WORLD NEWS & PERSPECTIVES
Two Children Killed as Boat Sinks With 22 Students in Bangladesh
wo children were killed when a boat transporting students from the Musuria Adventist Elementary School sank in the Musuria-Khal River, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) from Dhaka. Twenty other students survived, church officials report.
The accident occurred on November 24. Three days later searchers found the bodies of the young victims, ages 8 and 10. At press time, the cause of the accident was still unknown.
Regional church leaders have visited the homes of the victims and have met with local authorities. Adventist pastor Daniel Baidya, a relative of one victim, conducted funeral services for both children, one an Adventist and the other a Hindu.
The Adventist Church in Bangladesh, with a membership of 21,545, operates one college, five boarding academies, and 243 elementary schools. More than 6,000 financially disadvantaged children have access to Christian education through Bangladesh Children's Sponsorship Services, a subsidiary branch of the Adventist Church in Bangladesh.
--Bangladesh Union Mission/ANN/AR
NCU Student Found Dead After
March Against Violence in Jamaica
Just hours after more than 10,000 Adventists marched against violence through the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, on November 6, a student from the Northern Caribbean University (NCU), an Adventist Church institution in Mandeville, went missing. Four days later, his body was found near the main highway leading into the city.
According to Rhoma Tomlinson, public relations director for NCU, Joseph Burrowes, 22, a third-year student at NCU from the Bahamas who lived near the campus, went out Saturday evening, November 6, to a nearby restaurant and didn't return. The next day his car was found abandoned less than two miles from the restaurant.
"So far the police have not made any major breakthrough in the case, so it's quite a mystery what has happened," said Tomlinson a few days after the incident. "This has been devastating for our university, its faculty, staff, and students."
NCU has been offering counseling to all its students as they try to get past the recent tragedy and to somehow restore a sense of normal life, Tomlinson added. She also said that the institution has not previously seen this type of crime affect any of its students in its 70-year history.
Even though the tragedy did not happen on campus, the university has employed additional security.
Joseph Burrowes is survived by wife, Tammie, who is also a student at NCU, and two-year old daughter. --Inter-American Division/AR
Accrediting Body Notes Significant
Progress at Atlantic Union College
The Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges reaffirmed in November 2004 its action taken in December 2003 to place Atlantic Union College (AUC), located in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, on probationary status. The Commission wrote the following: "Enjoying new and effective leadership, Atlantic Union College has made much progress in addressing those concerns which led to the institution being placed on probation. Among other things, we note a strengthened and energized board, which gives evidence of better understanding and fulfilling it proper role; progress made in strategic planning; working toward an integrated administrative and financial system; rectifying problems in the financial aid area; developing a balanced budget; and enhanced fund-raising activities, which give evidence of success.
This progress is clear evidence that the institution has taken seriously and is working proactively to address the concerns cited by the Commission, resolution of which is essential for the college to survive and be successful." The Commission concluded its remarks by saying, "We hope that friends of the institution take heart from the positive observable change at the institution and continue their support of the college. Doing so will help assure the timely removal of the institution from probation."
Amid Obstruction, Adventists and Other Minority Religions Grow in Turkmenistan
Minority religions continue to grow in Turkmenistan, despite obstructions placed in the way of these groups, the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA) confirmed.
The Adventist Church in Turkmenistan has a membership of approximately 68 people. The church, which was registered by state authorities as a Protestant church in June, still does not have a place to meet, and is facing other obstacles in its daily work.
In November of 1999, the world community viewed images of a bulldozer beginning the demolition of an Adventist Church in Ashgabat. Nearly five years later, on June 1, 2004, Adventists, Baptists, and Baha'is were among minority religious groups granted government registration.
Detailing those obstacles, Protestant sources in Turkmenistan told Forum 18, an Orthodox Christian news service, that Olga Kholopova, an Adventist church employee, was summoned by the National Security Ministry secret police on November 8 and told that the church's registration would be removed if she continues to refuse to send her 12-year-old son, Timur, to school on the Sabbath, or Saturday.
"Kholopova was summoned by the ministry's 6th department, which deals with the struggle against terrorism," one Protestant told Forum 18. "Although officers were polite, she was threatened with a criminal case, a fine, and the denial of parental rights if she refuses to send her child to school on Saturdays. They also threatened to send her son to a special center for delinquent adolescents supervised by the police, and to strip the church of its legal status." The source told Forum 18 that officers dismissed Kholopova's attempts to explain the importance to Adventists of observing the Sabbath.
"This is also a religious freedom issue for Timur, because he is himself a believer," another Protestant told Forum 18.
The Protestant sources stressed to Forum 18 that Timur has had "excellent reports" in school and has not encountered problems with his studies. They also pointed out that although the Turkmen school week runs from Monday to Saturday, about half the school children in Ashgabat fail to turn up on Saturdays because they are helping their families at work in markets and elsewhere. Observers say, however, that registered groups reportedly have varying degrees of freedom. The only religious community to have unimpeded travel to Turkmenistan is the Russian Orthodox Church.
Members of the Adventist Church first organized the IRLA, chartered in 1893, in the United States. It is nonsectarian and promotes principles of religious freedom for all people everywhere.
For more than 100 years the IRLA has campaigned for human rights, including freedom of conscience, and has been at the forefront of calls for full religious freedom for all people in Turkmenistan. --ANN/AR
U.S. Loses Status as Majority-Protestant Nation
As reported in the Washington Times (July 21, 2004), the United States is predicted to lose its historic status as a majority-Protestant nation as early as this year, according to a recently released study by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
Times stated that "between 1993 and 2002, the proportion of Americans who said they were Protestants fell from 63 percent to 52 percent after decades of stability." The NORC study predicts that sometime this year or next, the proportion of Protestants will fall below 50 percent.
Protestants are identified in the study as "any post-Reformation Christian denomination."
Key factors NORC attributes to the decline include an increase in the number of Americans who said they had no religion and those who claimed religions other than Christianity or Judaism. Also, many young people and adults have been leaving Protestant denominations, and fewer Protestants are maintaining their faith as adults.
Roman Catholicism remains the nation's largest Christian faith, with more than 65.2 million members.
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