On March 16, a federal judge in Florida heard the Seventh-day Adventist Church's complaint about the misuse of its name by a former member of the church.

The church officials requested a court order restraining the Eternal Gospel Church of West Palm Beach, Florida, from identifying itself to the public as part of the Adventist Church. (In 1981 the General Conference was granted a trademark on the name "Seventh-day Adventist.")

"The Seventh-day Adventist Church is asking that the Eternal Gospel Church stop identifying itself as a part of the Adventist Church when it has no organizational ties to our denomination," said Ray Dabrowski, General Conference communication director .

"The [Adventist] church brought this action to protect the integrity of its name. The defendant refused repeated efforts to resolve this dispute, making resort to legal process unavoidable. If an organization doesn't take steps to prevent the unauthorized use of its name, the name will become generic and can be used by anyone. Thus the protection afforded by the federal laws would be lost," Dabrowski said.

The Eternal Gospel church leader was neither ordained as an Adventist minister, nor was his congregation ever admitted as part of the church organization.

The West Palm Beach congregation is known for its full-page advertisements in major newspapers that are perceived by many readers as attacks on other religions. At the end of the closing arguments, Judge James Lawrence King took the case under advisement and gave legal counsel of both parties 15 days to present post trial briefs. – Adventist News Network

ADRA Worker Killed in Liberia
An Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) worker was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident in Monrovia, Liberia on March 17.

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of George Targbe, ADRA/Liberia technical supervisor," says Nagi Khalil, ADRA/Liberia country director. "He was a very capable and active ADRA worker."

According to Khalil, the accident occurred when the motorcycle Targbe was driving somehow collided with a pick-up truck. Targbe was en route to the Webbo Rural Teachers Training Institute (WRTTI) to supervise the renovations ADRA is doing there in preparation for a teacher training session.

"Although George was rushed to the hospital, nothing could be done to save him," explained Khalil. "He was pronounced dead by a doctor from Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) at 5:50 p.m."

The teacher training program at WRTTI was designed by the Ministry of Education as an emergency measure to give high school graduate teachers some basic knowledge and skills to upgrade their performance, and is part of ADRA Liberia's focus on education.

Hundreds of Youth at Santa Cruz Camporee
Some 1,300 Adventist youth held a camporee at the East Bolivia Mission's newly acquired propriety in Arboleda, Santa Cruz, March 3-7. This was the first event of its kind in the territory, reports Favio Ferraz, Bolivia Union communication and publishing director.

The event offered a training program with 10 seminars. All the ministers from various regions of
Santa Cruz were present at the Camporee together with their churches, along with the church leaders in East Bolivia and Boliva Union President Eric Monnier.

Los Angeles Responding to Hope Messages from Revelation
Mining the book of Revelation for its messages of hope for our day, the Revelation of Hope Satellite Series with It Is Written speaker, Mark Finley, is downlinking to more than 600 sites in North America.

Informal reports from nearly 150 churches indicate that a projected 45,000 persons are attending through- out North America, including 15,000 18,000 visitors.

At the host site near Los Angeles almost two-thirds of those attending on a continuing basis are
non-Adventist visitors, many of whom are affluent Orange County executives. Among them are a couple who have been searching for decades for a church. An Asian lawyer who is not a Christian is attending with his wife. She is a believer who told a Bible worker, "I am praying he will be baptized during the meetings!"

More than 40 churches are involved in hosting the ACTS 2000 Revelation of Hope meetings from Buena Park, California, either by supporting the meetings at the broadcast site, or as downlink sites in the L. A. Metro area. An average of 2,500 persons nightly attended the opening weekend meetings, March 3-5, with more than 2,000 visitors registered. The meetings continue through April 15. Visit the series website (www.revelationofhope.org) for more information.

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