Treasurer, a native son, dismisses a poverty mindset in West-Central Africa

George Egwakhe is fighting the poverty mindset.

The son of famers in rural Nigeria, Egwakhe now finds himself in a position of encouraging Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in West-Central Africa to abandon the phrase "I'm poor."

George Egwakhe, an associate treasurer for the Adventist world church, addresses church leaders in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Monday, November 9. He and other church leaders are urging a more deliberate focus on local church regions becoming self reliant. [photo: Ansel Oliver/ANN]

"I disagree with that mentality, I don't accept it," says Egwakhe, an associate treasurer at the Adventist Church world headquarters in the United States.

His comments come during an interview over lunch at the church's West-Central Africa regional headquarters, where church leaders are holding year-end business meetings.

Following the morning's treasurer's report, several delegates asked for an increase in appropriations for their regions. Both Egwakhe and the division president put the kibosh on that idea.

"Don't tell me about poverty," Egwakhe told some 30 delegates during an animated response to the floor discussion. "If you do not believe in self support you are in the wrong place."

Later, over lunch, Egwake says that most foreign church leaders wouldn't be able to respond the way he did that morning. He grew up in the region and had to work as a farmer for five years following elementary school to earn his way to high school. "I believe it is possible for [this region] to change its financial picture," he says.

Egwakhe is one of three world church officers attending the meeting. Each of the church's 13 world regions typically hold their own business meetings following the world church's Annual Council at the world church headquarters in October.

The church's West Central African region is home to more than 830,000 Adventists. [graphic: courtesy adventist.org]

The West-Central Africa region, home to more than 830,000 Adventists, faces some of the most daunting challenges in the denomination, local church leaders say. In addition to being a malaria zone, it's a volatile region, politically and economically. Currencies can fluctuate wildly -- the region this year lost nearly 30 percent of its appropriation from the world headquarters because of varying currency rates. Also, transportation in the region is expensive -- it can be cheaper to fly to Europe or the United States than to travel across the region's territory.

Still, the biggest challenge, Egwakhe says, is fighting against a mindset that thinks money will always come from other world church regions.

Many in West Central Africa are subsistence farmers who live on a few dollars a day. But, as Egwakhe pointed out to delegates, it was the rural eastern region of Nigeria that was the first area of that country to become self-reliant more than 30 years ago, not the wealthier suburban areas.

"They were farmers, and I see some of them here today," Egwakhe told delegates. It's not the amount of wealth that matters, but how that wealth is managed, he said.

"My great-grandmother could manage her wealth," Egwakhe said.

Earlier this year, the division held its first Stewardship summit, which drew nearly 300 delegates to Ghana, the only country in the region to deliver a clean audit this year.

Similar conferences are scheduled around the region next year to emphasize responsible living and wealth management.

"We're hitting that point hard," said Mike Ryan, a vice president of the Adventist world church, who is also attending the meeting. Ryan spent the previous week delivering the region's strategic plan, which calls for a strong stewardship emphasis to meet the church's policy requiring that local regions aim toward self reliance.

"Research shows that [regions] that have a stronger stewardship program tend to be closer to becoming self reliant than those that don't," Ryan said.

In his response to delegates, regional President Gilbert Wari put his index finger to his temple, saying, "Development starts here, prepare your mind for development."

"Let's tell our members, even to tithe their poverty," Wari said. "They eat, don't they? So if they can eat, they can tithe that too and God will bless."

Adventist Church growth rate trends higher in United States, Canada, Bermuda

As of September 30, there are nearly 1.1 million Adventist Church members in North America, G. Alexander Bryant, secretary for the region, told delegates gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland on November 5 for the region's year-end meetings. [photos: Mark A. Kellner/Adventist Review]

As of Sept. 30, there are 1,097,217 members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, said G. Alexander Bryant, secretary of the church in North America, in a report opening the region's year-end meetings in Silver Spring, Maryland last week. The figure represents a ratio of one Seventh-day Adventist for every 312 people in North America, he said.

That's a net increase of 12,379 members over the 1,084,838 on the record at the end of 2008, according to statistics on file at Bryant's offices. During 2008, Bryant said, 7,353 members passed away, and another 14,687 were either dropped from church rolls or could not be located. Today, North American members of the Church worship weekly in 6,005 churches and congregations in the United States, Canada and Bermuda.

Overall, however, church growth is more positive than the initial numbers might suggest, Bryant explained. The current membership growth rate is 2.13 percent, Bryant said, up from 1.44 percent in 2004, and 1.97 percent in 2007. (Rates of growth are the changes in membership between the beginning of the year and the end of the year, shown as percentages.)

From June 30, 2008 to July 1, 2009, an average of 116.8 people joined the church in North America per day either by baptism or on profession of faith. That's 4.1 percent of the 2,818.1 people who joined the worldwide Adventist Church every day during that period, for a global total of 1,029,206 members. Global Adventist Church membership, as of late September, stood at just over 16 million, world church leaders reported.

Evangelism "is happening all over our [region]," regional president Don C. Schneider said last week.

Bryant's report followed a presentation by Don C. Schneider, president for the church in North American, in which he highlighted a number of evangelism initiatives throughout the three-nation region. Among the most notable was the Claim L.A. campaign headlined by It Is Written speaker/director Shawn Boonstra, targeted at the nearly 14 million people who live in Los Angeles.

But evangelism "is happening all over our division ... everywhere," Schneider said. "New churches are starting, and ... there were more baptisms this year than we have had in many years."

The NAD year-end business meetings ran through Monday, November 9.

Maranatha marks 40 years of church, school construction worldwide

Not-for-profit construction company Maranatha Volunteers International marked its 40th anniversary of volunteer-driven school, church, clinic, orphanage and hospital projects this year.

Don Noble, president of Maranatha Volunteers International, and wife Laura Noble attend the annual year-end business meetings of the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Maranatha celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, marking decades of completed construction projects around the world. [photo: Rajmund Dabrowski/ANN]

The biggest change in 40 years has been the ability of the organization to respond to the world church needs, said Kyle Fiess, Maranatha vice president for marketing and projects.

"For twenty years, the organization would respond to several projects per year," Fiess said. "Now, Maranatha operates in multiple countries around the world."

And the projects keep pouring in, Fiess said.

Currently, Maranatha has received over 100,000 church building requests, a number the organization can better handle with recent equipment purchases (http://news.adventist.org/2009/10/adventist-businessma.html), leadership said.

Ongoing Maranatha projects include the One-Day Church, a project providing quick construction solutions for thousands of Adventists around the world, and Ultimate Workouts, construction projects targeted at high school-aged volunteers.

"[Ultimate Workouts] started with a handful of teenagers, but now the project accommodates nearly 200 participants each summer," Fiess said.

This summer will be the 20th Ultimate Workout.

While the number of volunteers has steadily increased, the organization has still been effected by the economic downturn, Fiess said.

"The recession has affected Maranatha financially as giving levels have shifted," he said, adding that the organization had to make "spending cuts in a number of areas, including a reduction of our office staff."

Cut-backs aside, most Maranatha volunteer projects are "filled to capacity," Fiess said.

New construction methods, careful planning and "God's leading" will move the organization's work ahead in the next decade, said Don Noble, president of Maranatha.

"We plan to increase our capacity to construct more churches and schools that will meet the needs of church growth and to involve more volunteers in both construction and wider outreach opportunities connected with these projects."

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