ALLAN R. HANDYSIDES Director

It is no small task to summarize the scope and impact of Seventh-day Adventist health ministries around the world.

Hundreds of dedicated Adventist men and women contribute to their church and society by participating in health ministries. Millions of patients receive treatment each year in our hundreds of institutions and clinics. Thousands of surgical operations are performed in our operating rooms. Adventist dentists examine and treat hundreds of thousands of patients. In some developing regions our meager outreach is the only help available; in others, Adventist health ministries seek to provide a distinctive witness among many other health-care providers. In the General Conference Health Ministries Department, our wealth is in our people.

Dr. Kathleen Kuntaraf has guided a training program in conjunction with the Youth Ministries and Education departments in six divisions of the world field. Such is the success of this program that several governments have adopted it as the national prevention method and invite our schools to provide leadership training.

Stoy Proctor has produced a women’s edition of the Breathe Free program and has conducted many training programs in this smoking-cessation effort. He also chairs the Nutrition Council, which utilizes the expertise of the churches’ leading nutritionists. This council of scholars produces numerous position statements to guide would-be teachers, and a variety of balanced, informative, and health-promoting publications. Under Stoy Proctor’s leadership, Vegetarian Cuisine Instructors courses have become very popular as training schools in both nutrition and cooking.

The Christian View of Human Life Committee, on which health ministries personnel participate, has considered some thorny and difficult issues during the past quinquennium. Papers and statements on birth control, abortion, human cloning, gene therapy, sexually transmitted disease, female genital mutilation, and reproductive technology have been produced and offered as guidelines to the committee and its recommendations to the wider church. These statements can be perused on the department’s Web site: health20-20.org. Members and pastors are encouraged to view these statements before speaking on behalf of the church on these controversial subjects.

The Health Connection, directed by Leilani Proctor, is a wonderful and vital link for health ministries resources in print, video, and audio format. Resource centers in Australia, South Africa, and the Southern Asia-Pacific Division are facilitating the distribution of videos, programs, and teaching devices, and a constantly revised catalog is published annually.

Because of the unique relationship between Loma Linda University and its medical school with the General Conference, we have sought greater cooperation with the university and welcomed Drs. Richard Hart and Joyce Hopp, who are the deans of the schools of Public Health and Allied Health, respectively, as associate directors in our Health Ministries Department. Programs led by these deans have benefited the world field enormously. A current example is the M.P.H. program now under way for more than 50 postgraduate students in Africa. University faculty give unstintingly of their expertise for the betterment of our church leadership.

Dr. Tom Zirkle, of the LLU School of Medicine, is also an associate director. He has arranged for continuing medical education credits at many of our professional meetings. He inspects our mission hospitals, gives advice and assistance in procuring equipment, and is helping to upgrade the university’s offerings for health professionals seeking short-term specific training.

Dr. James Crawford, another associate director, has done a magnificent job of coordinating, recruiting, and supplying our numerous dental clinics with appropriate equipment and supplies. Anywhere that the Adventist Church operates a dental clinic, we can be proud of its impact in the community and its high standards.

Dr. Pat Jones, an assistant director, is professor of international nursing at Loma Linda, and has surveyed and advised our schools of nursing on many operational activities. She is available and highly recommended to any educational unit thinking of starting a school of nursing, improving a current operation, or introducing a newer offering of an academic nature.

Adventist optometrists in North America provide Dr. Clarence Omans, another assistant director, as a coordinator of vision affairs. He has been invaluable in locating equipment, and the missionary zeal of our optometry association is much appreciated. Dr. Rob Johnson, also an assistant director, is a self-supporting volunteer who has brought his orthopedic skills to bear in the field, as well as hunting out used equipment for our mission hospitals.

The engines of health ministries are in the divisions. There the devoted hard work and coordination provided by our leadership is having its greatest impact.

In the North American Division DeWitt Williams is always looking for new opportunities to have an impact in a positive way on the problems of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. His innovative program of certification for different levels of health leadership has been highly successful.

The South American Division, under the health leadership of Tito Rodriguez, is a powerhouse of great hospitals. Names such as Silvestre, Belem, Manaus, Campo Grande, and the fabled River Plate medical school and university became real to me as I visited this division.

In the Southern Asia-Pacific Division the leadership has planned a five-year incremental program with emphasis on the home, then church, then community, and finally, the state. Division health ministries director Abraham Carpena, diligent and hardworking, has been nicknamed the “Lion of the Philippines.”

Europe, with its three divisions, has able leadership for health ministries in Orville Woolford, Jochen Hawlitschek, and Nadezhda Ivanova. The work there is as diverse as the territories. In Russia the health ministry of the church staves off the religious intolerance of some of the more powerful institutions. Regular newsletters from Dr. Hawlitschek consistently lay a foundation of knowledge for his people.

Dr. Elie Honore serves the Inter-American Division, a diverse region of Francophone, Anglophone, and Spanish-speaking peoples. A colorful network of hospitals, clinics, and Montemorelos University, with its own medical school, carry the church’s health ministries standard. The Youth-to-Youth program, begun more than 10 years ago in the North American Division, is being enthusiastically implemented in Inter-America.

Adventist health ministries in Africa, with its two large divisions, are coordinated by Dr. Paul Wangai and Dr. Maragia Omwega. Church-run hospitals and clinics are sometimes overwhelmed with the epidemic of AIDS that is sweeping portions of the continent. Poor blood-banking services, high transfusion rates, and reused needles do nothing to help the dreadful problem. Still, enthusiasm and continuing liaison with medical organizations and governments have led to major advances. Dr. Wangai led out in one of the world’s most successful health meetings of the whole quinquennium in Nairobi.

In the South Pacific Division our mission hospitals, under much economic pressure at times, have continued to provide life-giving services. New Zealand and Australia also have lively antismoking programs, strong health professional associations, and wonderful prospects for growth in areas of church-affiliated medical practices. Dr. Percy Harrold and his team are doing a fine work in this region.

In the Northern Asia-Pacific Division Carlos Martin is focusing on health evangelism and bringing much experience to this initiative. Adventist hospitals and medical practices continue their outreach to the largely urban populations of this territory.

South Africa was the host country for the tenth International Congress of the International Commission for Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction in January 2000. Thomas Neslund, an associate in the GC Health Ministries Department, led out in this initiative along with help from Reg Burgess and Dr. Gary Hopkins, director of the Institute for Prevention of Addictions at Andrews University and an assistant director of the department. A youth component of this international congress has been successful in petitioning for a U.S. presidential commission to study underage drinking and driving.

Health ministries is attempting to do research into the needs of communities, the effectiveness of our current activities, and the attitudes of Adventist Church members. There will be a research questionnaire for the delegates to the GC session in Toronto. We are hoping for a good response in order to plan for even more effective health ministry in the coming years.