BY ADVENETIST NEWS NETWORK STAFF / ADVENTIST REVIEW STAFF

he nearly $66,000 offering collected during worship service on the first Sabbath, July 2, of the General Conference session will help fund Hope for Big Cities, a worldwide urban outreach by the Adventist Church to plant new churches in more than 55 of the world's largest cities. Two other offerings have already been collected during 2005 for the project.

In 1950 only 18 percent of developing countries' populations lived in cities; soon, that number is predicted to be half of those nations' populations. The Hope for Big Cities initiative seeks to reach these major population groups.

The first offering was gathered April 9 in Adventist congregations outside of North America. Churches in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda had a collection for the project three weeks later, on April 30.

Target cities will include Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with a population of more than 2 million; Mexico City, Mexico, with more than 22 million; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Experts predict that by 2015 the rapidly growing areas of Johannesburg, Pretoria, and their satellite towns will become a single megalopolis, the 12th largest city in the world.

In North America many large cities have been relatively untouched by the Adventist Church. More than 80 percent of North Americans live in metropolitan areas, but most Adventists don't. Only one in three Adventist congregations is located in big cities.

Montreal, Canada, will be the North American target city.

For more information, go to www.hope4cities.org.

YESTERDAY AT THE SESSION

The Unbroken Web

BY BILL KNOTT

er feet moved restlessly on the achingly slow down escalator from the main level of the Edward Jones Dome. She clearly wanted to run down the long flight of moving steps, but a sense of propriety held her back. There was no point engaging her in conversation or even extending a greeting as we descended at the speed of crawl.

Waiting below was the focus of her impatience. Another Korean woman, also dressed in traditional national garb, stood at the bottom of our descent, arms already extended, eyes alight with expectation. I watched as the two middle-aged women fell into each other's arms with sighs and tears and expressions of joy so obvious that a knowledge of Korean was not at all required.

A thousand such scenes play out in the hallways and stairways of this immense convention center every day. They are so common and so frequent as to be ignored among the headlines, news releases, and elections of this quinquennial gathering. And yet they are, in an unheralded but entirely real way, the truest story of this session, the most enduring report from a 10-day gathering that has generated much "hard" news as well.

The friendships among God's remnant people are the real worldwide web through which this session's impact will be felt. We tend to speak as though the church is composed of a series of ascending units, each exercising broader and greater powers. In reality, it is held together by tens of millions of friendships, gossamer but entirely substantial ties of affection, warmth, news, and common interest.

Friendships are the real route by which news travels, leaders are evaluated, inspiration is transmitted, witness is carried on. They give this massive assembly its flickers of incandescence, some promise that its light will last well past the ninth of July.

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Bill Knott is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.