Welcome back to Lyon.
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And behind me you can see
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the dramatic architecture
of the Confluence Museum,
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which has exhibits in
science and anthropology
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amid this is very,
very modern architecture.
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Next up, we
travel to Silver Spring,
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Maryland to learn more
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about the worldwide
publishing ministry.
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I'm here with Almir Marroni,
who is the publishing director
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for the World's
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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Now people may not know
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what a publishing
director is or does,
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so you don't work
on the press all day,
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what do you do?
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Yeah, thank you
for the question, Rick.
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The publishing department
here in the General Conference
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works to coordinate
literature distribution.
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We advise publishing
house regarding production,
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what to produce,
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what kind of books
the church needs the most,
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especially to reach out.
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So this is our role to work
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promoting literature
distribution worldwide.
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So you said reach out,
so literature is mission?
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Yes.
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Absolutely. Yeah.
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We are celebrating
this year 170 years
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since the church printed
the first piece of literature.
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It was July 1849.
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So pioneers, they
brought 1,000 copies,
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they prayed for it,
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and the church
started distributing.
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I remember reading, you
know, sometimes mission history
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and seeing that.
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Sometimes in some countries
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the very first intro
arrived was not a missionary,
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but it was literature.
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Yes.
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Now and I think there are a
number of countries that way.
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Yes.
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So as you're, you know, working
with literature evangelists,
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I think, LEs we call them
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and also publishing
houses and things like that.
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I remember meeting
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with literature
evangelists sometimes
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and they had the best stories.
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Yeah.
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Do you have any stories
that you can share with us
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about what's happening?
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Rick, we have around the world
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45,000 LEs
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and we estimate that this group,
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they reach around 30
million people yearly
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in personal
contact, individual contact.
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And we have many stories.
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For example, I
want to mention a story
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without mentioning the country.
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There is a country
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in limited
religious freedom place.
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And our literature
evangelists were selling a book
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in different language
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because people from
the neighbor country
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were leaving there.
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And the literature
evangelist was selling
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and then the police came
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and police arrested
her and her colleague,
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took them to the
police department.
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And the police
officer start blaming them
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to disturbing people
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and she said, "No,
we are not disturbing.
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We are promoting health,
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we are promoting
freedom from drugs."
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So you should go
chasing these people
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who were distributing drugs,
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we are promoting
just the opposite.
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We are promoting health.
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So shame on you.
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She said, "Shame on you.
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You shouldn't be chasing us."
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And as she said
that the earth shake
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because this is a
territory of earthquakes.
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That men became so mad and said,
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"Okay, you go
home, you go home."
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And she called the
publishing director,
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he came.
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And when he took her
to her home, she asked,
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"No, no, pastor,
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please don't
take me to the home.
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Take me to the same
street where I was working.
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I want to continue
from that door on."
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This is the spirit of
our literature evangelists.
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Some of them they work in places
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where we don't
have freedom to work,
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but they have
this sense of mission.
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They want to share the
gospel and they move forward.
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And when we talk about mission,
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we're talking about
mission holistically.
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We care for the whole
person, physically, spiritually,
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and everything else.
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So somewhere along those
lines that's our mission.
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Now when it comes to
literature evangelists,
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you mentioned something about
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there are student
literature evangelists as well.
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So does that
mean they're learning
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to be literature evangelists or?
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Yeah, we have three
areas of distribution.
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First area is the original area.
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I mean, all Adventists
are literature distributors,
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all of them.
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It was the way
the church started
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before we had the
first literature evangelist,
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which came only 32 years later.
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So the church began
distributing literature
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every church member.
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So literature evangelists,
they are missionaries
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who accept a call to
dedicate full-time or part-time
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to literature distribution.
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In this group, we
have a student program,
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which is recruiting
students from our universities
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or even young
people from our churches
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to engage
literature distribution
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for a short period of
time, like summer vacation.
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So the students,
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they do these work on
summers or short vacation time.
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And we have a
group of 20,000 of them.
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And that's actually hard work.
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And you would
think, you know, that,
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you know, students would say,
do I really want to do this?
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But I have a feeling
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that it is a
wonderful life experience
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that prepares them
for a lot of things
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in the future.
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Ellen White says that
this is a best practical school
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you should engage in.
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And she said for those
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who are
preparing to be ministers,
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there is no best
training than canvassing
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and she says that.
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We have a nice group of
young people doing this.
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For example, in Japan,
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they have the Youth
Rush project in Japan
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and they are doing
extraordinary things,
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where things are difficult.
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And these Japanese young people,
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they are visiting
people like nobody else does.
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And they are doing
great job in Japan.
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Which is
interesting because in Japan,
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you generally do not
invite people to your home,
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culturally, but people
are opening their doors
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and things are happening.
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I had the privilege
to accompany for two days
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this program in
Japan, going out with them.
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And it was amazing.
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People even
don't open their doors.
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They put their nose outside
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and they look in
through this small space.
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A young literature
evangelist present books
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and say a prayer and
do the work is amazing.
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I see you bought some books.
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Can you tell us a
bit about these books?
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Yes, we have here three copies
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of missionary books of the year,
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2018, The Power of Hope,
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2019, Hope for Today's Family,
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and 2020, Hope Beyond Tomorrow.
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So these books are meant
to inspire our church members
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to distribute worldwide.
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We estimate that we produce
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around 50
million books per year,
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missionary books in
more than four 40 languages.
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So our church members... Yeah.
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I think I've heard them called
sharing books and like that.
00:08:04.11\00:08:05.91
Yes, yes, sharing books.
00:08:05.95\00:08:07.38
Because take a book
and share it with somebody
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that you know, it can be
your neighbor or can be whoever.
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It's very small price
and then they can distribute.
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Wonderful. Yeah.
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Thank you for
being with us today.
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For Mission 360,
I'm Rick Kajiura.
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Next up, we learn more
00:08:23.03\00:08:24.37
about how mission
offerings are to mission
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as water is to
a land of drought.
00:08:27.30\00:08:29.84
The Seventh-day Adventist Church
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is known around the
world for its mission outreach.
00:08:40.15\00:08:42.98
And your mission offerings
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are the
workhorse of these efforts.
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These offerings
do the heavy lifting
00:08:46.69\00:08:48.89
and foundation laying
the repair and renovation
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of the basic
structure of the church's work
00:08:51.69\00:08:54.23
around the world.
00:08:54.26\00:08:55.60
Without the mission offerings,
all the other structures
00:08:55.63\00:08:58.37
and systems built
upon it could crumble.
00:08:58.40\00:09:01.20
Your mission offerings
are like a life giving river
00:09:01.24\00:09:03.77
with tributaries
flowing around the world,
00:09:03.81\00:09:06.31
carrying refreshing
water to mission fields.
00:09:06.34\00:09:09.48
Sometimes we want to
give to a specific project
00:09:09.51\00:09:12.31
or to put our offerings
towards something special
00:09:12.35\00:09:14.52
that stirs our hearts.
00:09:14.55\00:09:16.52
We see the
results, we feel satisfied.
00:09:16.55\00:09:19.65
Giving to the mission
offering may not be as glamorous
00:09:19.69\00:09:22.82
as giving to a
specific well-advertised
00:09:22.86\00:09:25.63
project or program.
00:09:25.66\00:09:27.60
But wait, if it
weren't for mission offering
00:09:27.63\00:09:30.03
to sustain them,
00:09:30.07\00:09:31.40
these projects
would never happen.
00:09:31.43\00:09:33.70
So what happens to
our tithes and offerings?
00:09:33.74\00:09:36.30
Well, when we return 10%
of our income as tithe to God,
00:09:36.34\00:09:40.31
the Adventist Church uses it
00:09:40.34\00:09:41.74
to support
pastors and evangelists
00:09:41.78\00:09:44.08
as well as some
teachers and other workers
00:09:44.11\00:09:45.88
involved in
spreading the gospel.
00:09:45.91\00:09:48.55
On the front lines of mission,
00:09:48.58\00:09:50.19
tithe is not used
to fund orphanages,
00:09:50.22\00:09:53.25
schools or health programs
00:09:53.29\00:09:55.72
and it doesn't cover
miscellaneous operational
00:09:55.76\00:09:57.63
expenses either.
00:09:57.66\00:09:59.03
The mission offering does this.
00:09:59.06\00:10:01.76
You see our
mission offerings fund
00:10:01.80\00:10:03.77
what can't be
funded through tithe.
00:10:03.80\00:10:06.10
So when mission giving falls,
00:10:06.13\00:10:07.97
then work gets
cut back worldwide,
00:10:08.00\00:10:11.34
mission projects
falter, the movement stutters.
00:10:11.37\00:10:15.81
None of us want this to happen.
00:10:15.84\00:10:17.91
So our mission offerings
00:10:17.95\00:10:19.28
help ensure that mission
work operates continuously
00:10:19.31\00:10:22.32
around the world.
00:10:22.35\00:10:23.79
Want to see how our
giving impacts people
00:10:23.82\00:10:25.72
around the globe?
00:10:25.75\00:10:27.09
Mission 360 TV
programs, Mission Spotlight,
00:10:27.12\00:10:30.63
and the Mission Quarterlies
offer regular updates
00:10:30.66\00:10:32.99
on mission around the world.
00:10:33.03\00:10:34.76
These stories take
you to dozens of countries
00:10:34.80\00:10:37.23
to see what
Adventists are doing in places
00:10:37.27\00:10:39.60
you may have
never even heard of.
00:10:39.63\00:10:42.17
And what about the
13th Sabbath Offering
00:10:42.20\00:10:44.07
which began in 1912?
00:10:44.11\00:10:45.97
For many years, this offering
was an overflow offering.
00:10:46.01\00:10:48.88
A budget was set to
fund the mission program.
00:10:48.91\00:10:51.58
And once that money
was raised, any extra,
00:10:51.61\00:10:54.08
the overflow was used to
support a special project
00:10:54.12\00:10:57.35
chosen for that quarter.
00:10:57.39\00:10:58.79
However, during
recession in the 1970s,
00:10:58.82\00:11:01.56
there was no overflow offering.
00:11:01.59\00:11:04.29
So church leaders
voted to always send
00:11:04.33\00:11:06.73
25% of the offering
collected on the 13th Sabbath
00:11:06.76\00:11:10.00
to support specific
projects for each division
00:11:10.03\00:11:12.80
on a rotational basis.
00:11:12.83\00:11:14.90
Through your 13th
Sabbath Offerings,
00:11:14.94\00:11:17.21
you have helped build
schools, dormitories, hospitals,
00:11:17.24\00:11:21.34
clinics and church buildings,
00:11:21.38\00:11:23.24
launched mission boats
and set up lamb shelters,
00:11:23.28\00:11:26.61
printing presses,
universities and more,
00:11:26.65\00:11:29.52
altogether more
than 1,000 projects.
00:11:29.55\00:11:32.85
And because tithe money
can't be used for buildings,
00:11:32.89\00:11:35.56
the 13th Sabbath Offering
has frequently been used
00:11:35.59\00:11:37.89
for construction projects.
00:11:37.93\00:11:39.66
All of this could
have never happened
00:11:39.69\00:11:41.43
without the
Holy Spirit's leading
00:11:41.46\00:11:43.30
and your
regular faithful support
00:11:43.33\00:11:45.37
of the mission offerings.
00:11:45.40\00:11:47.37
We encourage you to
join Adventist everywhere
00:11:47.40\00:11:50.41
to prayerfully consider
00:11:50.44\00:11:51.77
what you can do to
keep a faithful river
00:11:51.81\00:11:54.44
of mission
offerings bringing life
00:11:54.48\00:11:56.64
giving water to mission
fields around the world.
00:11:56.68\00:11:59.41
Well, that's about
it for today's program.
00:12:10.83\00:12:12.66
And I hope that
you've been inspired
00:12:12.69\00:12:14.60
and challenged by our
360 degree view of mission
00:12:14.63\00:12:18.30
around the world.
00:12:18.33\00:12:19.67
And I want to
thank you for being part
00:12:19.70\00:12:21.04
of the Adventist Mission team.
00:12:21.07\00:12:22.97
Because if it wasn't for you,
00:12:23.00\00:12:24.34
if it wasn't for your
donations to global mission,
00:12:24.37\00:12:27.01
your mission offerings,
00:12:27.04\00:12:28.54
your prayers and
your personal involvement,
00:12:28.58\00:12:31.48
none of what you
see on this program
00:12:31.51\00:12:33.08
would be happening.
00:12:33.11\00:12:34.45
And it's exciting to
see new groups of believers
00:12:34.48\00:12:37.09
being planted,
00:12:37.12\00:12:38.45
new centers of
influence established,
00:12:38.49\00:12:40.59
new people coming to know Jesus
00:12:40.62\00:12:42.22
for the first
time in their lives.
00:12:42.26\00:12:44.06
Well for Adventist
Mission, I'm Gary Krause.
00:12:44.09\00:12:46.63
And I hope that you
can join me next time
00:12:46.66\00:12:48.63
right here on Mission 360.
00:12:48.66\00:12:50.87