September 13, 2005

From the Desk of Don C. Schneider. . . .

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1. Marguerite Kovalski, the mother of Gerald Kovalski, passed away. The funeral is Wednesday, September 14, 2005, at the East Pasco Seventh-day Adventist Church in Zephryhills, Florida. This is the second parent that Gerald Kovalski has lost in the past 7 months.

2. The secretary of the Upper Columbia Conference is Doug Johnson. He replaces Gordon Pifher, who has accepted the position as president of the British Columbia Conference. Doug was an assistant to the president for communications and stewardship in the Upper Columbia Conference.

3. The new treasurer for the Ohio Conference is Joanne Rude. Before being elected treasurer, she was serving as associate treasurer in the Ohio Conference. She replaces Mike Wixwat, who has accepted a call to be treasurer of the British Columbia Conference.

4. Ted Brown has accepted the position of treasurer of the Lake Region Conference. Previously he was treasurer of the Southwest Region Conference.

5. During this past weekend, I attended the meetings of the board of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada. On Friday night I went to the Partnership Meeting of It is Written in Canada. Many inspiring things happened there, but one of the special things was visiting with Henry Feyerabend. Elder Feyerabend has had one leg removed because of cancer, but has continued preaching this message. He has just returned from an itinerary in Brazil and was speaking at the Partnership Meeting.

On Sabbath, I spoke at a new church being planted in Ajax, Ontario. One of the leaders told me that there are many people from the West Indies in this area, so we proudly display the logo of the Adventist Church and it is a reminder to people that they should come to the services. As I stood at the door following the service, I met new people who were there for the first time. After all of the visitors had left, I talked with the core group of the new church, telling them what I believe. Every time we establish a new church, we have another outlet where people hear about the coming of Jesus. As I closed my sermon Sabbath, I once again asked for people interested in being baptized. Several indicated that they wished to look forward to baptism.

6. The devastation from Hurricane Katrina continues. It appears that in this Division we had about 30 of our churches affected in one way or another. About a dozen of those churches sustained a lot of damage. There are, we believe, about 6,000 displaced Adventists as a result of this storm. We are not aware of any injuries or deaths happening to Adventist members. You can continue to monitor the report of the hurricane, by looking at the hurricane web site provided by the Southwestern Union, www.swahc.org/hurricane.php.