News Briefs for June 16, 2017
Stories from Kazakhstan, United States, Kenya, Florida, Ghana, Oregon, Latin America and resources for young adults and for you …….
Pastor Yklas Kabduakasov who was sent to prison in late 2015 for sharing his Adventist faith was released last October it was announced yesterday by Forum 18, the human rights organization based in Norway. The 55-year-old pastor was tricked into conducting a public group presentation that is unlawful in the Central Asian country by a group of students who asked for him to talk about his religion and rented an apartment to meet in. They were undercover agents for the police, according to Forum 18. Kabduakasov told Forum 18 that he had strong moral support from Christians around the world during his prison term, with letters arriving every day. Kazakhstan was a part of the old Soviet Union and 70 percent of its 18 million residents are Muslims. Adventist Today previously reported on his prosecution and imprisonment. (From APD)
Pastor Clyde Franz who served as executive secretary of the Adventist denomination’s General Conference (GC) from 1970 to 1980 died May 24 at age 104, the Adventist News Network announced this week. He was born in 1913 to missionary parents in Cuba, graduated with an accounting degree from Southern Missionary College in 1932 and served as secretary-treasurer for three conferences in the American South and Midwest before becoming a missionary in the Caribbean. He was an officer of the Inter-American Division from 1954 to 1966 when he was elected an associated secretary of the GC.
The cabinet minister for education in Kenya, Dr. Fred O. Matiang’i recently announced the dates for national exams required to complete primary and secondary school in the country. None of the three dates presents Sabbath conflicts, probably because he is an active member of the Parkland Seventh-day Adventist Church. Nearly one million candidates for primary school diplomas will take their exam on October 31 and more than half a million candidates for high school diplomas will take their exams on November 3 and 29. Matiang’i was Eastern Africa representative for the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs at the State University of New York before he was appointed to the cabinet in 2013. He is being talked about as a future candidate for the nation’s president, according to an Adventist Today source in Africa. (Tysan)
The Adventist hospitals in Tampa (Florida) have opened Express Care clinics in 15 Walgreens drug stores in the metropolitan area. The purpose is to make health care more accessible for local residents and the clinics will operate seven days a week with evening hours. The locations are in Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties. (From news release)
The Adventist denomination in Ghana has expressed appreciation for a decision by the national government to return mission schools to the control of the religious bodies that founded them. Dr. Chris Annan-Nunoo, executive secretary of the Southern Ghana Union Conference, was quoted by Ghana Business News last week stating that the decision would the high moral decadence among students. There are about a half million Adventists in the country.
Adventist Health has announced a partnership with the local public health board in Vernonia, Oregon. The Adventist Health Tillamook Medical Group will begin operating the Vernonia Health Center in the small town on July 5. It specializes in providing rural health care.
More than half of the 40 million copies of 2017 Adventist outreach book have been distributed in Latin America, reports Pastor Almir Marroni, director of publishing ministries for the denomination’s South American Division. The “Missionary Book of the Year” has a long tradition among Adventists, but changes in media and the cultures of North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have greatly reduced participation in those areas. Latin America has emerged as the contemporary hot spot for this kind of activity.
Do you know an Adventist teen or young adult with a creative idea, a dream they would like to implement? Pastor Don Keele, the youth director of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference would like to know about them even if they are not located in his territory. Send names and contact information with a brief description by Email to dkeele@gccsda.com and mention Adventist Today. (Thanks to Omar Miranda and the North American Division Adventist Campus Fellowship network.)
Seven presentations videoed at the recent Young Adult Summit convened by the Columbia Union Conference are now available for you to view on the Web. Click here to see them.
Would you like to experience camp meeting without taking the time and energy to camp out for a weekend or a full week? The Washington Conference in the Pacific Northwest (United States) will be live-streaming major speakers on the Web starting today and through the next ten days. Click here to access the schedule and the live-streaming connection.
