Evangelism-related issues dominated the agenda of the recent annual meetings of the Adventist Church in the Africa-Indian Ocean region of the church. The annual meetings returned to the Ivory Coast last month after a political crisis in that country forced church leaders to hold last year’s annual meetings in Ghana.

Delegates to the meetings voted to train and equip 146,000 church members for outreach work. This was prompted by a recent initiative of the world church, entitled Go One Million, which aims to mobilize by 2005 1 million church members around the world to share their faith (see ANN April 19 and September 26).

Delegates discussed plans for a major satellite evangelistic series to be uplinked from Cameroon in 2002. Featuring Doug Batchelor from the North American-based Amazing Facts ministry, the meetings will be broadcast throughout Africa, Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia.

Leaders also discussed administrative matters including progress being made toward the goal of achieving self-supporting status for all administrative levels of the church in AID.

Lowell Cooper, vice-president of the world church, and other leaders also attended the meetings in the Ivory Coast. There are more than 5,000 churches and 1.5 million Seventh-day Adventists in the Africa-Indian Ocean region.