Welcome back.
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Next up, we
travel to Northern Italy
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to the Waldensian Valley
and a Global Mission Project.
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I'm here in
Northern Italy with Gabriele,
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who is a global
mission pioneer up here.
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Can you tell us a
little bit about where we are?
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And there's historical
significance to this area.
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Can you tell us a
little bit about that?
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Yes, we are in Torre Pellice,
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which is in the heart
of the Waldensian Valleys
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in North Western Italy,
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and this place has
a great significance
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for the history of
Protestants in general
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and also for us as
Seventh-day Adventists.
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We know that in past
centuries a group of people here
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lived by the Word of God
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and they preached the
gospel in many areas of Europe.
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They trained
missionaries here in a school
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and they sent them out
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and they would
go to universities,
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and different parts of
Europe so spreading the gospel.
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And they were so persecuted
because of their faith,
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and it's also
significant place for us,
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'cause of the first baptism
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outside of the
United States of America
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was done here in Torre Pellice,
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and was a lady baptized in 1865.
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Wow. That's incredible.
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And then of course Ellen
White visited here several times
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and wrote about the Waldensians
in some of her books,
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but what are you doing here
as a global mission pioneer,
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it seems like the first baptism
outside of the US was here,
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Adventists have had
a long presence here.
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So why are you here?
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Yes, well, Torre Pellice Church
was one of the first churches
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established in
Italy, and right now,
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actually we have a small church
about 30 people in attendance.
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And the thing is we
don't have Adventist presence
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here in the valleys.
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Basically, all the members
come from outside the valleys
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except for a three of us we
live in the church building.
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So even if we do have a church,
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there's also the
need of planting church
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of people
coming from the valley.
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That's why the
division started this project
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in the Waldensian Valleys
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to reach Waldensian
population here in this place.
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Okay.
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Now, you are doing
certain activities.
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What are you doing
to try to reach out
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to the community
here in the valley?
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Well, we started
having some small groups,
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which are not
actually in the valleys
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but we go to church
members and their homes,
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and so we have some
contacts and some interests
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that are not from the valley
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but for the valley
itself we run health expo,
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we had some public
meetings last year,
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because we just
started last year
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and currently we're
holding Daniel seminar.
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So we're going through the Book
of Daniel chapter by chapter,
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and we're
seeing a good interest,
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quite a good number of
people is coming to the meeting.
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So we're trying to rekindle
this faith in the Waldensians,
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the faith that
their fathers had,
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they were students of the Bible,
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students of Bible prophecy,
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so we're kind of
trying to awake them to,
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to the heritage they...
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that was left to
them by their fathers.
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Okay.
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Now, we're in the middle-...
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the square in the
middle of town here,
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and this is where you
had the health expo, correct?
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Yeah. Yes.
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Correct. Okay.
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So what was the
result of that? Didn't any...
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Was there a lot
of people that came,
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were they interested,
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and do they know
anything about Adventists?
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Yeah.
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Some people do use a
small village because
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and so we know each other,
but we had a good response,
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over 70 people
came for health expo
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and yeah, and...
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So we're, trying to
meet the people's needs
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and the interesting
thing about this area is that
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you can talk about spiritual
topics without, you know,
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being look as a weird
person because, you know,
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there's a lot of churches
even if it's a small village.
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You have many denominations
here in the valleys
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so there's a good
Protestant presence here.
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And so you can,
you can speak about
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spiritual topics
very, very freely.
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It's not uncommon
here to speak about God.
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And even though
there's not a strong Adventist
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present in the church.
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We have a lot of
Adventists who come here.
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Yes.
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To visit all the historic sites.
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If you could ask
people around the world,
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to pray for something here,
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what would you
ask them to pray for?
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That's an interesting question.
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I remember Ellen
White was here as you,
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as you mentioned before,
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and she actually wrote
some interesting things
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about these place.
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She said, "That the
light of a third angel
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would shine in these valleys."
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And she said, she saw a
disturbance in the valleys
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and people coming to
distrust their own teachers,
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and she said that
many would hear of a truth.
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So we start seeing it happening.
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We have for
example a Waldensian man
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come into our
church every Sabbath,
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is very dissatisfied
with, with his own church.
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He's seen...
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started seeing things
are not right with the Bible,
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and so we started seeing
the fulfilment of these words
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with Ellen White's words.
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So we would like
to ask you to pray
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that God could
really awake in these people
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the spirit of their old fathers
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that they would really
get on fire to study the Bible
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as they did in the past.
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Okay.
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Now we visited one of
the small group Bible studies
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that you had last night.
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I found it fascinating
that you had Italian people,
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but you also had people
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from different
countries of the world.
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Yes.
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It's amazing that
we are global church
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and the world is somewhat
global today, people travel.
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Can you just share
some of the countries
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represented there last night?
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Yeah.
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We had people from
Bolivia, and from Moldova,
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and then from
Romania, from France,
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from different
countries and we do,
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also in our small church,
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we have many nationalities.
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We have a lady
from the Mauritius,
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and so we do have
lots of nationalities
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and it's a really
nice experience too
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to see all the people coming
together to worship one God.
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Wonderful, Gabriele,
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thank you so much for
talking with us today,
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and friends at home.
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Those of you who
support global mission,
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you're helping to support
people like Gabriele here
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and many Global Mission
Pioneers around the world.
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And now, back to you Gary.
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Next up, Gina
Wahlen tells us the story
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of the 13th Sabbath Offering.
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Hello, I'm Gina Wahlen,
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from the General Conference
Office of Adventist Mission.
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And I'd like to
ask you a question.
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What is one thing
that we've been doing
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a Seventh-day Adventists
for more than 100 years?
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Wherever we are that brings
us together as a church family
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through this one thing
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thousands of good
things have happened.
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Boats have been launched,
people have been healed,
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souls have been saved,
schools have been built,
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and lives have been changed.
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That one thing started in 1886,
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when the General
Conference promoted
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the first church wide
Sabbath school mission project
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building the mission
about named the Pitcairn
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to sail to the tiny
island in the South Pacific.
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Working together
young and old raised $12,000
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for this first Sabbath
school mission project.
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Following the Pitcairn Project,
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Sabbath school mission offerings
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continued to increase.
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On Sabbath January 6th, 1912,
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Sabbath school
members were introduced
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to a new plan through a
small eight page pamphlet
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that would later become known
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as the Sabbath
school missions quarterly.
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On the cover page it read,
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"Our Sabbath school offerings
have increased so splendidly,
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that it is thought we
may now have a special object
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for which we may set apart
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the gifts of one
Sabbath in each quarter.
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The General Conference Committee
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has voted to allow us
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to select the last
Sabbath in each quarter
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as a day when we may
donate to a special object."
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And that continues today
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through the 13th
Sabbath mission offering.
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This special offering
really pulls us together
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as a world church.
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It's a specific way in
which we can help each other
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and learn from each other.
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You know, a year or so
ago, I was in South Korea,
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where I met a lady by
the name of Mrs. Shin.
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Mrs. Shin, had a
unique sense of mission.
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When her teenage
daughter decided,
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she no longer
wanted to go to church
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because there were
no other teens there.
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Mrs. Shin came up
with a great plan pancakes.
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She made hundreds of
them, thousands of them
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and set up shop
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right across the street
from the local high school
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where she sold
them to hungry teens.
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But she did much more than that.
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When the kids would come
to buy pancakes from her,
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she would befriend them,
talk to them, get to know them.
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She invited them to her home,
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she got them
involved in outreach projects.
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She fed them, she
gave them Bible studies.
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And can you believe it?
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She planted a
church using pancakes.
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And one of our 13th Sabbath
mission offering projects
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was to help
provide a new building
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for this new church plant.
00:10:07.77\00:10:10.21
Then can you imagine how
amazed I was a year later
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when I was in a Papua
New Guinea to see Mrs. Shin.
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Well, it wasn't
exactly Mrs Shin.
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It was a picture of
Mrs. Shin making pancakes,
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and that picture was on a poster
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promoting the
13th Sabbath offering.
00:10:27.26\00:10:30.16
Here we were in a little church
in a garbage dump community,
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where people have
very, very little,
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they literally live
off of the garbage stop.
00:10:38.47\00:10:41.94
And yet, they were willing
to take what little they had
00:10:41.97\00:10:45.31
to help support some kids in
their mission in South Korea.
00:10:45.34\00:10:50.08
That's powerful,
that's togetherness,
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that's the 13th
Sabbath offering.
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This special mission offering
has been uniting the church
00:10:57.32\00:11:01.16
through giving for
more than 100 years.
00:11:01.19\00:11:04.49
I want to encourage you,
if you haven't already done so
00:11:04.53\00:11:08.53
to harness the power of
mission and mission giving.
00:11:08.56\00:11:12.60
And specifically mission giving
to the 13th Sabbath offering.
00:11:12.63\00:11:17.51
Be sure that the churches
and institutions in your area
00:11:17.54\00:11:20.91
are receiving the
mission quarterly,
00:11:20.94\00:11:23.04
and the mission spotlight DVD's
00:11:23.08\00:11:25.28
from our Office
of Adventist Mission.
00:11:25.31\00:11:28.18
These resources are
filled with inspiring stories
00:11:28.22\00:11:31.65
of how God is working
right now through His people
00:11:31.69\00:11:35.19
to accomplish His mission
00:11:35.22\00:11:37.13
and bringing His church
together around the world.
00:11:37.16\00:11:41.00
In addition to the hard copies,
00:11:41.03\00:11:43.26
both the
quarterlies and the DVD's
00:11:43.30\00:11:45.57
are available for
downloading from our website
00:11:45.60\00:11:48.60
at www.adventistmission.org
00:11:48.64\00:11:53.27
and we also have
mission apps available.
00:11:53.31\00:11:56.28
If you haven't done so
yet, I hope you'll join us
00:11:56.31\00:11:59.81
in this wonderful
plan of togetherness,
00:11:59.85\00:12:02.78
supporting our brothers
and sisters around the world
00:12:02.82\00:12:06.29
doing God's mission through
the 13th Sabbath offering.
00:12:06.32\00:12:10.53
Thank you so much.
00:12:10.56\00:12:12.03
Well, thanks so much for
joining us on today's program.
00:12:24.17\00:12:27.31
I hope that you've
been challenged and inspired
00:12:27.34\00:12:30.18
by what you've seen and heard.
00:12:30.21\00:12:32.31
People around the world,
00:12:32.35\00:12:33.68
from Papua New Guinea, to Italy,
00:12:33.72\00:12:36.52
to many places touched by
the 13th Sabbath offerings,
00:12:36.55\00:12:40.09
people are responding
to the light of God's love.
00:12:40.12\00:12:43.22
And I want to
thank you for the part
00:12:43.26\00:12:44.59
that you're playing in that,
00:12:44.63\00:12:45.96
your prayers,
your financial support,
00:12:45.99\00:12:48.16
and your personal involvement
make all the difference.
00:12:48.20\00:12:51.40
Before we go, I
have a special offer,
00:12:51.43\00:12:54.00
this may take
you back in time to
00:12:54.04\00:12:55.77
when you were younger
but the old money box,
00:12:55.80\00:12:59.27
a little reminder
to give offerings,
00:12:59.31\00:13:01.74
and this is a 13th Sabbath
Mission offerings money box.
00:13:01.78\00:13:05.91
You can use this at
home to teach your children
00:13:05.95\00:13:08.22
about the importance
of saving for a mission.
00:13:08.25\00:13:10.92
You can use it in
your Sabbath schools
00:13:10.95\00:13:12.65
and youth groups wherever,
00:13:12.69\00:13:14.52
just as a symbol, as a
reminder of the importance
00:13:14.56\00:13:17.29
to consistently and faithfully
00:13:17.33\00:13:19.53
support mission
with our finances.
00:13:19.56\00:13:22.53
For Adventist
Mission, I'm Gary Krause,
00:13:22.56\00:13:24.57
and I hope you
can join me next time
00:13:24.60\00:13:26.47
right here on
Global Mission Snapshots.
00:13:26.50\00:13:29.14