Noelene Johnsson, Reporter

"Heard any good words lately? Think hope,” proclaim six tasteful banners on York Street.  Each banner pictures a smiling Adventist of a different age and culture, beginning with Cammie Valenzuela, age 5, from Silver Spring, Maryland. Their faces inject hope into my Toronto morning.

Hope is real at this General Conference session. You can feel it in hugs and handshakes. Hope helps us overlook our aching feet (the session covers at least a million acres!) and the jostling of the crowds. Hope shines on faces caught unawares by a roving video camera and flashed on the SkyDome supertron. And hope electrified last night’s division reports.

Hope and Energy Combine
The King’s Messengers, a jauntily attired vocal group from Kenya, set an upbeat tone for the evening with their song of hope in Jesus. Fred Kim Wangai, a 10-year-old Kenyan, fans hope by reciting Isaiah 53, bringing the ancient words to life. (This was not the first time someone moved us with a recitation of Scripture. Might this become a trend?)

The Southern Asia-Pacific Division launched their report with a colorful lineup of delegates spanning the 200-(nearly 70-meter) foot stage. A genuine jeepney, lights flashing (and emitting authentic fumes, I might add) carried division president Violeta Bocala across the arena to the foot of the stage. With high energy and humor, stories and video interspersed the report. We saw in frantic fast-forward a division “on the move” from Singapore getting established in the Philippines. Occupying 24,000-plus islands of the eastern Pacific, the division has adopted Isaiah 42:4 as their own: “The isles shall wait for His law.” People are coming out of Islam, animism, and Buddhism in gratifying numbers.

The colorful and gentle Southern Africa Union, under the leadership of Velile Wakaba, epitomized their theme: “Vision of Hope.” Their Soweto choir sang in English and the colorful tongue-clicking Xhosa language. The union’s video clips of an Adventist orphanage for children with HIV touched many hearts. Loving care providers are determined that, although the children are not expected to live past their fifth birthday, they will each be surrounded with love and bright hope for a future with Jesus.

Eastern Africa Division Report
Just 82,000 short of reaching a membership of two million, the Eastern Africa Division expects to be there by December 2000. Highlighting their report were stories and video clips, including a mass baptism of Masai tribal people, long impervious to the gospel, and an honest reporting of the devastation of AIDS in the countries of eastern Africa (34 million diagnosed; 12 million dead). Evangelism has adjusted to these new realities. We heard of HIV positive support groups, new homes for children orphaned by AIDS, and a huge housing development for the underprivileged constructed by ADRA/Africa.

Pro-Active Kids, a colorful group of children whose parents work at division headquarters in Harare, Zimbabwe, stole the show as they sang and moved under the direction of Dr. Mfuni, division Children’s Ministries director. (The US-owned Gymboree company would have been proud to own the group’s look-alike costume design.)

Theme of Hope Continues
With new hope for this day in Toronto and spurred by my reporting responsibilities, I arrive early to take a front seat in the SkyDome for the morning devotional talk by Jose Viana. He holds us spellbound with the story of a doctor refusing to treat the bloodied victim of a hit-and-run accident without the required cash deposit, only to find out after the victim dies that it was his son. Viana contrasts this doctor with the heavenly Father who risks everything to save us—even paying for our sin with His Son’s life at the cross.

“When we draw near to understand the cross,” Viana states, “we should beware lest we who think we know everything turn out to know nothing.” At the cross, furthermore, reconciliation is by divine initiative. If we are serious about imitating Jesus, we need to take the initiative for reconciliation. If we allow religious, racial, or gender differences to raise barriers between us, we have not understood the cross.

Business Alternatives
As I leave the SkyDome I pass a stream of delegates heading to their places for the business session that follows the devotional. The session planners, keeping in mind the 48,000 of us who are not registered to take part in the business sessions, planned plenty of other options to choose from. So, riveting as the discussion on remarriage and divorce promises to be for a second successive day, I opt to catch the Women’s Ministry meetings (as do 1,500 other people, 20 percent of them men) and then the exhibits.

Karen Ritchey, the Canadian-born featured speaker, tells of her specialized ministry of song that grew out of her personal loss of a son, stillborn. “I didn’t realize I could feel so much pain,” Ritchey admits. The audience apparently agrees; I notice people all around deeply moved. A woman behind sobs quietly as Ritchey sings “Roses Will Bloom Again,” a song about happy endings.

Vasti Viana, Women’s Ministry leader for South America, tells of a growing loss being felt by women in South America—the loss of shyness! “The department of Women’s Ministries, voted last session, is the best thing that happened to Adventist women,” she says, and I believe her. (The same could be said for Children’s Ministries, by the way!)

Dorothy Watts tells about the first Seventh-day Adventist to win a seat in the lower house of parliament in India. Kim Gangte, a college professor and an advocate for the downtrodden women and children, was not permitted by the opposition to campaign. In fact, she was kidnapped the day before the election. But she prayed and won by just 2,500 votes. “This is not because Kim Gangte is good,” she said in her victory speech, “but because my God is great.”

Excitement and Energy of the Exhibits
Probably the part of the session that I am drawn to most is the exhibition hall. This is a huge area, eight floors below the convention center where every Adventist with a mission enterprise sets up a booth and shares their energy and enthusiasm with anyone else who happens by. “Come down here, little lady,” an old friend from college days says. Gently she turns me around and leads me back to the very last row of booths. “Most people miss this,” she explains. “They think the exhibits end the row before.” And she is right; be sure to walk all the way to the walls in every direction at the exhibit area.

Highlights that caught my attention were Chaplaincy Ministries with their four sets of arms, Family Ministry’s huge handstitched mural depicting “A Picnic With Jesus,” Positive ID with the neat “Almost Home” hats and tees, Eden Valley Institute with their eight clinicians magically massaging away people’s stress, Sanitarium with their unbelievably good soy drink freebie, and the Global Mission camp-meeting with an ever-changing cast of musicians and reports.

Hope has many sounds, colors, and tastes in Toronto. Are you getting the good word?