Elisabet Kirkland Page 3

Brandon Westgate – Ward, Colorado … The Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) administration and departmental directors spent some meaningful time last Fall engaging Conference churches in a series of Town Hall meetings. During several of those meetings, it became evident that the church members who seemed to be engaging the most with the Town Hall gatherings were our retired members.

The RMC Youth Department sees the value of engagement at every age. The question was asked of our most senior members if they would like to be involved in some mission trips within the Conference so that they might have an opportunity to utilize their skills and talents that they have spent a large portion of their lifetime developing and honing.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. It was exciting to witness as nearly every one of the more experienced members responded with an emphatic “YES!”

“RMC Youth Department is thrilled to announce that we have a Maranatha sponsored mission trip planned at Glacier View Ranch, May 20- June 4,” announced Brandon Westgate, RMC Youth director. “This trip is open to all ages and skill levels. The cost of the trip is ZERO DOLLARS! That is correct. This Maranatha mission trip is absolutely free.”

Each participant will be housed, provided with three meals a day, and will enjoy connecting with other mission-minded people. Some of the projects will be tree removal and clearing of downed trees, painting projects, deep cleaning of some areas that need a bit of attention, and much more. There will be morning and evening worships and time for recreational activities as well.

“We are thrilled to partner with Maranatha Volunteers International (MVI) for this well-organized mission trip that will greatly benefit the ministry of Glacier View Ranch,” concluded Westgate. “All that is required is a positive attitude and a willing spirit.”

Every volunteer must sign up to participate through MVI’s website. CLICK HERE for more information and to sign up.

—Brandon Westgate is the RMC Youth Department director. Photo supplied.

By Godfrey Miranda

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
(Matthew 27:46, NKJV)

There are certain things about life with a preschooler that I really wish we would never outgrow. As I walked with my youngest across a parking lot today, my hand reached down without looking, and a moment later her hand reached up. It’s normally something we do without thinking—a habit when we’re pressing through crowds, navigating stairs, or just taking a stroll. No words or visual prompts needed.  Just the natural reaching for one another when we walk … so we can walk together.

On Calvary’s cross, Jesus cried out in Matthew 27:46 like a Son reaching up without sensing that His Father was reaching back. They’d been walking together since eternity past, but there as the darkness lifted from Golgotha, Jesus felt a loneliness never known before.

Some who heard Him that day mistook His plea as one directed to Elijah, a plea for aid or escape from His physical suffering. They ran to offer Him a drink because they viewed the cross on merely a material level, but Jesus was enduring the cross on a much deeper level.

A RUNWAY OF ABANDONMENT

Just days before all this, Jesus brought awareness to the disciples of what His final days would involve:

“You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified” (Matthew 26:2, NKJV)

Jesus knew that crucifixion lay ahead, and the road to it involved being “delivered up.” The term expresses the idea of handing something over to another, no longer claiming ownership of an object but passing that along to someone else. And as we track the Gospel writers’ narrative of what took place from this point on, we see Jesus handed over again and again.

Like a hot potato, Jesus was passed along by those who refused to claim ownership of Him.

Judas agreed to “deliver Him” to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14–15, NKJV). Peter denied Him three times before dawn. The Jewish Sanhedrin rejected Jesus as the Son of God and “delivered Him to Pontius Pilate” (Matthew 27:2, NKJV). And Pilate, though clearly seeing Jesus’ innocence, still “delivered Him to be crucified” (Matthew 27:26, NKJV).

As Jesus became the Sin-Bearer for all of humanity, He felt severed from earthly support.  No one claimed Him or advocated for Him. He was betrayed, left, denied, and eventually delivered over to abuse, mockery, and crucifixion.

So, when Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me,” it revealed an experience of rejection from a different direction. That runway of abandonment by His own disciples, His own kinsmen, and Rome itself paled in comparison to the thought that He had been forsaken by the Father.  Suspended between heaven and earth, Jesus felt disconnected from not only every earthly support, but even every heavenly one. No one to claim Him … not even His Father.

But again, don’t misunderstand Jesus’ suffering like those around the cross that day. He wasn’t calling for deliverance from the cross (cf. John 12:27, NKJV), but was declaring His submission to the Father’s will and trusting that His sacrifice would be enough (cf. Luke 23:46, NKJV; John 19:30, NKJV), that His experience of soul separation from God would ensure humanity’s ability to be reconciled to God!

Jesus died not to save us from physical hardship.
He died to save us from being eternally separated from God.

On the cross, Jesus was handed over and forsaken in ways we’ll never fully understand. For what purpose? So we could forever be “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6, NKJV), forever assured that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5, NKJV), never outgrowing our ability to reach up our hand to God and discover He’s forever reaching His hand back to us.

—Godfrey Miranda is lead pastor at the Littleton Seventh-day Adventist Church. Republished with permission from Littleton Adventist Church Pastor’s Blog. Photo by Ben White Photography of Freepik.

Jill Harlow – Loveland, Colorado … The leadership team at Campion Academy in Loveland, Colorado, is thrilled to announce Cara Greenfield, a Campion alumnus and experienced school accountant, has accepted the position of vice principal of Finance starting in July following Dean Helm’s retirement.

Greenfield joins us from Fountainview Academy in British Columbia, Canada, where she has worked as the school’s accountant for the past two years. Prior to that, she and her husband served as missionaries in Cambodia for 14 years.

When asked about her interest in the financial position at Campion, Greenfield remarked, “Finances are a necessary tool to any Adventist school. The goal is to use the ‘tool’ so that it can help create the best environment for young people to choose to serve Christ.  That is what makes me excited about joining the team at Campion. I hope to work together with Principal Leeper and his team to do just that.”

Greenfield graduated from Campion Academy in 2001 and her interest in missions was sparked on her academy mission trips to Mexico and San Francisco. After high school, Greenfield shared, “I loved traveling, different cultures, and helping people.  I knew I wanted to be a missionary.” Throughout college, she served on multiple short-term mission trips and went as a student missionary to Guinea, West Africa, for a year.

“Before leaving for Guinea,” she continued, “I had begun dating my husband, Daniel.  I asked him if he would be willing to go as a missionary someday. He gave the right answer, or our relationship wouldn’t have continued. Eventually, we got married, and I finished my bachelor’s degree in nursing at Union College in 2006.  We launched to the mission field in 2007 with Adventist Frontier Missions. We initially went back to Guinea for 9 months and then transitioned to Cambodia where we worked for 14 years.”

While in Cambodia, Greenfield explained, “God gave us a vision to start an Adventist school.  We started out with grades K-2 and each year added a grade. The whole project was not something we did, but only what God did through us. Over and over again, we ran into obstacles and encountered situations we didn’t know how to manage.  But with prayer and a willingness to learn from others and ask advice, when we left the project in 2022, we had grades K-9, a 20,000 square foot school building, a bakery, a farm, and two church plants in place.”

Managing the school in Cambodia initiated a career shift for Greenfield. Seeking to increase her expertise in management, she finished her master’s in business administration in 2018.  “I realized in starting the school that I really enjoyed the entrepreneurial side of it, starting something from scratch and seeing it grow to fruition,” Greenfield reflected. “I learned about every aspect of business from HR to donor relations to management. Most of all, I enjoyed being able to make a difference in the children’s lives by providing them a safe, happy place to learn about Jesus.”

Greenfield will be joining us with her husband Daniel, and their three children. Their two oldest children, Andrew and Autumn, will be graduating from Fountainview Academy in June. Their youngest, Alex, is finishing sixth grade this year.

As a family, they love music and spending time outdoors. In the summer, they enjoy water skiing and other activities at the lake. In her free time, Greenfield shared, “I enjoy gardening, reading, logic puzzles, scuba diving, and spending time with my family.”

—Jill Harlow is the Campion Academy communication director. Photo supplied.

RMCNews – Denver, Colorado … The primary item on the agenda for the second Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) Executive Committee Meeting of 2025 dealt with the search for a candidate to fill the position of RMC president from the vacancy left by Mic Thurber’s retirement on March 1.

As explained by Doug Inglish, RMC vice president for administration, “The RMC Executive Committee is responsible for filling the open position, and they receive the names of suggested candidates from all sources. The officers of the Mid-America Union facilitate the search, providing the Committee with resources, guidelines, and an understanding of protocol.”

“Extensive vetting of candidates is done so informed decisions can be made. While the hope is to find a new president soon, a good outcome is more desirable than a swift outcome,” he continued. “The Committee solicits the prayers of everyone that the Holy Spirit will guide in the selection of a new president.”

Darin Gottfried, RMC vice president for finance, gave a quick financial update to the Committee, noting that the gross Tithe amounts received to date in 2025 are higher than 2024 by 3.75%, but still fall short of the five-year average by 2.4%. The Tithe shortage has occurred even though total membership numbers have remained fairly constant since the Covid epidemic began in 2020.

Inglish gave an overview on the status of the restructuring process of some church districts within the RMC boundaries. The restructuring of boundaries has come as a result of the decline in Tithe numbers and attrition, but Inglish assured the Committee that, “We have a place for every [pastor] who is employed.”

Gottfried also briefly discussed the initiative currently happening to transition RMC churches to the Jewel Church Accounting System^© for their accounting software. He highlighted the improved efficiency and ease of accounting functions between the churches and Conference for the churches that have already transitioned.

An additional motion at the meeting was the voting in and acceptance of Godfrey Miranda, lead pastor at Littleton Seventh-day Adventist Church, as the new Denver metro pastoral representative on the RMC Executive Committee.

—RMCNews.

Liz Kirkland – Denver, Colorado … Edrey Santos, lead pastor in the northeast Wyoming district of the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC), a legal resident of the United States and Bible teacher in Dallas, Texas, at the time, found himself detained for five weeks by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency upon returning from a mission trip with students in 2012.

Santos, and the students he was traveling with, entered back into the United States through Houston, Texas, from an international trip. As they were going through the reentry process, Santos was flagged for a criminal offense he was convicted of at the age of 18, over a decade prior. The authorities informed him that it would just take a couple of hours to meet with an immigration judge to deem him safe for reentry in the United States.

A couple of hours turned into a couple of days in which Santos was moved to a holding facility near the airport. And despite promises of a quick resolution, Santos ended up being held at the detention center for five weeks, never seeing an immigration judge. He was released with the help of legal assistance obtained from his family and agreed to return upon the scheduling of the court date. This was essentially a parole-like period with a pending decision on his residency status.

The experience gave Santos compassion for detainees but he did emphasize that his treatment in detention facility was humane and respectful, challenging some negative public perceptions: “The facility was clean, there were three meals a day, and we each had a bunk to sleep in. A guard was always present to make sure detainees were safe, and we were treated fairly.”

“I was so frightened being in there, though, because it was practically jail and I was with real criminals being deported. I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I said, ‘I’m going to pray to God three times a day,’ which I did. And my prayers drew the attention of some detainees. They would ask me if they could pray with me,” he recalled. “And before you knew it, there were over 25 of us having Bible studies and prayer sessions.”

Santos was involved in one small altercation while detained involving leaving a snack in the microwave available to detainees. Two fellow detainees, both raised in the Catholic faith and being deported for murder and drug dealing charges, ended up coming to his aid. They knew he was a pastor, calling him “Padre,” and stepped into the situation saying that no one could do anything to him as he was a man of God, and the situation was diffused.

Over the next decade, Santos would go through a series of postponed court dates in which he would travel to Houston with his personal money only to have his scheduled court session canceled. “A blessing is that I grew up in Houston and my family is still there, so I would go and visit them, but I wouldn’t see a judge. I was angry, I was frustrated, I blamed the government, and I blamed this person and that person,” Sanots recalled.

“But eventually, I learned how to just take ownership and say, ‘You know what? God is still good’,” he continued. “He’s allowed me to travel within the country. I can’t leave the country, but I can still do my work. I can still be with my students. I can still be with my wife and family. So, all of these were blessings, and, by the time I finally saw the judge, I wasn’t even upset anymore. My experience gave me a better understanding of both sides, immigrants and those that have a responsibility to carry out immigration laws.”

The judge did grant Santos an official reentry in the United States in 2022 considering his profession in ministry and no additional charges on file, but there was no record of his permanent residency status anymore after the long duration. He was encouraged to apply both for residency and citizenship simultaneously. What Santos thought was going to be just an interview in the process ended up being a final citizenship interview in which he got his naturalization certificate.

“I went in for my interview thinking they were going to ask me, ‘Why do I feel like I should be qualified for citizenship?’ But that was not the interview. This was the actual interview to become a citizen,” reflected Santos. “It was a big surprise, and I was humbled. I remember being emotional in the agent’s office, and then he was touched by it. My wife was touched by it. So, I was finally a citizen.”

The experience deepened Santos’s relationship with God, teaching him humility, trust, and the limits of personal control. He found strength through prayer and saw his faith tested and affirmed during this prolonged ordeal: “I learned that we, as humans, really only have so much control of our lives, while the rest of what happens to us, we cannot control. That is why we need faith and need to trust in God and walk faithfully through the path that he gives us.”

—Liz Kirkland is the RMC Communication director. Photo supplied.