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Departmental Weekend
21–23 September 2018. «Turbas», Latvia By Guntis Bukalders, BAUC Executive Secretary Almost 60 department leaders with their teams from Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian conferences and church administrators came together for a departmental weekend in «Turbas», Latvia, to meet each other, share their joys and challenges, listen to and pray for each other. We had several guest speakers invited from the Trans–European Division — Karen Holford, Zlatko Musija and Peter Bo Bohsen. The seed of an idea to have a weekend-long get-together for the department leaders of Baltic Union Conference was sown in 2017 after the first combined Union-wide Advisory for the Family, Children’s and Women’s Ministries departments. Almost all participants of…
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2nd European Health Conference in Bucharest, Part II
2nd European Health Conference in Bucharest, Part II The third day of the conference Vitriato Ferreira, MBChB Key factors in achieving and maintaining normal weight According to OECD there are more and more people overweight and obese. And more and more young people become overweight and obese. The results are heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, etc. Children exercise less and eat more. Body Mass Index is not the best measure to decide about overweight or obesity. It becomes inaccurate if a person is very tall and slim. The best marker is your waist circumference. It shows whether you are at higher risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure,…
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2nd European Health Conference in Bucharest, Part I
2nd European Health Conference in Bucharest, Part I The first day of the conference The title of this conference is Reversing Diseases with Lifestyle Medicine. Sharing health, healing and hope. The conference was opened by beautiful music and with the greetings from the GC president Ted Wilson that was followed by the words of the Romanian Union president, who welcomed the participants of the conference with salt and bread as it is a tradition in Romania. The main speaker of the first evening was Valerie Dofour, the Director of Health Ministries Department of the Inter-European Division. She started her presentation with an old legend of the blind men, who…
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Binding Up The Brokenhearted
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:2.3 Christ is a Healer. He was a Healer for Israelites, who in exile were afflicted with grief and troubles, longing for their homeland, crushed with sorrow and shame, and He is a great Healer today, renewing our spirit and giving us hope. He invites His followers to participate in this healing work helping those around them. Pastors and lay leaders in church have answered Christ’s calling. They work for people and with people, allowing God to use them to bless others. Although God will use people, who…
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New Leadership Elected in the Lithuanian Conference
28–30 September, 2017, Kaunas, LITHUANIA. 54 delegates from the 18 Adventist churches in Lithuania gathered to the Lithuanian Conference 8th constituency meeting. The theme of the constituency meeting was chosen from the book of Revelation 14:7 “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” This Bible text is very dear to all Adventist church members and is part of the Adventist Church mission statement. Opening the constituency meeting, Lithuanian Conference president Bertold Hibner expressed his thanks to the outgoing conference administration and the departmental leaders. After musical presentations both…
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Children’s Orchestra Camp
Adventist children and youth orchestra camp that was launched in Estonia as a result of the efforts by both Hans Soosaar and the music teacher Raeli Florea (who is also the conductor of the orchestra) celebrated already its fifth anniversary this year. Unlike during previous years, the camp did not take place in Estonia, but in Valka, Latvia, and had more international participants. There were 34 instrumentalists aged 9-24 and in addition to the familiar Latvian children, this year’s camp welcomed young musicians from Lithuania as well. The participants slept in the rooms of Jānis Cimze school and the rehearsals took place at Valka Cultural Center. Since the participants came…
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The «Messy Church» and «Girls for Christ» training in Estonia
On 17 June 2017, the active members of Tartu Adventist church (Estonia) came together to learn about Messy Church. The concept of Messy Church was actually born in Church of England, when a group at St. Wilfrid’s in Cowplain were frustrated because they did not seem to reach children with God’s story (https://www.messychurch.org.uk). So, they tried to create something interesting and appealing to all ages, and as the results showed, they succeeded. The idea spread quickly across the denominational borders. Now, many Seventh Day Adventist churches have embraced the idea of Messy Church and organise it successfully in many countries. In the Baltic Union, there are Messy Churches already in…
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CREATION Health
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) — mainly cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes — are the world’s biggest killers (http://apps.who.int/). They kill more people than accidents, hunger or infectious diseases. Furthermore, to provide the treatment for all these diseases is a huge burden to the world’s economy. Yet, with an appropriate lifestyle change ¾ of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancer would be prevented. Seems easy. Well it is not. The biggest risk factors, namely: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol seem to be difficult to change. As people, we are often ‘slaves…
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Matrix on evangelism
17 May 2017, Rīga, Latvia. BAUC team invited Adventist church leaders from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to come together for ‘Matrix on Evangelism’ to discuss the current situation of Adventist church in the Baltic countries. The purpose of such a meeting was to initiate an open discussion on challenges that we face and to start looking for the common strategic ideas that would be relevant and common for all three countries. First part of the one-day meeting was devoted to understanding the recent membership trends in the local conferences and exploring possible reasons for the decline in baptisms and worship service attendance. Second part of the day involved hearing positive…
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First Health Ministry Team Meeting of TED
Jesus’ disciple John wrote down His words, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). These words raise some important questions: Is my life abundant? What does it mean to have life more abundantly? If Jesus would like to give me more abundant life, how can I accept it? Can I help others to accept it too? On 8–9 May Health Ministry leaders of the TED unions came together to talk about what it means to have an abundant life through Jesus. As Adventists, we have the privilege to carry a special health message, given us by God through His…
