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Angela Baerg – Collegedale, Tennessee … Alice Ju has been plugged into her church community since she could walk. Her father, Gitack Ju, is currently the pastor of two Korean churches–Rocky Mountain Seventh-day Adventist Korean Church, and Denver Seventh-day Adventist Korean Church. Alice has lived all around the United States with her family, volunteering in church with everything from song service to children’s activities. Over the years, she attended mostly public schools, where she struggled to find friends with whom she would feel a strong connection.

“I always knew I wanted to attend an Adventist college,” Alice says. “I’m so glad I ended up choosing Southern Adventist University.”

Being part of Southern’s LifeGroups helped Alice build friendships like she had never known before. In these spiritual small group communities, the goal is for students to behold God personally and intimately, and to become empowered as disciple-makers of Jesus Christ. During Alice’s freshman year, she joined her sister’s LifeGroup, which was all about gratitude, and they read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters together. In her sophomore year, she attended her roommate’s LifeGroup, where they focused on acquiring new skills, such as crocheting and crafting.

During this time, Alice struggled to discover God’s calling for her career. She knew she wanted to work in the medical field, but she wasn’t sure where. To gain experience and additional insight, she volunteered over the summer at Porter Adventist Hospital in the surgery waiting room. There she welcomed people who were waiting for loved ones, gave directions, and helped them feel comfortable.

Around the same time, she began reading Ellen G. White’s A Call to Medical Evangelism and Health Education. She found the book very inspirational. When she returned to Southern for her junior year, she mentioned the book to a friend, Eric Suh, who was also studying to enter the medical field. They discussed the book’s theme, which emphasized how so many people are physically and spiritually ill and in desperate need of medical evangelism.

Alice and Eric both are both passionate about building careers that will help the sick heal physically and be revitalized spiritually with God’s Word. They decided to lead a LifeGroup that semester centered around White’s work. Before they knew it, they had 15 members, all Korean origin and all studying in preparation for the health field. Every week, Alice and Eric would pre-read the text and select a passage. Then the group would meet, pray, read the section together, and discuss it. They also participated in activities together such as cooking ratatouille, writing gratitude journals, and making crafts. Midyear, after much prayer and deliberation, Alice was excited to tell her LifeGroup that she had finally decided – she would become a doctor.

“I loved getting to know my new friends,” said Alice, now a senior health science major. “Although we were all so different, we were all passionate about medicine. It was beautiful to see how God calls so many different types of people to do His work.”

–Angela Baerg is a student at Southern Adventist University. Photo by Alice Ju. Pictured: Alice’s co-leader Eric is on the very left, and Alice is on the bottom right.

Jill Harlow – Loveland, Colorado … Nine Campion students and recent alumni spent more than six weeks studying the language and culture of Spain in the Adventist Colleges Abroad program in Sagunto.

The students completed six semester hours of college-level/dual credit Spanish classes on the Sagunto campus. While at first many of the students found the full immersion in Spanish challenging, they commented on the positivity and energy of the teachers.

“I enjoyed how the teachers were so fun and relaxed most of the time and talked about things like food and the culture there,” reflected Carla R.

Sandra A. agreed saying, “I found it valuable that the teachers were understanding and would either talk slower or would help us try to find the translation. Also, I just enjoyed how the teachers included humor in their teaching. The teachers, staff, and monitors always were able to find a way to make learning Spanish fun.”

In addition to the classes, a major part of the program was touring the country. Students visited the major cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, as well as historic towns and local beach cities.

Faith E. expressed, “I loved traveling everywhere throughout Spain, but I’d have to say my favorite was Madrid. I loved seeing the European architecture and the food.”

Living and learning in another country came with its challenges, such as the record-breaking temperatures experienced across Europe this summer. Carla explained, “For me, the biggest challenge was definitely the heat since we didn’t have air conditioning.”

Thankfully, afternoon trips to the local beaches were frequent, and the students could spend hours swimming and relaxing in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Unfortunately, the trip ended with headaches over international travel. Due to an airline strike, most of the Campion group was affected by flight cancellations and couldn’t be re-booked for several days, in an unanticipated extension of the trip.

Ultimately, the summer created not only life-long positive memories for the students, but also opportunities for personal growth. Caleb G. reflected, “Overall, what I learned from the experience this summer was that I need to be a lot more chill with life and I need to stop worrying so much about everything. It helped me to learn to exercise more patience and to just roll with everything that was happening.”

As a chaperone on the trip, it was an absolute pleasure to lead this group of students. Several teachers in the program commented to me on our students’ consistently strong academic achievement, noting how they always had their homework done on time, were prepared for tests, and never complained. More so than other students in the program, our Campion students consistently participated in the spiritual life activities on campus, including leading out in morning worship talks and joining with the praise team for vespers and church. I am so proud of our Campion students and all they learned and achieved!

–Jill Harlow, Spanish Teacher; photo by Campion Academy News

Ted Williams with Carol Bolden – Arkansas Valley, Colorado … Attendance at the Arkansas Valley church, like many other churches, was negatively affected by Covid, even after its wane. But despite the decline in attendance, the small group has a zeal to share the gospel. When the Arkansas Valley Chamber of Commerce held their Settler’s Day event, the group jumped at the opportunity to spread God’s love, sharing a booth with the First Christian Church.

As they rubbed shoulders with other Christians, they enjoyed talking and praying with many event-goers who sign were given the opportunity to win a set of the Conflict of the Ages book series and an Under the Influence of Jesus T-shirt. There were 27 individuals who signed up for the books, and 60 people, for the T-shirt.

With the list in hand, the church group gathered to pray over the names for several weeks. Everyone who signed up for the items won, meaning they needed 27 sets of books, but when they contacted the ABC to purchase them, they discovered that the Conflict series in that set was out of print, making even the sale on E. G. White books useless.

While paperback books were available, the group decided that using paperback instead of the hardback set displayed at the booth was not a good representation of God. It was important to them to find hardback sets to share.

They started calling around including the Georgia-Cumberland Conference. There, they found even fancier books than Pacific Press Publishing at $120/set. They were, however, meant for the Conference constituents, and anyone able to authorize the purchase by an out-of-conference entity was in Nepal sick with Covid. Ultimately, approval was given for 27 sets to be sold at $60 each.

Arkansas Valley church often worried about money even though their pastor, Ted Williams, continued to tell them that God didn’t need their money to get His work done. He promised that the money for the books would not come from the church budget and that God would provide.

While visiting in Denver, Williams met with a high school chum and shared the book saga, although never revealing anything about the costs involved. At the end of their second lunch, his friend followed him out to his car. “I want to bless you, Ted,” he said. He held out his hand holding a crumpled piece of paper. It was a check for the exact amount of money to pay for those books, right to the penny.

The same group of people who prayed for those who signed up for the book sets, gathered again in teams to deliver the books. It didn’t take long to get all sets delivered.

Meeting with contest “winners”, the delivery people thanked them for the privilege of meeting with them, asking if they could check in a few months to see if they had questions. They did the same with those who received T-shirts.

The deliveries were complete, Arkansas Valley members were prepared to visit again after several months—another step toward introducing them to Jesus and helping the church come alive again, more awake, interested, and involved.

–Ted Williams as told to Carol Bolden. Photo supplied.

Sandy Hodgson – Denver, Colorado …Twenty educators and administrators came together the last week of July to jump-start the school year and dive deep into Standards Based Learning. RMC education director, Diane Harris, and associate director, Paul Negrete, organized the intensive training so that teachers could bring transparent and honest feedback to learners, create processes that allow time for students to have relevant and authentic experiences, and help students develop skills to become self-navigating learners.

With support from Rocky Mountain Conference administration, the Education department hosted Dr. Marie Alcock as the keynote speaker and trainer. RMC associate director, Paul Negrete, has worked closely with Dr. Alcock in Adventist education for more than eight years. Dr. Alcock is a national and international consultant specializing in the areas of curriculum, instruction, and assessment design. She has spent the last 20 years working in public and private education as a teacher, administrator and public advocate. She works with schools to improve student motivation and literacy through digital tools and game design.

Participants spent six full days in training and work sessions where they completed year-long contexts, bundling standards in a timeline of non-negotiable curriculum elements. Learning targets (clear statements of what the learner needs to know or do) were created for the standards along with proficiency scales to provide valuable feedback to learners.

Other Rocky Mountain Conference educators then joined the team for a mini training session with Dr. Alcock at the annual Teachers’ Convention from Sunday, July 31 to Tuesday, August 2. Everyone participated and learned with Dr. Alcock as they launched intentional strategies to help students become lifelong learners.

Traci Pike, head teacher at Mountain Road Christian Academy in Casper, Wyoming sees great opportunity with Standards Based Learning in a small school setting. “This is naturally the way we should be teaching in a multi-grade, multi-age classroom. It aligns perfectly with the holistic Adventist philosophy of education.”

“Collaboration took place between schools and across all grade levels and subjects,” reflected Kari Lange, Grades 1-2 teacher and vice principal at HMS Richards Elementary in Loveland. “It didn’t matter if you were teaching second grade math, geometry, or high school English. We all worked together and held each other accountable and on task.”

Vista Ridge Academy principal Marsha Bartulec loved the experience. “I caught the vision and excitement from Diane and Paul. I learned new vocabulary, asked a lot of questions and got immediate feedback. As an administrator, I was able to map out a year-long context to support the teachers in our school.”

RMC Education’s goal is for the core group that trained in July to begin implementation with at least one discipline as school gets underway mid-August. The other RMC educators who had the mini training session are challenged to implement learning standards and learning targets in one course by January 2023. Planning ahead for 2023-2024, Paul Negrete believes “educators in Rocky Mountain Conference will have a deeper understanding of the process so that they can make a transition to standards-based learning, take calculated risks, and bring systemic change to education in our schools.”

Joining educators for dinner Monday evening, Mic Thurber, RMC president, Doug Inglish, VP for administration, and Darin Gottfried, VP for finance, shared their support and encouragement as teachers begin a new school year. President Thurber offered a prayer of dedication.

As teachers prepared to head back to their individual campuses, Diane Harris reminded them that just as Jesus not only brought peace to his disciples while the storm raged, but he also got into the boat. He does not remain on the sidelines of the lives of his followers. “The Education department,” encouraged Harris, “will not remain on the sidelines. We will be with you as you go forward to create great learning opportunities for your students.”

–Sandy Hodgson is RMC education assistant director. Photo by Sandy Hodgson.