Stories & Commentaries

In January, as news reports about an impending Russian invasion mounted, Andrey Gulko, a Pacific Union College graduate, readied his team in Ukraine for the “worst-case scenario.” Have extra fuel on hand. Keep your car’s gas tank full. Gather together important documents. Pack a suitcase with bare necessities. Be ready for an emergency. They all did it. But nobody believed it. “I myself didn’t believe it,” Gulko said. “I didn’t think it could happen.” The Gulko family, along with millions of other Ukrainians, suddenly found themselves at the center of a crisis that had been escalating for years.

The North American Division’s CALLED Pastors’ Family Convention is a time centered around guiding, supporting, and celebrating pastors. The CALLED Arena Experiences not only met that goal, but exceeded it, focusing on pastoral health and how believers must be grounded first and foremost on Christ alone. Over the course of four days, the arena experience was the central point of group worship that capped each day with morning and evening sessions.

Christ’s final prayer for His people—for His church—is that we would work together as one. One people and one church. We find Jesus’ prayer to His Father recorded in John 17:23: “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected and completed into one, so that the world may know [without any doubt] that You sent Me, and [that You] have loved them, just as You have loved Me” (Amplified).* His prayer was for His people, His church, to be one, working together as one!

We’re in the midst of one of the greatest youth crises in history. Suicide rates are up. Way up. So is depression, anxiety, sexual confusion, and desperation. All of this was completely predictable when so many school systems decided to close their doors and leave children to the mercy of the Internet. But one system has bucked the trend. Here’s the story of Adventist Education in North America.

A shoe giveaway was held Sabbath, May 21, 2022, on the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon. The Madras, Pleasant Valley, and Redmond Seventh-day Adventist churches collaborated on the event in close cooperation with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and with funding from Samaritans’ Feet.

Three years ago, Roy Reid of Longwood, Florida, experienced massive chest pains, which nearly scared him to death. Reid, then 54, had a stroke on his way to AdventHealth Altamonte Springs ER, and his unresponsive state may have helped lead to the grim diagnosis — an acute aortic dissection: his heart had exploded

Veteran historian and educator, Brian E. Strayer, at Andrews University would famously offer in class a reward of $100 to any student who could find a photograph of Sarah Lindsey (1832-1914), the first woman licensed as a Seventh-day Adventist minister. This challenge remained until a recently discovered photograph in the George I. Butler Collection at Loma Linda University provides a picture of a “Sister Lindsey.”

​​​​​​​On Sunday evening, June 19, 2022, the doors opened up for 670 registered children, ages 3-12, to the unique experience of CALLEDKids Go Fish for Kids: Where Kids Explore Their Spiritual Gifts.

The official fitness team of the 2022 CALLED Pastors’ Family Convention was formed long before event planning began. The group, F5 Challenge, offers fitness events across the North American Division and beyond, and is open Adventist and non-Adventists alike.

I realize that General Conference Session and fun aren’t always considered synonymous. Admittedly, if you speak with me during business sessions, "fun" isn’t my first description of the experience. However, another word for General Conference is "family reunion." (OK, two words.)