Bj Christensen Succumbs to Cancer Afer a Long Struggle

Bjarne Christensen passed away at his home in Maryland on September 3 following a six-year battle with melanoma. He was 51. Known to everyone by the first two letters of his first name, Bj had been the administrative assistant to the president of the North American Division since 1997.

Bj Christensen

He will be remembered for his deep love of Christ and the church. He also will be remembered for his wise counsel and effective church leadership, as well as for his mentoring hundreds of church leaders and members. To the hundreds of people he has worked with over the years, he was a friend first and then a church leader.

Bj was born in Denmark and came to the United States with his parents when he was 9 years old. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from La Sierra University and a master's from Andrews University. He served as a pastor and departmental director in Oregon, then as secretary of the Potomac Conference, and president of the Illinois and Southern California conferences.

He is survived by his wife, Judi; daughter, Heidi Hickok; and son-in-law, Dr. Brian Hickok; parents Viktor and Vera Christensen; and sister Berit von Pohle.

Adventists Flee Violence
in Eastern Indonesia
Seventh-day Adventist Church members from the eastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi are among the thousands of people enduring ongoing anti-Christian violence.

To date, an estimated 400 Adventists have fled Poso, the main town in central Sulawesi, to escape the riots and killings caused by clashes between Islamic militants and Christians.

In the Poso area, one Adventist church has been destroyed by rioters and two churches have been damaged, local Adventist leaders in eastern Indonesia reported August 28. The homes of two Adventist pastors have been burned down, along with 14 homes of church members in the region.

Details about the physical condition of the hundreds of Adventist refugees are difficult to obtain but church leaders in the area say that at least six members have been wounded and 37 have reported being robbed or assaulted. Church officials cannot confirm if any Adventists have been killed.

A wave of violence has engulfed many parts of Indonesia since January 1999, leaving an estimated 500,000 Christians without homes and 2,500 dead. Hiskia Missah, public affairs and religious liberty spokesperson for the Adventist church in the Southern Asia-Pacific region, says the situation in the eastern Indonesian Maluku Islands, is "becoming worse.

"As a church family, we pray for our brothers and sisters in Indonesia and for the hundreds of thousands of others who are suffering the loss of loved ones or the destruction of their homes," says Pastor Jan Paulsen, General Conference president. "Violence in the name of religion can never be justified. The Adventist message is of a compassionate, freedom-loving God, and this is the message we will continue to proclaim with all our strength."

There are 180,000 Adventists in Indonesia worshiping in more than 1,100 churches.�-Adventist News Network

AAW Honors Seven Women
Seven Adventist women who are making significant contributions to their families, churches, professions and communities, will be honored during the eighteenth annual Association of Adventist Women (AAW) Conference in Sacramento, California, October 12-15.

Penny Estes Wheeler (1), editor of Women of Spirit, will receive the Professional Life Award for her contributions to Adventist publishing. Elaine Estes Drury (4) will be awarded the Family Life Award. She and her husband, Omer, adopted five children, then started a white-water rafting business so the children could help earn their tuition.

Dorothy Ellen Valcarcel (3), president of West Coast Direct Response, Inc., is being recognized with the Community Life Award. Karen M. Flowers (6) is being honored for 20 years of leadership in family ministries with the Church Life Award. Karen and her husband, Ron, are co-directors of the Department of Family Ministries at the General Conference.

Rebekah Wang-Cheng (2) will receive an Outstanding Achievement Award for her multiple roles-practicing physician, teacher, formerly co-host of Lifestyle Magazine, mother, and popular speaker on both medical and spiritual topics.

Two retired professionals are being given the Lifetime Achievement Award-Miriam Wood (7) and Effie Jean Ketting (5). Wood, who taught high school much of the time while she was writing, has the distinction of having produced more books and articles for Adventist publishers than any woman except Ellen White. Ketting was a missionary physician in Thailand and Malaysia for 20 years. During her career as an obstetrician she delivered more than 16,000 babies, including 18 in one marathon day.

Landmark Step For Newbold College
Newbold College has become the only private higher education institution in the UK to receive British Council accreditation.

The accreditation was confirmed on July 20 and, according to the Director of the School of English, Erica Hole, it will be a great asset to the college. "One of the reasons we applied for the accreditation is that it will widen our opportunities for recruitment," Erica said. "Secondly, British Council accreditation is affirmation that the English language program we are offering is of high quality."

The accreditation focuses on Newbold's School of English but in accordance with its policies the British Council has also accredited the rest of the College. Newbold's School of English program will now be advertised globally on the British Council's website.

The college underwent a two-day inspection by British Council representatives in May and received a glowing report, scoring either "good" or "outstanding" in all inspection categories.

News Notes
Gordon Retzer, Florida Conference president, was recently elected Lake Union Conference president. Retzer replaces Don Schneider, who became North American Division president at the General Conference session in Toronto.

Union College. More than 600 students and staff members at Union College participated in the school's annual Project Impact Day, serving 47 community service agencies in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Rich Carlson, college chaplain, says the school started its community involvement day in 1981. Today the program is designed to make community service a high priority in the school. "This attitude of service has resulted in as many as 10,000 hours of community service in any one school year by Union students," Carlson says.