The Potomac Book and Health Food Store, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, made their grand opening in the new facility on April 9. The book store is designated the largest Christian store in the world by Christian Retail Magazine, commanding a 40,000 square foot space.

Church administrators in the Southeastern California area voted on March 16 to issue male and female pastors in their district with the same ministerial credentials. The Adventist Church at large chooses to recognize males who are set aside for gospel ministry as being “ordained,” while females are designated as “commissioned.” The vote brought a comment of “regret” from the world president of the Adventist Church, and the leadership of the church in North America urged that “no attempts be made to blur the line between ordination and commissioning.”

H.M.S. Richards Jr., speaker emeritus of the Voice of Prophecy international radio broadcast, died at age 70 of heart failure on April 11 at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. George E. Vandeman, renowned Seventh-day Adventist evangelist, author, and founder of “It Is Written,” died on November 3 at age 84.

Over 6,000 Seventh-day Adventist educators and their families participated in the largest gathering of teachers in the church’s history in Dallas, Texas from August 13 to 16.

More than 300 religious, civic, and diplomatic representatives from around the world gathered in Washington, D.C. on December 1 to acknowledge the 13 th annual World AIDS Day. Leo Ranzolin, a vice president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide, and Dr. Allan Handysides, health director for the Adventist Church worldwide, attended the summit where leaders remembered AIDS victims and acknowledged the extent of the work still to be done in effectively containing the AIDS epidemic. [ANN Staff]