January 12, 2015

Give & Take

Adventist Life

My son, Michael, was having worship time with his 4-year-old daughter, Sophia. They were discussing the story of David and his experiences when the lion and bear came around while David was guarding his sheep. This is their conversation:

Michael: “What did David say to the lion?”

Sophia: “ ‘You can’t eat my sheep.’ ”

Michael: “And what did David say to the bear?”

Sophia: “ ‘Eat the lion so that he can’t eat my sheep!’ ”

—Peter Peabody, Riverside, California

Inbox

At 91 years of age I am not able to do much, but considering the times, and in reading the following timely Ellen White message, I felt I should share it with
Review readers.

This is from
Early Writings, page 46: “In this time of trial we need to be encouraged and comforted by one another. The temptations of Satan are greater now than ever before, for he knows that his time is short and that very soon every case will be decided, either for life or for death. It is no time now to sink down beneath discouragement and trial; we must bear up under all our afflictions and trust wholly in the Almighty God of Jacob. The Lord has shown me that His grace is sufficient for all our trials; and although they are greater than ever before, yet if we trust wholly in God, we can overcome every temptation and through His grace come off victorious.”

13 1 2 61913 GC Session

13 2 3 72010 GC Session

—Lowell Bock, Loma Linda, California

Did You Know?

The General Conference session is the forum for electing world church officers and voting changes to the church’s constitution. Delegates also hear reports from each of the 14 administrative regions of the church. Voting delegates for session represent world regions both by church population and the self-sustainability of administrative regions. The constitution states that at least 50 percent of delegates must be laypersons, pastors, teachers, and nonadministrative employees, of both genders, and representing a range of age groups and nationalities.

While sessions are now held in football stadiums, pictures from early sessions show delegates posing outside small churches. Back then the movement’s leaders came to sessions in Michigan mostly from the midwest and northeastern United States by train or by horse and buggy. Today about one third of the movement’s membership now resides in Africa, with another third residing in Central America and South America. Brazil now has more Adventists than any other country—1.3 million.

Battle Creek, Michigan, was the site of 26 of the first 31 GC sessions. The first session held west of the Mississippi River was in November of 1887 in Oakland, California. Session has been held outside the U.S. three times: in Austria in 1975, the Netherlands in 1995, and in Canada in 2000. San Antonio, Texas, planned for 2015, will be the sixtieth session.

—information gathered from www.adventist.org/information/meetings/. For more about the upcoming session in San Antonio, Texas, visit the aforementioned Web site.

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