It was clear that the incredibly tall and slender old woman in a blue head scarf wanted to tell me something. Holding her Bible with both hands, she would move her hands in prayer position, while saying a few words in a language that I could not understand. Then she would raise her arms to the sky while still holding firmly to her Bible, showing her white teeth against the dark, shimmering skin of her face under a scorching noonday sun. I smiled back, not sure I understood what she was trying to tell me.
I was on assignment for Adventist Review, covering evangelistic meetings in Juba, South Sudan, as part of the Homecoming series across the East-Central Africa Division in July 2024. The Sabbath worship service had just ended, led by General Conference president Ted N. C. Wilson. Hundreds had walked to the stage in the center of the newly renovated Juba Football Stadium for a special dedicatory prayer. Many of them would be baptized a couple of hours later in a nearby branch of the Nile River. Scores of others had responded to an altar call for the first time, signaling a commitment to start taking Bible studies to prepare themselves for a future baptism. Now, as the service wrapped up, it was time to greet people, take photos, and enjoy the matchless fellowship of the Adventist worldwide family.
This scene in Juba was as neat and original as could be. At the same time, it was one more iteration of similar scenes in other venues and with other brothers and sisters around the world. As I commune with engaged Adventist members devoted to reaching out others for Jesus all around the world, time after time I have come to the same logical conclusion: There is probably nothing that energizes Seventh-day Adventists more than mobilizing together for a common missionary goal. And Adventists can’t possibly look better than when they devote their time, energies, and funds for mission.
A Worldwide Initiative
Against that backdrop, the General Conference (GC) multiyear initiative of supporting massive regional evangelistic efforts around the world has often helped church leaders and members to leave their comfort zones to reach out to others. At the same time, in the thousands —if not millions— reached, it has instilled a desire to take the Bible seriously and study it to find out God’s will for their lives.
These worldwide initiatives require incredibly complex logistical coordination, and have enlisted the support of Adventist World Radio, Hope Channel, Adventist Review, GC departments, and others. They have also required the buy-in of church regions around the world, without which no localized evangelistic effort would be successful.
While the GC’s role as a facilitator includes a rather structured approach to evangelism, the system has been flexible enough to allow for regional adaptations that consider the realities on the ground. Evangelistic meetings have taken place in stadiums, public halls, local churches, and even on the premises of private businesses and homes. They have included multiweek meetings, short reaping campaigns after months of small group efforts, health fairs and free clinics, one-on-one or door-to-door contacts on streets and neighborhoods, and more. And they have resulted in massive baptisms in oceans, rivers, lakes, and pools, but also in smaller ceremonies in churches, schools, and even prisons. The meetings have even helped to sow and water seeds of faith that only God knows when they will finally grow, flourish, and be ripe for the harvest.
No matter the continent or the size of the initiative, evangelism is a catalyst for all that is positive about the Adventist Church.
No matter the continent or the size of the initiative, evangelism is a catalyst for all that is positive about the Adventist Church. It motivates church leaders. It ignites those church workers and volunteers who get involved. It helps God transform those who are reached. It brings daunting challenges, but at the same time deep satisfaction to the church as a whole. And it is, in short, what distinguishes a social club from a God-led movement.
No Greater Joy
In that context I can attest with confidence that there is probably no greater joy than what a person transformed by God’s Spirit experiences. Time and again I have witnessed that serene and confident smile transcending all time zones and geographical venues. From the secular nursing student in Japan who found God’s truth in urban Tokyo, to the foreign inmate reached by prison ministries while serving time in Madrid, to the Evangelical pastor turned farmer living in the isolated highlands of Papua New Guinea, it is the same reaction: the smile of a person deeply thankful for having found “a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11). It is the smile of someone who is now confident about their present and future, because they are grounded in the One who holds that future.
Adventist mission initiatives around the world remind us once and again that God’s Spirit knows no boundaries. From the Indian old woman who first got to know Adventists when she underwent a cataract surgery at a makeshift Adventist free clinic, to the agnostic personal trainer at a gym in secular Prague, to a truth-seeking couple in an isolated island corner of Scotland, the Spirit of God keeps working to draw “those who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14). And committed Adventist members everywhere feel there is no greater privilege than to be the hands and feet of Jesus to facilitate these experiences.
Every time somebody questions the logic or propriety of funding and staffing massive evangelism efforts, I see one of those smiling faces coming out of the baptismal waters, faces that probably wouldn’t have been there but for a son or daughter of God who let themselves be used as a tool in the hands of the Master. When I see them walking out of the waters to a new life in Jesus, I allow myself to envision how many deacons, pastors, and future leaders of God’s church are potentially there. And I think of the current church leadership around the world, many of whom can trace their beginnings in leadership to a similar moment.
Embraced by the Same Hope
That Sabbath in South Sudan I was reminded of another key element that binds Adventist mission together: the power of enduring hope. As the tall and slender sister in Juba kept motioning and smiling, she showed me her open Bible. It was, I would learn later, a New Testament in Dinka, one of the main indigenous languages in South Sudan. While I couldn’t understand the written language, I guessed that “Mathayo” stood for the Gospel of Matthew and saw that she had it opened to chapters 24 and 25.
A couple of minutes later I finally managed to secure the assistance of a young Dinka interpreter. The old woman kept motioning, raising her arms to the sky, while she talked, this time to the interpreter.
“What is she saying?” I eagerly asked him.
The interpreter looked at me as if I were missing the obvious.
“She says, ‘We’ll see each other again,’ ” he told me. “She says, ‘I’ll meet you in heaven.’ ”
