spiritual fellowship in your community, what are you going to do to change that?”

In October, Adventist world church secretary Matthew Bediako called the current church growth rate “strong.” He reported that the church officially passed the 12 million-member mark in June this year. Over the past five years, an average of 2,400 new believers joined the Adventist Church each day.  By the end of this decade, the denomination will have a total membership of 20.4 million, if the average growth rate of the past decade continues, said Bediako.

Humanitarian Assistance

In January, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency provided food, fuel, transportation, and shelter to assist emergency efforts following two massive earthquakes in El Salvador. Another relief effort was launched following the January 26 earthquake in Gujarat, central India, in which an estimated 100,000 people died.

In February, ADRA delivered food staples to some of the 70,000 people who fled flood waters in central Mozambique—a disaster that killed at least 40 people.

After being taken hostage by armed militia March 8 and then detained by the government of Sudan, Peter Lujana, a Sudanese national working for ADRA, was released. “It is a relief to have Peter restored to his family,” said Ralph Watts Jr., then president of ADRA. Three other hostages—all ADRA employees—had been released earlier. Two people were killed in the attack on the compound.

More than 100 people were killed and 1,100 injured after a magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit southern Peru and northern Chile in June. ADRA aided survivors in the region by distributing blankets, drinking water, and tents to 1,000 families.

As people in Afghanistan fled violence in their homeland, ADRA provided water and tents to thousands of refugees on the Afghan border at a camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, and on remote river islands in Tajikistan.

Ralph S. Watts Jr., ADRA president for 16 years, announced his retirement in August. Charles Sandefur, former president of the church in the mid-America region, United States, will head up the agency in the New Year.

Best Wishes for 2002

The staff of Adventist News Network and the General Conference Communication Department wish you a very happy and peaceful 2002. Thank you for your kind support as we communicate news about the progress and challenges of the Seventh-day Adventist Church around the world.

[Adventist News Network bulletins will resume January 8, 2002.]