Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church unanimously voted April 14 to put into action a plan to distribute globally 2 million copies of books written by Ellen G. White, one of the church’s founders.

Almost immediately, Dr. Robert O. Ford, an Adventist church member, said he would donate U.S. $50,000 towards the cost of the project. Dr. Ford is an ophthalmologist and cataract and LASIK surgeon who owns the Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute in Centralia, Washington, United States.

“I am pleased for the opportunity to have given the first donation to this most important project,” Dr. Ford wrote in an e-mail to church administrators. “I completely agree with [the] rationale for it.”

Called “Connecting With Jesus,” the book distribution project was initially presented at the 2004 Annual Council, the fall business meeting of the church’s leaders.

“We need to get these beautiful messages ... into the hands of thousands of believers who do not have access to them,” Ted N.C. Wilson, a vice president of the world church, told meeting attendees.

At the 2004 meeting, a document outlining the project said the need arises out of an apparent decline in Adventist readership of these volumes, despite a belief in their relevance to the church and its members today. Seventh-day Adventists refer to the writings of Ellen G. White as the “Spirit of Prophecy,” and her work continues to be a prophetic voice among Adventists.

Wilson stressed at the 2004 meeting that getting the 10 books, a small cross section of White’s writings, to believers was “crucial.”

The books, which will include study guides, will be distributed over a five-year period and financed by the church’s world headquarters, regional and local administrative offices around the world. The goal is for each Adventist family to have a set of the books. It was also suggested that each family who receives a set of these books would pay a fraction of the cost.