ACS DR responds to needs of Hurricane Sandy survivors » As we have seen graphically on TV, the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy is astounding. The church’s ACS DR leaders are on the scene to help provide relief for those who have been affected. Please read this report from Cathy Kissner, our conference’s ACS DR coordinator, about relief efforts and how we can help.

Bags of Love community outreach brightens children’s lives » I just received this article from Karyl Krieger, ministerial spouse at the Montrose Church, about a special outreach to help the displaced children in their community. Ruth Kelley organizes a local chapter of Bags of Love. This is a great example of using Christ’s method to reach others! Read more »

Campion Academy students experience 30-Hour Famine event » Ever fasted for 30 hours? Some students at Campion Academy just did, and for a very good reason. Chaplain Nick Clark sent this story about this insightful event.  Read more »

Vista Ridge Fall Festival provides an opportunity to support missions » The RMC Youth Department will be hosting a booth at the Vista Ridge Academy Fall Festival this Saturday night from 6:30–9:30 p.m. The booth will help support the ONE BAG AT A TIME project that is raising money to buy bags of cement for the building of a school in Zambia. For anyone that buys a bag of cement during the fall festival, Jamie Autrey will make them a free handmade mug. He will personally be making them at the festival on his pottery wheel. Come join in on the fun games, great food, and awesome prizes at the festival. And support the Zambia project as well! The location of the event is 3100 Ridgeview Dr. Erie, Colo. For more info, contact Carey Jordan at (303) 328 – 5435.

On the road » Diane and I are in Silver Spring, Md., to attend the NAD Year-End Meetings. This committee meets only once a year, and we collectively review the ministries and policies of our Division. Dan Jackson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, and his team will present six strategic strategies to move our mission forward.  I am looking forward to hearing their ideas and plans.

Prior to the Year-End Meetings, we attended a specially organized Diversity Celebration at the church headquarters. Our church is becoming more and more diverse every day. Praise the Lord for that! The focus of the Diversity Celebration was to spotlight the blessings and challenges we may encounter with the various diversities of age, race, gender, et cetera, and look at ways to maximize our ministry effectiveness with the strengths each one brings.

As I look at the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, I think about the people who lost their lives, the eight million-plus who lost power, the $50 Billion cost estimate for restoration, it just makes me want to see Jesus come!

Until Christ does come, I know we will see many more calamities like this one. If it breaks our heart to see the suffering, then try to imagine what it does to our Creator’s heart.

As Christians, we have a hope that many in the world need. It is our privilege and responsibility to share the Good News we have of how the Lord is working in the world in and our lives.  In carrying the Gospel to the world, it is our own lives that will grow all the more in His grace. In Steps to Christ, Ellen White talks about the blessings of helping those who are hurting and in need"

"The only way to grow in grace is to be disinterestedly doing the very work which Christ has enjoined upon us — to engage, to the extent of our ability, in helping and blessing those who need the help we can give them. Strength comes by exercise; activity is the very condition of life. Those who endeavor to maintain Christian life by passively accepting the blessings that come through the means of grace, and doing nothing for Christ, are simply trying to live by eating without working. And in the spiritual as in the natural world, this always results in degeneration and decay. A man who would refuse to exercise his limbs would soon lose all power to use them. Thus the Christian who will not exercise his God-given powers not only fails to grow up into Christ, but he loses the strength that he already had." (p. 80)

Happy Sabbath!

Elder Gary Thurber

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