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World News & Perspectives Photo: Rohann D. Wellington/GNYC MEMBERS IN TRAINING: Seventh-day Adventists from around the New York City metropolitan area listen to Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the General Conference, as part of a lay training series held throughout the region preparing for the NY13 evangelistic outreach. ■■North America Adventists Prepare for New York City Outreach Training spans multiple sites; participants eager to reach neighbors for Christ. BY ADVENTIST REVIEW staff Hundreds of Seventh-day Adventists from the metropolitan New York area— where the overall population is estimated at 19 million, more than 50 percent above that of metro Los Angeles—gathered at a series of January 18-20, 2013, meetings to prepare for a major evangelistic outreach called NY13. The numbers, throughout the region, were impressive: 2,000 gathered at an auditorium at Hunter College in Manhattan for worship and training, and 560 packed the Linden Seventh-day Adventist Church in Queens to attend Ernestine Finley’s Light Your World for God seminar on how to become an effective lay Bible instructor. More than 300 people—double the expected number—flocked to Harlem’s Fort Washington Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church to hear Denzil McNeilus, a banker from Dodge Center, Minnesota, who represented the Adventistlaymen’s Services and Industries organization along with Robert Costa, General Conference evangelism coordinator, present a New Beginnings seminar to train lay preachers. Commenting on the attendees’ enthusiasm, McNeilus said, “I am convinced that there are thousands of laypeople waiting to be challenged to do something significant for the Lord. They just need to be trained and equipped.” Noted Seventh-day Adventist evangelist Mark Finley taught a class on how to organize home Bible study groups focusing on the book of Daniel. His seminar was attended by more than 170 people and was held in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village Seventh-day Adventist Church, which in June will see General Conference president Ted N. C. Wilson preach an evangelistic series there. Wilson began his pastoral work as a ministerial intern at the Greenwich Village church. Along with the lay training events, more than 1,400 youth gathered in two locations sponsored by the Greater New York and Northeastern conferences. These young people were challenged to be part of something great for God and use their influence to touch their friends with the gospel during NY13. Don King, president of the Atlantic Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, declared, “NY13 is a united approach bringing us all together to focus on reaching people in this great metropolitan area for Jesus.” During NY13 approximately 400 evangelistic meetings will be conducted in the metropolitan New York area. Hundreds of churches and thousands of church members will be involved, Adventist leaders said. The massive evangelistic outreach in New York City is part of the Seventhday Adventist Church’s Mission to the Cities initiative. Church leaders at every level of church organization have identified 630 major cities worldwide to focus their evangelistic energies and resources on in the next three years. This comprehensive evangelistic approach blends biblical principles with the practical, divinely inspired counsels of the Spirit of Prophecy to reach people living in these urban centers with Jesus’ end-time message of hope for our time. More information about the New York City outreach is available online at www.ny13.org. n —with information from Mark Finley 8 (136) | www.AdventistReview.org | February 21, 2013
■■SOUTH AMERICA Brazilian Adventists Help in Healing After Santa Maria Inferno In wake of nightclub fire that killed hundreds, blood drive, first aid given. By Felipe Lemos, ASN, reporting from Brasilia, Brazil Seventh-day Adventist young adults in Brazil rallied to donate blood in the wake of the world’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade. At least 231 partygoers died, and some 200 were injured, on January 27, 2013, when a band’s pyrotechnics display ignited ceiling insulation at a club in downtown Santa Maria, about 200 miles west of Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil. The fire released flames and toxic smoke into the panicked crowd, and a stampede broke out, media reports indicate. As victims flooded local hospitals, medical staff urgently appealed to the ready to donate: Young donors participated in the Vida por Vidas blood drive. photos courtesy ASN site of tragedy: A fire at a nightclub in downtown Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, killed at least 231 people on January 27, 2013, and left hundreds injured, leaving area hospitals scrambling to restock blood banks. Adventist-run Vida por Vidas (“Life for Lives”) blood-donation organization in South America. The denomination is known for handling large-scale blood donation drives, especially in Brazil, where health officials estimate the project annually contributes 3.5 million units of blood. Blood donors gathered early on Sunday, January 27, at the Central Adventist Church in Santa Maria and immediately headed to the city’s Blood Donation Center, said Vida por Vidas coordinator Adriano Luz. Meanwhile, Adventist medical staff volunteered at local hospitals, among them Dr. Jocemara Fernandes, who received an emergency call to aid victims early Sunday morning. “The scene of horror and despair I witnessed was unprecedented in my experience,” Fernandes said. She has worked in a local emergency room for more than a decade. Fernandes treated at least 15 victims between 4:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on Sunday. “Most people had problems related to smoke inhalation,” she said. Another young victim suffered second-degree burns and had difficulty breathing, Fernandes said. Most victims were under the age of 30. “What we can do now is pray, for the injured and the bereaved families, that God will help them,” Fernandes said. Santa Maria mayor Cezar Schirmer declared a 30-day mourning period, and local authorities continue to investigate the cause of the blaze, according to media reports. Vida por Vidas was launched in 2006 and is overseen by young Brazilian Seventh-day Adventists. n www.AdventistReview.org | February 21, 2013 | (137) 9
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CARLTON BYRD

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