Seventh-day Adventists continue to influence the international temperance movement with the election of a church leader to the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or WWCTU.

Joy Butler is the WWCTU's new director of Christian outreach. She accepted the position at the organization's 36th triennial convention, held recently in Auckland, New Zealand.

"I have had misgivings about the WWCTU, but attending the convention has strengthened my commitment to it," says Butler, the director of women's ministries for the Adventist Church in the South Pacific. "The WWCTU might be an old organization, but it's an important organization with an important message."

Butler initially declined the position, "but once I realized the closeness of the connection between women's ministries and the WWCTU, I just had to accept."

That connection goes far back into Adventist history: One of the early leaders of the WCTU in the United States of America, writer Sarepta Henry, became an Adventist while a patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1896. She resigned as national evangelist for the WCTU in 1898 to implement, with the encouragement of Adventist church co- founder Ellen White, a plan for what she called "woman ministry."

The church's Women's Ministries Department works to prevent and eradicate abuse and poverty--social issues with strong links to drugs and alcohol--as part of its mission.

In other appointments, Margaret Martin, a member of the Adventist Church in Albany, Western Australia, becomes the new director of alcohol-free hospitality. "It is an honour to represent the WWCTU," says Martin. She speaks of the motto of the organization, "For God, home and every land."

"We work to protect the home and the family. The WCTU encourages Christians to stand up and be counted, especially on social issues." Martin will continue serving as president of the WWCTU [branch] in Australia, a position she has filled since 2001.

And Sarah Ward replaces Margaret Jackson, a member of the Adventist Church in Cambridge, New Zealand, who has served as president of the WWCTU for the past three years. Miss Ward has served as president for the WCTU in the United States of America since 1996.

About 150 people from 21 different countries attended the convention. Butler named India, Korea and the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway and Sweden, where membership totals about 7000, as regions of the world where the WWCTU receives the most support.

Butler says the number of young women impressed her: "They bring a freshness and enthusiasm to the organization."

Frances Willard, an educator, temperance reformer and women suffragist, created the WWCTU in 1883 during her 19-year term as president of the WCTU branch in the United States. The organization has held special consultative status with the United Nations since 1947. Anita Gudinchet, an Adventist from Switzerland, is the WWCTU's representative at the United Nations in Geneva.

Butler asks for reader's prayers. "I want to see the WWCTU grow. We have achieved a lot in the past 130 years, but we have a lot still to do. It is not time to give up."

More information on the activities of WCTU can be found at http://www.wctu.org [Brenton Stacey and Christian B. Schaeffler for ANN/APD]