Potomac Conference

During year end meetings last week, Columbia Union Conference Executive Committee members voted to give $40,000 to the Allegheny East and New Jersey conferences to aid them in their super storm Sandy relief efforts. The three union officers then prayed over José H. Cortés, New Jersey Conference president; and Henry J. Fordham, Allegheny East Conference president; as well as for the efforts of volunteers throughout New Jersey.

Last Friday Charlie “Doc” Shyab, a member of Potomac Conference’s Takoma Park (Md.) church, received the Bronze Star medal in a ceremony at Fort Meade in Maryland. Because of misplaced paperwork, the award was overdue by 44 years. It seemed only fitting that he would receive this recognition only a few days before the Veteran’s Day holiday.

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.

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.

Long time radio host Gerry Fuller, DDS, died Sunday, July 1, at the age of 83. Fuller, a member of Potomac Conference’s Sligo church, was best known as host of the Saturday morning broadcast, Breakaway, at Washington Adventist University’s WGTS 91.9 FM radio station in Takoma Park, Md

While schools around the country engaged in Valentine’s Day activities, the campus of Takoma Academy (TA) in Takoma Park, Md., welcomed a man who walked with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as the nation prepared to address civil rights: U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

For the past 16 years, the Potomac Conference’s Hispanic Evangelism Festival has drawn pastors and laypeople interested in learning how to better share the gospel with the world.

A veritable list of who’s who gathered on November 15 to celebrate and recognize Erwin Mack, a member of Potomac Conference’s Sligo church in Takoma Park, Md. Some guests attended 80-year-old Mack’s retirement party held at Washington Adventist University also in Takoma Park. This marked the second time that Mack retired from the Takoma Langley Crossroads Development Authority, a business association, which he founded and chaired for more than 20 years. Through that organization Mack lobbied for increased police surveillance, combined advertising, utility improvements, and street and pedestrian safety enhancements.

If you walked or drove by the parking lot of the Takoma Park Spanish church in Takoma Park, Md., yesterday you would have heard a live Christian praise team; seen kids and kids-at-heart getting their faces painted, taking photos with the Guide magazine dog and singing interactive songs; while their parents selected free clothing and food and got free immigration and health counseling. As people chatted happily with the young people who staffed the giveaway stations and with each other the atmosphere was certainly festive. Located at the corner of University Boulevard and Caroll Avenue, the church is just blocks away from Langley Park, one of the largest Spanish-speaking communities in the Washington, D.C.-area.