Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

September 2012

“Washington Adventist Hospital will continue to grow where we are while we again seek to obtain approval for a new hospital campus. Though this is a challenge, we choose to embrace possibility,” said William G "Bill" Robertson, Adventist HealthCare (AHC) president, speaking to attendees at the Columbia Union Conference Executive Committee who gathered today for their regular fall meeting.

Jacob had never attended summer camp before. Being visually impaired made it difficult for him to participate in typical summer camp activities. But that changed this summer as Jacob attended a camp specifically designed for the blind and visually impaired at Pennsylvania Conference’s Laurel Lake Camp and Retreat Center in Rossiter, Pa.

At the annual Day of Fellowship for Allegheny East Conference’s (AEC) Spanish Council of Churches, held last Sabbath at the conference’s headquarters in Pine Forge, Pa., attendees had much to celebrate. In addition to enjoying a day of worship, workshops and fellowship, the conference’s Hispanic members celebrated their first graduation from the School of Discipleship, Master Guide promotions, 18 baptisms, recognized five pastors with certificates of ministry and welcomed five new churches into the fold.

The Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md., has become the first hospital in Montgomery County to perform a da Vinci robotic single-site operation. This comes less than a year after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved single-site instruments for the da Vinci robotic surgical system last December.

At the beginning of the year, Hispanic young people in the Potomac Conference received a CD chockfull of sermons, posters and other materials to help prepare them to become evangelists. Nine months later, those who accepted the challenge stood in front of friends and family preaching about Jesus during a recent youth evangelism week at their churches. Some 27 churches participated, including youth from the Bealton (Va.), Oxon Hill (Md.) and District of Columbia Spanish churches.

If you are ever in Baltimore on a Friday evening, you can find Yehuda Mordechai in the basement of an old Jewish synagogue. Allegheny East Conference’s Berea Temple now occupies the building, but its Jewish history holds special significance to Mordechai, who is working to build up the newly established Baltimore Hebrew Adventist congregation in an area with a large Jewish population. It is in this place that Mordechai leads a Friday night Shabbat service designed to reach Jews for Jesus.

For many years, the building directly behind Potomac Conference’s Beltsville (Md.) church served as a parsonage. But on Tuesday, September 4, the building became a branch office of the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services. The office, located in the Adventist Community Services house at 4220 Ammendale Road, will offer emergency temporary cash assistance, food stamps and medical assistance.