ith this issue we mark nearly 140 years of Adventist health care, and in particular the centennial of our premier institution in the healing ministry--Loma Linda. There is much to celebrate: the story of these years is about transforming lives in the face of formidable obstacles.

In 1866 Seventh-day Adventists opened a medical institution in Battle Creek, Michigan. Housed in a remodeled eight-room home, painfully limited in trained staff, it was a modest beginning. It carried the forbidding name of Western Health Reform Institute, and began with just one patient. In reality it was a third-rate water cure center.

Adventists numbered only about 4,000 members in 1866. We lacked financial means and people of education. The decision to launch a medical institution was audacious.

The pioneers could not have foreseen what would come of their efforts. That against all odds this modest structure would flourish, expand, and in time spawn hundreds of other institutions across the United States and around the world. And that, in 1905, the new property purchased at Loma Linda would prosper and grow into a medical center renowned throughout North America and abroad.

Why did Adventists embark on a healing ministry? And why, with the huge challenges that providing such service entails today, do we stay with it?

First and fundamentally, because we are followers of Jesus Christ. He went everywhere, making men and women whole in body and soul. We seek to carry on His work.

Second, because we believe that the human body is valuable in itself. It was created by God and intended for His glory.

Third, because we believe that both natural law and moral law derive from the same God over all.

Fourth, because we believe that the gospel invitation is to a better, happier life right here on earth, as well as the promise of endless life with God.

We Seventh-day Adventists feel called of God to share this message of wholeness--of transforming lives--to the whole world. It is a message brought into sharp focus and given urgency by pointed instructions that came from pioneer leader and visionary Ellen G. White.

After some 140 years we still carry on this ministry. Despite the challenges of these changing times--hospital mergers and consolidation, breathtaking (but expensive!) new procedures, increasing governmental control, pressure from insurance providers--we try to provide excellent health care in the spirit of Jesus.

I thank God that we do. I salute everyone involved--doctors, nurses, chaplains, support staff, administrators, board members, and so on. I am proud of you.

And I am especially proud of all that the name Loma Linda represents. I praise God for these 100 years of making men and women whole.

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William G. Johnsson is the editor of the Adventist Review.