hen the members of the North American Division Executive Committee came together for the Sabbath celebration on November 1, 2003, they heard a powerful story filled with evidences of divine providence. It was a story that spanned three generations and clearly showed how God's hand can bind the hearts of families living thousands of miles part in different countries and cultures.

The story began as Susan Patzer, wife of North Pacific Union Conference president Jere Patzer, told committee members about her childhood growing up in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her great- grandfather worked for the physician John Harvey Kellogg.

Though her mother left the church for many years, Susan received an Adventist education, attending Atlantic Union College. After marriage she bore two sons but still longed for a daughter. So the Patzers applied for an adopted child at the International Children's Care (ICC) in Guatemala.

After several months of waiting the Patzers got word that a 3-year-old child had been found. Unfortunately, the American embassy turned down all the paperwork. Months later the Patzer were notified of a 16-month-old baby girl. The child arrived during the 1985 General Conference Session in New Orleans.

At this point the Patzer's adopted daughter Carissa, now a freshman communication major at Walla Walla College, continued the story.

Carrissa,19, told about her birth in Amatilan, Guatemala, to unwed parents. Her grandmother cared for her while her mother, Sarah Leticia, worked in Guatemala City. When Carissa was one year old her grandmother became ill and could no longer care for her. Faced with the dilemma of having to give up her job to care for Carissa, Sarah decided to allow ICC to place the child for adoption.

Carissa quickly adjusted to her two older brothers. When Carissa reached age 10 she became a United States citizen and took her first international trip to Magadan, Russia.

In 2000, Jere Patzer was invited to hold a city-wide evangelistic series in Guatemala. About 70 seminary students had prepared the area for the meetings over several months.

As the time for the series approached, Carissa expressed a desire to meet her birth mother. Even though the probability was slim, ICC officials assured the Patzers that they would try to contact Carissa's birth mother.

It wasn't until the Patzer family reached Guatemala that they learned that ICC had been able to find Carissa's birth parents. A meeting with them was scheduled for the next day.

When Carissa finally met her birth mother, she got another surprise. Though unmarried, her birth father had been living with her mother because they could not afford the cost of a civil ceremony. She also learned that she had three siblings--an older sister, with children of her own, and a younger sister and brother.

After Carissa returned home she learned that her birth mother had begun taking Bible studies with a local pastor. Later Carissa's sisters, brother, and birth father also started Bible studies.

In February, 2001, Carissa returned to Guatemala and visited several congregations established after Jere Patzer's evangelistic series. But the highlight of the trip came when she witnessed Jere, her adopted father, baptizing her entire birth family.

Though Carissa was overjoyed to see her family join the Seventh-day Adventist Church, she was distressed to see the crude building the congregation worshiped in.

For the past two years Carissa has had a burden to build a new church building for the congregation in Tierra, Nueva. From telling her story in various meetings $26,000 has already raised toward the $58,000 project.

After Carissa's testimony, NAD leaders took up an offering, raising $5,000 more toward the building project in Tierra, Nueva.