During what perhaps became the most attended church workshop, 17,000 young people participated in a training seminar via satellite in eight South American countries in one day. The three-hour live program was broadcasted on December 3 in Portuguese for Brazilian youth leaders, and was repeated in Spanish in the afternoon for audiences in Brazil and the Spanish-speaking countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

“It is exciting to think that after this satellite seminar most youth leaders in our region will be informed about church plans and strategies for next year,” said Jose Maria Barbosa, youth leader of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South America.

“In the past, to communicate such a church program throughout the territory, it was necessary to spend hundreds of hours traveling, hold lots of meetings, send many letters and faxes; and even then, many people were uninformed. Now we can speak instantly to everybody. It is astonishing-absolutely great!” he said.

The program was facilitated by the South American-based church television facility, ADSAT-New Time. According to Williams Costa Jr., ADSAT director, the broadcasting center coordinates more than 5,500 installed antennas in the South and Inter-America region. “I am convinced that television, Internet and radio are literally the angel flying in the sky, taking the last message to a dying world,” said Costa.

The South American network is part of a global satellite system, known as Adventist Global Communication Network (AGCN), and operated by the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church. The global network is primarily local church based. Until recently, most of the AGCN satellite broadcasts have primarily featured satellite evangelism. In 1999 the church in Euro-Africa region attracted 13,000 participants in nearly 500 churches who participated in a live Stewardship Training Seminar.