By Andrew McChesney Yamaji Hiroshi, a 25-year-old pastor’s son, was deeply in love. There was a problem: his girlfriend, Sakiko, wasn’t a Seventh-day Adventist. Hiroshi met Sakiko at an Adventist nursing school outside Japan’s capital, Tokyo. After that, they worked together at the Adventist Medical Center on the Japanese island of Okinawa. It was there […]
Lifestyle
Too Scared to Adopt
By Sang Sook Park Since I was a little girl, I wanted to adopt a child. The desire remained strong after I got married and raised a son, but I feared I wasn’t qualified. Finally, I filled out the paperwork. “Send me a child whom I can handle,” I prayed. “Give me this sign that […]
Best Friends
By Batdelger Battsetseg My first visit to church was in the ninth grade. The reason is rather embarrassing. I went because my best friend decided to sleep with her boyfriend. But first my friend, Otko, asked for my advice outside our high school in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. I was just 16, but I was sure […]
I Want to Kill People
By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission Li Fengyan’s cellphone rang sharply. “Mom, I am miserable,” said the voice on the other end. It was Fengyan’s daughter-in-law, Yang-yang. She was crying hysterically. “My life is so hard. I don’t know what to do.” Worried, Fengyan brought Yang-yang to her home, and the two began to talk. Yang-yang […]
My Husband, My Field
by an Adventist wife in the U.S. My husband and I always wanted to be Seventh-day Adventist missionaries. We both served as student missionaries in different parts of the world, and we returned overseas as volunteers after marriage. It was an amazing 10 years. We served in three countries and planted many seeds that God […]
Trust Jesus” Hats
by Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission Tony Pouesi, imprisoned for nine months after the death of a man in a bar fight, began a closer walk with God following his surprise release from jail in the U.S. state of Alaska. With nowhere to go, he moved into a Seventh-day Adventist home for former inmates, the Greater […]
Jailed for Manslaughter
By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission A 2:00 a.m. bar brawl in the U.S. state of Alaska turned violent when 28-year- old Tony Pouesi struck a man with a single punch. The man fell and hit his head on the ground. He died the next day. Tony was charged with felony manslaughter, which carries a maximum […]
Britain’s Queen and Heaven’s King
The most exciting day in the young life of Leticia [pronounced: let-EESIA] was when her mother sent her from Guatemala to live with her grandmother in neighboring Belize. Her parents were staunch Sunday-keepers, and Leticia was tired of being told that she couldn’t behave like the other girls. “When I moved, I said, ‘Yes this […]
Blue Jeans
Ask a man to read this first-person testimony.] My father grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist home in Puerto Rico, but he left the church when someone criticized his fiancée for wearing blue jeans to church. My father was 19 years old at the time, and he showed up on Sabbath with my future mother, […]
Church Without Walls
A group of church members gathered in a Puerto Rican park at 5 a.m. Sabbath to pray, read the Bible, and eat a light breakfast. Little did they expect to be watched by homeless people when they were ejected from their usual spot one Sabbath and forced to meet in the city’s central square instead. […]