Papua New Guinea: Adventist Development Agency Leads Literacy Initiative Lae, Papua New Guinea | 30.03.2005 | ADRA An estimated 42 percent of males and 50 percent of females in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have no formal education. Only 56 percent of women over the age of 15 are literate. Around 50 percent of children of primary school age do not attend school. Statistics like this has led the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in that country to set up literacy programs in the Morobe, Central, Manus and Bougainville provinces. [img id=387 align=right]Volunteer village-based teachers or tutors use a simpl
Quake Hits Tsunami-devastated Nias Island Jakarta, Indonesia | 30.03.2005 | International Three months after the December 26, 2004, tsunami hit North Sumatra, Nias Island, with nearly 1 million residents, was devastated by an earthquake on March 28, March 28, with a magnitude of 8.7 on the Richter scale. The earthquake epicenter was 18.6 miles deep in the sea. The governor of North Sumatra said more than 1,000 people perished as of March 29. It further reported that 90 percent of the residents suffered the devastation and 80 percent of homes and buildings were destroyed at Gunung
Berlin Court Granted Jehovah's Witnesses Legal Status | 25.03.2005 | Religion + State A Berlin court ruled on March 24 that Jehovah's Witnesses are entitled to the same privileges enjoyed by Germany's major Roman Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran) churches, ending a 15-year legal fight about the group's public status. The administrative high court in the city-state of Berlin granted Jehovah's Witnesses the title of "a corporation under public law" with the right to collect taxes and construct buildings after rejecting the arguments of lawyers that they were not a lawful group
Portugal: Many Reached by New Media Lisbon, Portugal | 23.03.2005 | Bible The idea started with one person. Soon others joined in and now the "Mundo Biblico" (Bible World) CD-ROM is receiving acclaim on the Portuguese Christian scene, said Arthur Machado, communication director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Portugal. Distributed free, the CD-ROM provides a Web link and includes a Bible text, Bible commentary, photographs of Bible-related places, as well as video materials about Bible lands, antiquity and culture. "It was a private initiative of Joao Mig
New Adventist School and Community Center in Madrid to be Model of Integration Madrid, Spain | 22.03.2005 | International Seventh-day Adventists in Madrid recently approached municipal authorities to establish a multi-faceted community project, which includes a church, a school and a community center in the Eastern part of the country's capital. "We asked for a piece of land to build a church project that would help integrate the immigrant groups which we are currently experiencing in our church," said Alberto Guaita, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spain. "We received not only a warm welcome f
Adventist Church Support U.S. Workplace Religious Freedom Act Washington, District of Columbia/USA | 22.03.2005 | Religious Liberty The mainstream protestant Seventh-day Adventist Church last week joined with other U.S. faith groups to advocate for the rights of American workers to honour their faith and remain employed. At a March 17 news conference in the United States Capitol building, James Standish of the Seventh-day Adventist Church joined U.S. Senators Rick Santorum and John F. Kerry, Representatives Mark Souder, Carolyn McCarthy and Bobby Jindal, and a broad coalition of faith leaders to call for the passage of t
Turkmenistan: Adventist Church Services Permitted to Resume Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan | 22.03.2005 | Religious Liberty Five years and four months after it demolished a Seventh-day Adventist church building, the government of Turkmenistan has allowed the local congregation to hold a weekly worship service on Saturday (Sabbath). Church sources report that between 75 and 80 attended the event, including local city officials from Ashkhabad. "We were allowed to rent a [meeting] place and [it] will be available till the end of this year," Pavel Fedotov, who is also president of the Adventist Church in Turkmenistan
Adventist In Spain To Be a Voice of Tolerance, Understanding and Hope, Paulsen Exhorts Believers Madrid, Spain | 17.03.2005 | International APD Speaking to a gathering of nearly 3,000 members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Madrid, Spain, Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist world church, expressed condolences and solidarity with the nation on the day when Spain observed the first anniversary of the terrorist attack in Madrid, March 11. "We will remember. We will remember," he said. "These days are ... are symbols of a trauma," he stated, referring to consequences of the attack, which killed 191 people and w
Adventist, Salvation Army Delegates Meet in Second Bilateral Dialogue Jackson's Point, Ontario, Canada | 17.03.2005 | Ecumenism A second round of bilateral talks between doctrinal experts from The Salvation Army and the Seventh-day Adventist Church were held March 7 to 10 in Jackson's Point, a town 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Representing the Adventist Church were Dr. Bert B. Beach of the Council on Inter-Church Relations; Dr. Niels-Erik Andreasen, president of Andrews University; Dr. Andrea Luxton, associate education director for the world church; Biblical Research Institute director
Christian Communicators Call For A New Covenant For Europe Strasbourg/France | 14.03.2005 | Media The Assembly of the European Region of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) has called for a new social and moral covenant for Europe. "Openness to re-negotiating and sharing public communication space will be the first signs of this new covenant, and shared ownership and editorial decision-making its inevitable consequences", participants in the 10-13 March 2005 WACC Europe Assembly in Strasbourg, France said in their final statement. The estimated 50 Christian commu
ADRA Attends UN Commission on the Status of Women Session Silver Spring, Maryland/USA | 11.03.2005 | ADRA In celebration of International Women’s Day, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) International’s representative to the United Nations (UN) attended the 49th Session on the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-49), also known as Beijing +10. The ministerial-level review meetings, held February 28 – March 4 in New York City, occurred on the tenth anniversary of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and five years after the twenty-third special session of the Gen
Baghdad: Truck Bomb Causes More Damage To Adventist Church Baghdad, Iraq | 10.03.2005 | International A suicide truck bomb, which rocked the centre of Baghdad March 8 (Tuesday morning), broke the two remaining stained glass windows of the Baghdad Seventh-day Adventist Church. The concussion from the blast also shattered the floor-to-ceiling window, which separates the parents' room from the worship hall inside the building. The blast occurred close to the Ministry of Agriculture, just 100 metres from the church compound, at around 6.30 am local time. There were no church members inside the build
Jamaica: Symposium Addresses Spectrum of Human Rights Mandeville, Jamaica | 08.03.2005 | Religious Liberty Suppressing religious freedom, a fundamental human right, can lead to violence and societal damage, said Jonathan Gallagher, United Nations liaison for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. "One of the most frequent destabilizing factors in society continues to be the abuse of religious rights," he noted. Gallagher spoke at a symposium on "Human Rights and the Administration of Justice," sponsored by the Jamaican Ministry of Justice and Northern Caribbean University (NCU), held on the NCU Campus
GC Session 2005: Adventist Youth, Young Adults Training For Community St. Louis, Missouri/USA | 04.03.2005 | International For 400 Seventh-day Adventist youth and young adults from around the world, evangelism is personal. This group will be in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, June 29 through July 9, sharing the gospel with others at the same time that the Adventist world church will hold the General Conference Session 2005. The evangelism event, "Impact St. Louis," is an intense, two-week training and practicum using traditional and non-traditional methods of outreach, such as hosting a Christian café, learn
Adventist 2005 World Synod: 400 Reporters And Media Personnel Expected Silver Spring, Maryland/USA | 04.03.2005 | International The 58th General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will bring an international flavour to St. Louis, Missouri, the heart of the United States of America. The gathering from June 29 to July 9 will be representative of the nearly 30 million-strong Adventist Christian World family from around the globe, and will meet under a theme of "Transformed in Christ." "We are expecting at least 400 reporters and media personnel to be accredited with our newsroom operation in St. Louis
Adventist World Church: St. Louis General Conference Session Anticipation Builds St. Louis, Missouri/USA | 01.03.2005 | International As of March 1 only 120 days remain before thousands gather at the America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. for the 58th General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Anticipation is building for the quinquennial event, which runs June 29 to July 9, 2005, organizers say. The St. Louis convocation marks the first time Adventists have held their worldwide gathering in the United States in 15 years. Daily attendance at the event is expected to average more than 10,000 peo
Germany and Switzerland: Reaching Young People With the Gospel Using High-Tech Tools Zurich/Switzerland | 01.03.2005 | Media As with nearly everything else in today's society, options are also available when it comes to learning more about God. Between October and December of 2004 an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people in Switzerland and Germany were able to choose how they wanted to learn more about God. They did this by tuning in to the second Youth Satellite Evangelistic event orchestrated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The eight-night event, better known as "Link2Life," (L2L) allowed young people to physical
