The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (GC) has reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to making investments consistent wth its ethical and fiduciary commitments.
The GC Corporation Board—the property holding body of the General Conference—met on March 20, 2018 to review and refine current investment practices of the General Conference.
We have all been there.
You listen, watch, or read a compelling report about the beneficial properties of a specific nutrition option on a respected media outlet. The report’s claims — it is emphasized — are backed by the latest science. You find yourself agreeing with what you see or hear—you are, so to say, ‘talked into it.’ As a ‘new convert,’ you go out immediately to purchase the advertised panacea fruit, vegetable, grain, or oil. Barely a few days later, however, you come across another health report on the nutrition item in question.
Results from a worldwide survey were presented to the members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s General Conference (GC) Unity Oversight Committee on March 20, 2018, during a scheduled meeting held at the world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Food and water.
Two of the most basic human needs became the driving force behind an unprecedented day of Adventist Youth involvement on the 2018 edition of Global Youth Day (GYD18), a 24-hour period dedicated to reach and serve local communities, on March 17, 2018. From Australia to Argentina and from India to Iceland and beyond, committed Seventh-day Adventist young people and their leaders provided hot meals, drinking water, free books and hugs, and moments of prayer and music to orphan children, urban passersby, senior residents, and others.
Known in Bangladesh for its emphasis on education[1], the Seventh-day Adventist church in Dhaka recently moved outside the classroom to offer education for an often-overlooked population. Leaders from three departments in the Bangladesh Adventist Union Mission (BAUM) provided a health program called Workshop & Seminar for Better Life for the guardians (caregivers) and parents of the largest Adventist school in Dhaka.
Lightning struck a Rwandan church on March 10, killing 15 members. More than 130 others attending divine services at the Gihemvu Seventh-day Adventist Church were taken to an area hospital and other health centers. Some of those treated have since been released.
Church leaders and government officials, including Abidan Ruhongeka, president of the South Rwandan Field and Mureshyankwano Marie Rose, the governor of the Southern Province of Rwanda, attended a special burial ceremony held Sunday, March 11.
“Do not get me wrong,” said preventive medicine expert Neal Barnard in his presentation at the Loma Linda’s International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition on February 27, 2018. “Soda drinks are very bad for your health. No question about it. But the truth is, they may not be what are making you fat.”
Barnard, who teaches at the George Washington University School of Medicine and chair the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington D.C., made this startling observation when discussing how plant-based diets can support obesity treatment efforts.
A common research search engine shows that studies of the gut microbial flora have skyrocketed in the last few years. Microbial genome, or the microbiome, seems to be a promising new area of research, said Michael J. Orlich, who teaches at School of Public Health at Loma Linda University.
It is not, however, a “new” science, he reminded. Its origins can be traced back to gut flora researchers from the 17th century onwards, including 19th-century studies on the benefits of yogurt consumption for gut health. It also includes former Seventh-day Adventist physician John Harvey Kellogg around the turn of the 20th century.
For Seventh-day Adventists, it may not be a big surprise to hear about the importance of prenatal influences on the life of the future baby. After all, it was Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White who penned over a century ago, “It is an error generally committed to make no difference in the life of a woman previous to the birth of her children. At this important period, the labor of the mother should be lightened. Great changes are going on in her system. It requires a greater amount of blood, and therefore an increase of food of the most nourishing quality to convert into blood. Unless she has an abundant supply of nutritious food, she cannot retain her physical strength, and her offspring is robbed of vitality” (Adventist Home, p. 256).
The dark night made it difficult to see the 450 listeners as all of them rose from their plastic chairs arranged in an open field. Some were coming forward to the wooden stage in response to the message that evening. As I watched the young and old starting to gather in the dusty dry clearing, my eye was drawn to an older gentleman led by the hand by a young lady. He was blind. We prayed for this newly committed group that God would keep them and build them up in the faith as we continued to study God’s Word night after night.
