The estate of Seventh-day Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G.
White is scheduled for an eight-month remodeling project that will offer an
enhanced visitor center. Starting August 15, the Ellen G. White Estate will be
unavailable for tours and research at its location on the lower level at the
Adventist Church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United
States. The area is scheduled to reopen in mid-April 2015.
During the eight-month closure, regularly scheduled tours of the Church’s headquarters will still be offered, and for research scholars and interested members can visit one of the Estate’s 23 regional centers located throughout the world. The Ellen G. White Estate
currently features a research library, many of White’s original manuscripts,
memorabilia, and art specifically created for the estate. Leaders said the
redesign will offer more interactive displays and exhibits.
“We want people to have an enhanced museum experience and come
away from it knowing something they didn’t already know about Ellen White,”
said White Estate director James Nix. “We also hope it will motivate people to
read more of her writings.” Books by Ellen White are still widely published
nearly 100 years after her death in 1915.
During the closure, White Estate employees will work in other
areas of the Church’s headquarters.
Upon re-opening, the Estate will offer a
tour that teaches visitors about the beginnings of the Adventist Church,
exhibits that feature a timeline of Ellen White’s life, information about her overseas
missionary experiences in Europe and Australia, and a mural with narration in
five languages.
One exhibit will highlight Ellen White’s ministry as a writer.
Nix said the display will include copies of White’s book Steps to Christ in more than 100 languages. Also, a room will be
recreated to demonstrate how Adventists in former Communist countries
translated her books in secret to avoid detection by police who often listened
for the sound of typewriters.
The renovation project has been contracted to Flip TV, a production
company based in Laurel, Maryland.
“We’re very honored to be involved in this
because we know the meaning of what this visitor center will be to the world
church,” said Clayton Nunes, Flip TV’s creative director.
The final stop on the tour will feature a
small chapel with a video that challenges visitors to be a part of White’s mission
of spreading the gospel. “We’re also hoping people see themselves as part of
this movement that God sent a messenger to,” Nix said. “She was a real blessing
to this church.”
For
more information about the Ellen G. White Estate, visit whiteestate.org.
