The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Global Mission Operations Committee last week approved more than half a million dollars to help fund 343 projects to start new congregations around the world. Meeting at the Adventist Church’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, the group approved projects in Eastern Africa, the former Soviet Union, Central America, South America, and Asia.

“Global Mission pioneers will play a major role in most of these projects,” says Gary Krause, Global Mission communication director. “These lay volunteers have established the majority of new Adventist congregations in the world in the past 10 years. Because they’re working in their own culture, among their own people, and speaking the same language, they avoid many of the potential problems of cross-cultural mission work.”

Speaking at the committee, Mike Ryan, director of Global Mission, expressed thanks that in the wake of the events of September 11, Global Mission has not experienced the decline in donations that many charities have suffered. “We’re grateful that we have not had to cut funding to the various regions of the world church,” says Daisy Orion, Global Mission’s director for planning. “We look forward to being able to fund even more projects in the near future.”

Nineteen countries will receive funding including Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

Global Mission is the Adventist Church’s initiative to establish new groups of Christian believers in “unentered” areas of the world. For more information about Global Mission visit www.global-mission.org.