n estimated 100,000 people gathered at a stadium in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, July 6 for the opening night of a Seventh-day Adventist satellite evangelistic series that is being broadcast live around the world. The national government has relaxed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Port Moresby in order to accommodate people attending the two-week event, some of whom have traveled for days from remote regions of the country.

Barry Oliver, South Pacific Division secretary, reports that the crowd at Sir John Guise Stadium filled "every centimeter of the field and every seat in the stands. Thousands couldn't get in."

Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta opened the program July 6, speaking of the Adventist Church's impact in the country, and challenging Papua New Guineans to "bridge the divide growing between sections of society."

"Christianity has been one of the principal forces that has united the hundreds of tribes and the 850 distinct language groups that make up the 5 million people of Papua New Guinea," Morauta said. He added that his government recognized the material contribution of Christian churches to national development, including agriculture and trade in rural areas, as well as infrastructure such as schools and health centers, roads and water supplies. But it is in the area of human development that churches have been of immense benefit, he said. The Prime Minister had been scheduled to stay only 10 minutes,"but he stayed for an hour and a half and listened to Pastor Finley from beginning to end," reports Oliver.

The series is being televised live via satellite to the Philippines, Korea, the United States, Australia, the South Pacific island nations, Africa, and Europe.

Nightly attendance at the stadium in Port Moresby has continued at around 100,000 people, organizers say. Some 1 million people in the country are either watching a delayed broadcast of the program on television, tuning to a live broadcast on radio, or watching a live uplink via satellite at one of 40 sites across the country, says Kila Wari, organizing committee chairman

A blackout cut off power for 12 minutes at about 8:30 p.m. on July 8. The satellite equipment, powered by a generator, still worked, but the stadium lighting did not. "The crowd remained peaceful," reports Royce Williams, global television director for It Is Written. "Fortunately, the owner of the satellite allowed us extra time to complete the program." The city could not restore power to the stadium lights, though, so the police asked organizers to hold the crowd. Following closing prayer, Finley announced he would preach a second sermon. Two hours later, the police decided the crowd could return home.

The Adventist Church has been active in Papua New Guinea for almost a century and currently has more than 200,000 members nationally. --Adventist News Network

ACS Volunteers Assist in Flood Relief Efforts
in Houston, Baton Rouge, and Philadelphia
In mid-June, tropical storm Allison made her way across the US causing millions of dollars in damage. After flooding Houston for several days, the storm slowly moved over southern Louisiana, through Georgia and northern Florida, and up the East Coast to Pennsylvania.

In each area the storm hit, Adventist Community Services (ACS) volunteers pitched in to provide coordinated disaster response efforts. They collected donated goods, opened warehouses for distribution, went door-to-door giving out supplies, and fed the hungry.

In Houston, over 35,000 homes were affected by flooding, including that of an ACS volunteer. The Houston North Adventist Church was flooded, as was one pastor's car. During the week long cleanup, ACS volunteers from the Texas and Southwest Region Conferences, working from mobile units and on foot, combed the hardest hit areas and distributed comfort packets to those in need. Comfort kits contain pants, shirts, underclothes, socks, blankets, towels and wash cloths, combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ACS worked with the Louisiana State Office of Emergency Preparedness and set up three distribution centers, aiding more than 5,000 residents. Local television and radio stations publicized information about ACS' work with live shots of the distribution centers where 89 ACS volunteers served. No Adventist church was affected, but two Adventist families sustained damage to their homes.

In Philadelphia about 300 homes were damaged by flooding and six casualties reported as a result of an apartment building explosion. The natural gas explosion was related to flooding complications and caused the building to collapse. In response, Pennsylvania and Allegheny East Conference ACS volunteers set up a distribution center at the Bucks County Adventist Church and provided 25 families with food, cleaning , and kitchen supplies, etc. They also visited flooded areas in a trailer to seek out those in need. Three network affiliate television stations ran reports on how the Adventists helped with relief efforts.

New Russian Stamp Portrays Adventist Church Building
The Russian postal service has issued the first Russian stamp portraying an Adventist Church building. The new stamp, featuring the Ryazan Adventist Church, is part of a 14-stamp series that will includes Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist, buildings, says Valery Ivanov, communication director for the Euro-Asia Division.

By including Adventists and other minority faiths in the series, Russia has validated the status of these groups as traditional religious organizations which have the right to operate under Russian law, Ivanov explains. "It's a great opportunity and a constant reminder of our existence."

The Ryazan church was selected was selected partly because its design is typical of Protestant churches in Russia. The building was constructed in the mid-1990s under the sponsorship of the Faith Fort Today television ministry.

V. V. Fedulov, director of the central Moscow post office, reports that the Adventist stamp was nearly sold out within two days, prompting the postal service to order a second printing.

News Note
Randy Schell, an anesthesiologist at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California, is currently on "The Unforgettable Ride," a 4,300-mile bicycle trek across the United States that will raise funds for The Unforgettables Foundation, a Redlands, California based organization that helps Inland-area families pay for their children's funerals.

"I just want to experience the people of the United States in their little towns with my wife and kid with the realization that I'm helping other people," said Schell.

A Redlands, California, resident, Schell began his journey May 27 in Anacortes, Washington, and plans to finish by early August in Bar Harbor, Maine.

The Unforgettables Foundation is a California Non-Profit Benefit Corporation that provides funds, based on a sliding scale, for burial service and memorialization of deceased children of financially challenged families.

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