HEN I WAS VISITING ADRA AUSTRALIA, Gail Ormsby, that office's director for marketing and public relations, asked me for an interview. Gail's first question, "Why did you choose to work for ADRA?" caught me a bit by surprise. It may have been the jet lag after the long trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Australia; but Gail's question jolted me back to when I first joined the Seventh-day Adventist workforce in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

The Best-Laid Plans
Fact is, I wanted to be a banker. But 30 years ago every offer from financial institutions or industry came with a Sabbath work requirement. So after several discouraging weeks of pavement-pounding, first to the banks and then to big businesses, it became clear that my dream of walking the halls of high finance would come only at a price I was not willing to pay.

That was when I traded a lifelong dream for eternally lifelong beliefs.

But what does any of that have to do with Gail's question? Well, I guess it says that I work for ADRA because of some very strongly held beliefs that are shared by our faithful supporters and church members. And because we each build our foundation on the same rock, I have high hopes that the combined pragmatic and spiritual roles of ADRA manifest themselves clearly as we present a ministry to the world that remains above the fray of the Enron and WorldCom debacles.

I hope you see that we will not compromise ADRA's manifestation of Christ's command to help those in need. I hope you know that every euro, dollar, pound, peso, or yen that is donated to ADRA will be used as efficiently and effectively as possible. I hope that the trust placed in ADRA by its supporters is bolstered by the fact that ADRA voluntarily submitted its financial and fund-raising practices for evaluation by the Council of Better Business Bureaus' "wise giving alliance," which found that ADRA meets all 23 of its stringent standards.

I hope that the results of our annual external audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which are published each year in our annual report, demonstrate how serious we are about transparency in our operations. On our Web site, www.adra.org, we also place our IRS Form 990, which provides a complete financial picture.

It's worth noting that in a recent study conducted among other organizations similar to ADRA, the average remuneration of a CEO or president is as much as three times what ADRA's president earns. This level of disparity also applies to other administrative and senior management staff. I raise this point to highlight the choice that ADRA workers make in remaining with the agency. As Seventh- day Adventists, we remain with ADRA because we have committed our lives to this unique agency and special work.

I hope that ADRA's supporters know that there is no other single humanitarian agency whose workers daily serve in more than 125 countries worldwide, some of which are the most dangerous and desolate places on this globeÑall for the single purpose of relieving the suffering of their fellow human beings.

At Work Around the World
I could not find the house again if I tried. The address is not listed in any directory. There are no number signs on the gate. It is completely anonymous. As it should be. It's a women's refuge.

When we think of ADRA, most of us think of the horrendous famines in Africa, hurricanes in Central America, earthquakes in India, or the typhoons in the western Pacific. Or we think of the child survival programs in Cambodia and the HIV/AIDS programs in Malawi. Or we recall the microenterprise programs in Azerbaijan and the education programs in Uganda, or the street children projects in Brazil. But what about the homeless in America, the pensioners in Russia, or the battered women in Australia? ADRA is with them, too.

She had come to the refuge the day before I visited. The details of her escape from the life that was effectively killing her are not important. What is important is that ADRA had a place of refuge, a place of safety.

In a community not far away, several churches had joined together and established an ADRA "op shop." In some countries it would be called a "thrift shop." Open daily on a busy side street and staffed by volunteers, that single shop produces the funding, more than $100,000 per year, to cover the operating cost of the women's refuge. Even though the local police and social welfare authorities are the primary referrals for ADRA's refuge, no government funds are available. ADRA's volunteer "op shop" is its sole support.

We Christians have no choice but to expend every effort and provide every available resource to create a place of safety for hurting children, women, and men, no matter who they are or where they are or what they believe. To do less is not an option, for it is what Christ has commanded us to do.

When I think back to the day I first realized that to accept a job in high finance would mean compromising everything I stand for, it's clear that I entered into an unequal trade-off. In choosing the church, and ADRA, I got much more out of the deal.

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Byron L. Scheuneman is senior vice president of Adventist Development and Relief Agency International.