"There are no casualties among members, and our properties have been spared thusfar," said Leito. "Communication with the rebel-held territory is impossible; therefore, we don't know much of what is happening [in that area]."

Pierre Caporal, youth director for the church in Haiti, reported that in spite of the difficult situation where the church's Northwest Adventist Mission is located, employees do go to the office to ensure there is a presence. Churches throughout the country hold Sabbath services only during the day, and evening services have been cancelled, especially in the most politically volatile areas.

The walled-in Adventist university, hospital, and radio station in Port-au-Prince continue to operate as usual.

Plagued by political crisis for several years, Haiti is located in the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, west of the Dominican Republic. The population of more than 7.5 million includes more than 260,000 Adventists.

Watch for more information on this developing story in later issues of the Adventist Review.

South Pacific Adventist Volunteers Set New Record
More than 1,000 Adventists in the South Pacific Division donated their time last year in service to others, up from the previous record of 881 in 2000.

More than half of the 1,035 volunteers were members of StormCo (Service To Others Really Matters) teams, serving in local communities only in response to invitations to do so. "More and more young adults want to do practical things for God," says Pastor Mel Lemke, director of the church's Adventist Volunteer Service. "They enjoy . . . taking religion out of the church and into the community."

Not included in the record figure are 342 others who participated in Volunteers in Action last year. This independent supporting ministry, founded and directed by Queensland-based retirees Cliff and Val Morgan, sponsors volunteer missionaries from the Pacific islands to grow churches in isolated areas of their countries.             --Adventist News Network

Dominican Republic Adjusting to Growth
Responding to rapidly growing church membership, Dominican Union officials at a recent session decided to return nearly all departmental directors to the union office, and to add two associate ministerial secretaries for the union territory.

After nearly doubling its new membership in the present quinquennium (88,341 new members compared with 45,061 in the previous five years), the Dominican Republic also increased its pastoral staff by 20 percent. Organized churches grew from 417 to 552; companies increased from 311 to 521; and actual membership grew from 111,455 in 2000 to 200,253-an 80 percent increase in less than five years.

Located between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, the Dominican Republic has a population of 8 million, with one Seventh-day Adventist for every 42 inhabitants.

Adventist UN Liaison Condemns
Death Penalty for Conversion
Juan Perla, United Nations (UN) liaison officer for the Adventist Church, delivered a statement calling on member organizations of the Committee of Non-governmental Agencies on Freedom of Religion and Belief to cosign a joint statement denouncing the death penalty for apostasy (conversion to another religion). The statement averred that "enforcing the death penalty for changing one's religion or belief is the most extreme form of religious intolerance."

"At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as an unacceptable punishment," says Jonathan Gallagher, UN liaison director for the church. "The freedom to change one's religion or belief is supported in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however, some states continue to enforce the death penalty for conversion in their legal codes."

The Adventist Church and the International Religious Liberty Association expect to raise the issue again at the UN Human Rights Commission's 60th session in late March.

La Sierra University Collecting Computers for Ethiopia
During the month of January, La Sierra University (LSU) Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), with the School of Business and Management, collected 3,000 computers, 2,560 printers, and 1,086 monitors from businesses and the community to share with public and community schools in Ethiopia. The ongoing project at the Riverside, California, university is called Connect Ethiopia.

"The developed world has such a surplus of technology," says Heather Miller of SIFE. "Yet schools in Ethiopia don't have even one computer, let alone access to the Internet. . . . What we do with the Connect project is one small way of helping children in Ethiopia and other places catch up to the rest of the world."

A California company will examine, refurbish and/or recycle the computers and related equipment. When the first shipment arrives in Ethiopia in March, "SIFE student teams will teach groupings of Ethiopian teachers how to use the computers and how to utilize the Internet," says Miller.

SIFE is an international organization started in 1975 by corporate America as a way to give college students hands-on experience in learning, practicing, and teaching the principles of free enterprise. The La Sierra University SIFE team was organized during the 1991-92 school year.

Netherlands Antilles Launches
Religious Freedom Association
During meetings in Curacao in January, the Netherlands Antilles Religious Liberty Association (NARLA) was formed as an affiliate of the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA) with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. (The IRLA was founded in 1893 by Adventist leaders and has developed into a non-sectarian organization dedicated to safeguarding religious civil rights around the world.)

"Here in Curacao we have had religious liberty since the sixteenth century," says the new NARLA president, Errol Maduro. "But because we have not had to fight for it, . . . it is not in the consciousness of the people." The need for the association became evident when the neighboring island of Aruba adopted a law to enforce Sunday business closings, and discussions began in Curacao about implementing a similar law.

Daniel Duffis, president of the Netherlands-Antilles Conference, believes in the value of a national movement to help people of all faiths understand what religious freedom means. He said the NARLA will help "educate the people and anticipate the problems of tomorrow . . . so that we can freely express our consciences."

Nearly 5,150 Adventists worship weekly in 28 congregations throughout the Netherlands Antilles region.               --Adventist News Network

South Australian Adventists Return Tithe by Internet
Adventist members in South Australia can now return their tithe, give offerings, and pay school fees on the Internet or by phone using BPAY, an Australia-wide bill payment service.

Robert T. Louk, South Australian Conference accountant and director of stewardship, developed the new program, which even allows members to give anonymously if they wish. He says the BPAY system will "give our members and the parents of the students at our schools the widest range of options to choose from."

The church paid AUD1,000 to establish BPAY, but had already received just over AUD14,000 in tithes, offerings and school fees in less than four months since its establishment last November.--Adventist News Network

News Notes

David Trim, an Adventist lecturer in history at Newbold College in the United Kingdom, was recently elected by academic peers to be a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the first Adventist and first teacher from Newbold to achieve the fellowship.

NEWS COMMENTARY

Grime Doesn't Pay

BY JENNIFER JILL SCHWIRZER, writing from Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania

omething got into American media recently, and led a few good souls to do their part to stop the insanity of media indecency. In two separate and unrelated incidences, not one, but two stars received substantial slaps.

Shock-jock Howard Stern's show was pulled from all Clear Channel Communications radio stations because of the media giant's newly adopted zero-tolerance policy for unacceptable behavior. The biggest radio station owner in America, Clear Channel faced six-figure fines from the Federal Communications Commission in January over vulgar and inappropriate material. This led them to adopt the zero-tolerance policy. On Tuesday, Stern's show featured an interview that was replete with graphic sexual references and overt racism, and the boom was finally lowered upon him.

Janet Jackson was scrubbed from a television movie about singer Lena Horne. Ms. Horne was angry about the event that occurred during the Super Bowl halftime show, and pressured ABC to drop Jackson from the project. ABC executives resisted Ms. Horne's request, but Ms. Jackson finally dropped out of her own accord.

Media indecency has escalated out of control in recent years. In the 1960s, Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke slept in separate beds. Today prime-time viewing serves up heaping helpings of sexual innuendo and immorality.

Media censorship of any kind is considered by some Americans to be an assault on the free speech clause of the first amendment. Yet Adventists, along with Christians of other denominations, long for a return of the days when television was family-friendly and American society was a safer place to raise children. Historically, cultures with low moral standards have either languished or died altogether.

This issue is relevant to Seventh-day Adventists because of our reluctance to endorse the legislation of morality. We need to do our part to elevate our society back to its original moral height without condoning a restriction of human rights. That can be a very fine line to walk.

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