PRESIDENT’S BLOG GENERAL CONFERENCE SESSION DAY 6
June 29, 2010
At each session of our work this GC session, our new General Conference President, Ted Wilson, has urged us to begin our working time with a season of prayer. Mark Finley has led us with either a Bible text or a Spirit of Prophecy quote and then a theme for prayer.
Then all the delegates group by 2s or 3s and lift up the work of the day in prayer. Elder Jay Gallimore, President of the Michigan Conference and I prayed together. Pictured in the lower left corner is Elder George Brown, retired president of the Inter-American Division, who was our Pennsylvania Conference camp meeting speaker a couple of years ago. Elder Brown currently lives in Avon Park, Florida, and is an outstanding adult Sabbath teacher in the church congregation I grew up in.
Today at General Conference Session, much of the time again was dedicated to Church Manual Revisions. At the close of the Session in the morning, Elder Gary Karst shared with the delegates the value of remembering the life and ministry of Elder Jim Cress, General Conference Ministerial Director, who passed away in November 2009 following complications of an undiagnosed illness, thought to have been contracted from international travel for the World Church. Elder Cress also advocated on behalf of the pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist Church all during his tenure in the General Conference. He always said of himself he was “a pastor on loan to the World Church.” Elder Cress had been a speaker for one of our Pastors’ meetings in the Pennsylvania Conference several years ago at Laurel Lake Camp. When he arrived, he jokingly complimented us on the location of our camp by saying, ‘When the time of trouble comes, I know where I am going to come. I will come here to LLC, because nobody will find you out here!”
This morning from 9-12 a.m. Jeanne volunteered to represent the North American Division in the exhibition hall at the NAD Family Life booth. She had a good time meeting people and sharing with them the Family Life resources available from our Division.
Next door was the section featuring the ministry that Dave Gimmell leads. I met with Dave and Dan Day who have recently developed a new discipleship curriculum for the NAD Church family with the tag-line iFollow. I had the opportunity to look through 4 of the books which are already developed and ready to use.
During lunch, Jeanne and I met Dr. and Mrs. Silas Gome. Dr. Gome is from Brazil and has been serving as a mission doctor for about 30 years. Currently he is a general surgeon serving in Rwanda, Africa, and as the hospital administrator/medical director. Previously they served 8 years in Nepal, other posts in Argentina, Brazil and Ethiopia. Mrs. Gome serves as a nurse and has assisted her husband in surgery among other responsibilities.
We had a chance to meet a friend and fellow classmate of ours from college days, Ken Rogers, who is serving as Dean of Students at Walla Walla college.
I have enjoyed meeting children who are attending GC with their parents, usually for the first time the child has come to GC. Sunday night, I gave a little girl from Russia a US dollar bill (see her picture on Sunday’s blog). Her parents later told me with a smile and halting English, “This is her first US dollar!”
Today, just next to a NAD Children’s Ministry booth display, I met a girl next to the gumball machine. I gave her $.25 to get some gum and she smiled up at me and said, could I have another quarter to get some for my brother? So of course I dug into my pocket and found a second quarter.
Every day, it is fascinating to see different delegates or family members in traditional dress from the country they represent.
In the session this afternoon, attention was brought to Voice of Prophecy radio ministry and Faith for Today television ministry by Fred Kinsey and Mike Tucker. VOP is celebrating 80 years of ministry and Faith is celebrating 60 years. The Odyssey Network formerly a co-owner of the Hallmark channel, is paying VOP and Faith to produce a spiritual application for mobile phone devices.
This evening as we were walking back from supper in the CNN center food court, we met Mr. and Mrs. Francis from the Stroudsburg Church. It is a joy to meet different members from Pennsylvania. Earlier we saw Charles and Barbara Rutt. Also I saw Ed and Josephine Varley from a distance.
June 29, 2010
At each session of our work this GC session, our new General Conference President, Ted Wilson, has urged us to begin our working time with a season of prayer. Mark Finley has led us with either a Bible text or a Spirit of Prophecy quote and then a theme for prayer.
Then all the delegates group by 2s or 3s and lift up the work of the day in prayer. Elder Jay Gallimore, President of the Michigan Conference and I prayed together. Pictured in the lower left corner is Elder George Brown, retired president of the Inter-American Division, who was our Pennsylvania Conference camp meeting speaker a couple of years ago. Elder Brown currently lives in Avon Park, Florida, and is an outstanding adult Sabbath teacher in the church congregation I grew up in.
Today at General Conference Session, much of the time again was dedicated to Church Manual Revisions. At the close of the Session in the morning, Elder Gary Karst shared with the delegates the value of remembering the life and ministry of Elder Jim Cress, General Conference Ministerial Director, who passed away in November 2009 following complications of an undiagnosed illness, thought to have been contracted from international travel for the World Church. Elder Cress also advocated on behalf of the pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist Church all during his tenure in the General Conference. He always said of himself he was “a pastor on loan to the World Church.” Elder Cress had been a speaker for one of our Pastors’ meetings in the Pennsylvania Conference several years ago at Laurel Lake Camp. When he arrived, he jokingly complimented us on the location of our camp by saying, ‘When the time of trouble comes, I know where I am going to come. I will come here to LLC, because nobody will find you out here!”
This morning from 9-12 a.m. Jeanne volunteered to represent the North American Division in the exhibition hall at the NAD Family Life booth. She had a good time meeting people and sharing with them the Family Life resources available from our Division.
Next door was the section featuring the ministry that Dave Gimmell leads. I met with Dave and Dan Day who have recently developed a new discipleship curriculum for the NAD Church family with the tag-line iFollow. I had the opportunity to look through 4 of the books which are already developed and ready to use.During lunch, Jeanne and I met Dr. and Mrs. Silas Gome. Dr. Gome is from Brazil and has been serving as a mission doctor for about 30 years. Currently he is a general surgeon serving in Rwanda, Africa, and as the hospital administrator/medical director. Previously they served 8 years in Nepal, other posts in Argentina, Brazil and Ethiopia. Mrs. Gome serves as a nurse and has assisted her husband in surgery among other responsibilities.
We had a chance to meet a friend and fellow classmate of ours from college days, Ken Rogers, who is serving as Dean of Students at Walla Walla college.
I have enjoyed meeting children who are attending GC with their parents, usually for the first time the child has come to GC. Sunday night, I gave a little girl from Russia a US dollar bill (see her picture on Sunday’s blog). Her parents later told me with a smile and halting English, “This is her first US dollar!”
Today, just next to a NAD Children’s Ministry booth display, I met a girl next to the gumball machine. I gave her $.25 to get some gum and she smiled up at me and said, could I have another quarter to get some for my brother? So of course I dug into my pocket and found a second quarter.
Every day, it is fascinating to see different delegates or family members in traditional dress from the country they represent.
In the session this afternoon, attention was brought to Voice of Prophecy radio ministry and Faith for Today television ministry by Fred Kinsey and Mike Tucker. VOP is celebrating 80 years of ministry and Faith is celebrating 60 years. The Odyssey Network formerly a co-owner of the Hallmark channel, is paying VOP and Faith to produce a spiritual application for mobile phone devices.
This evening as we were walking back from supper in the CNN center food court, we met Mr. and Mrs. Francis from the Stroudsburg Church. It is a joy to meet different members from Pennsylvania. Earlier we saw Charles and Barbara Rutt. Also I saw Ed and Josephine Varley from a distance.
1 comment:
I have shared your blog with friends here in California who were not able to travel to GC. It is lovely to have have the perspective from someone at the top who can integrate that with the experiece of a delegate or attendee. The pictures also help to show the view of the "man on the street" attendee as if we were there on the floor of the arena visiting with other attendees. Thank you for this experience.
Kay Carmicino, Southern California
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