IT HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS

     In 1984 the Adventist Development and Relief Agency was created from a merger of development projects undertaken by various Adventist organizations and SAWS, the Seventh-day Adventist World Service, Inc. SAWS had been organized in 1956 to provide an agency to conduct relief activities begun by the General Conference in the aftermath of World War II.

       The SAWS relief activities had consisted largely of the distribution of donated clothing collected by local churches across North America and surplus agricultural commodities provided by the American government. These activities had begun on a modest scale in the aftermath of World War I when special offerings were collected in churches in the U.S. to help members affected in Europe. In 1923, the same was done to aid the victims of famine in China, and in 1927, the Church was involved in helping families dislocated by the great Mississippi River flood.

       When World War II devastated much of Europe, the General Conference again organized relief aid to help refugees. Warehouses were set up in New York and San Francisco to handle donated items. In the early 1950s, Adventists helped orphans and homeless children in Korea with clothing, food, and emergency shelter. As more requests came for assistance, the General Conference set up SAWS in 1956, incorporating it as a separate agency sponsored by the denomination.

  YOU HAVE COME A LONG WAY, BABY!

Today ADRA has more than 4,000 staff worldwide and thousands of projects in 120 countries.  In 2003, it provided development and relief assistance valued at more than $120 million, benefiting more than 22 million people.  There are many milestones over the past two decades that show how ADRA has grown:

       1988 - ADRA was the first agency to work in Khokhana, a leper colony in Nepal with more than 1,600 residents. Over the years, leprosy has been eradicated in the area.

       1992 - During October, some 24,000 visitors toured ADRA’s Global Village on the campus of La Sierra University in California.

       1994 - ADRA was the only humanitarian organization to remain in Rwanda during the massacres and mass exodus of 1.5 million Rwandans into Zaire. ADRA provided medical care, distributed drinking water and food, and cared for thousands of orphaned children.

       1996 - The weekly television program ADRA’s World premiered, and the ADRA Professional Leadership Institute (APLI) was also started with Andrews University to provide continuing education for ADRA workers.

       1997 - The UN granted General Consultative Status to ADRA on August 21.

       1998 - ADRA’s Global Village was set up on the mall of the U.S. capital and was visited by more than 160,000 people.

       1999 - The World Food Programme designated ADRA as the lead agency in the distribution of emergency supplies to some 100,000 refugees from Kosovo in Albania.

       2000 - ADRA was one of only two NGOs to participate in the Golden Spear conference with western ambassadors, 40 cabinet officials, and military commanders from 11 nations in eastern and central Africa to get greater cooperation for relief efforts where famine, natural disasters and military conflict were mixed. It brought top officials from both sides of current hostilities face-to-face.

       2001 - Four ADRA workers were taken hostage in Sudan. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for their release. Then president of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi, made a visit to Sudan to request Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir intervene. All four were eventually released.

       2002 - ADRA was certified as meeting the standards set for charities by the Better Business Bureau.  Also, Andrew S. Natsios, the new administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), visited an ADRA project near Lima, Peru.

       2003 - Three ADRA workers lost their lives in Liberia due to civil conflict: Kaare Lund, ADRA Norway country director; Emmanuel Sharpulo, ADRA Liberia acting country director; and Musa Kita, chief driver for ADRA Liberia. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan excoriated the killers and extended “deepest sympathy to the families.”

  BAND-AIDS VS. SOLUTIONS

Relief is, by its nature, just a “BAND-AID,” not a cure. If you give a man a fish, he will be hungry again tomorrow. If you teach a man to fish, he can feed himself every day. Adventists involved in early relief efforts became increasingly interested in “development” as an approach to empower entire communities to change the conditions that cause hunger, disease and suffering.

       In 1980-81, a proposal was developed for a three-year matching grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for agriculture, family health, and nutrition education projects in 16 nations. The concept was to work in the communities surrounding 158 Adventist mission schools and health institutions. The expertise and administrative infrastructure of these institutions could be used to implement the community development projects with little or no overhead costs.

       USAID awarded more than a million dollars for this program and many other Adventist missions became interested in similar projects. Two things soon became clear: (1) a much greater impact could be made through development projects than just the distribution of relief supplies, and (2) it would be unfair to restrict the benefits to Adventist communities—the need was far larger.

       New “wineskins” were necessary for this expanded vision, so ADRA was created. By the end of its first year, ADRA had 135 projects with about 600 workers. The total budget was over $45 million, with more than 80% of it in development projects. Some 500,000 people were being fed in anti-hunger projects, 848 community health educators were being trained in 14 countries, 115 community health centers were in operation, and 39 agriculture projects and 10 water projects were under way.

  SERMON SEED THOUGHTS

       What is the Biblical basis for ADRA? It is present in at least three fundamental doctrines—the state of the dead, the Sabbath, and the second coming.

       1. Theology which plays off the “hereafter” against the “here and now,” or the spiritual against the tangible, is dualistic in perspective. Seventh-day Adventists do not believe in dualistic theology. We continue to call the doctrine “the state of the dead,” but it is actually about the nature of humanity. It says that the “hereafter” and the “here and now” are of one whole, that God is just as concerned with the tangible as He is with the spiritual. This truth is demonstrated in the Adventist focus on health and behavior as essential elements of spiritual life. No believer who truly embraces this pillar of Adventism can say that, because He is coming soon, Christ does not want us to care about current world conditions, especially the suffering of humanity.

       2. The Sabbath is about remembering God’s purpose in creation. God created a world with the intention that every human being fully enjoy health, beauty and freedom. Hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and injustice are intrusions on His perfect will for Earth.  The Sabbath serves to remind us of that. Isaiah 58 (one of Ellen White’s favorite texts) is clear that a believer cannot honor the Sabbath while under-paying employees, bullying others or ignoring the needs of the poor and downtrodden. The worship that God delights in not so much shows of piety, such as prayer and fasting, as it is living a life of practical compassion and social justice.

       3. A careful examination of Matthew 24 and 25, reveals that in God’s mind the kind of work that ADRA is doing is precisely what He expects His faithful followers to be doing at the time of the end. Practical social concern based in a message of hope is the very, unique stance that Christ expects of those who are genuinely waiting and watching for His return. These two chapters are a transcript of Christ’s full answer to questions that His disciples asked in the first few verses of Chapter 24, “When will these things happen? And, what will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the world?” Christ’s answer includes four parts: (1) In verses 4-14, He points out that many things must happen—including famines and disasters—before the end will come, “But he who is faithful to the end will be saved, and this gospel will be preached throughout the whole world, as a witness to all peoples, and then the end will come.” (2) In verses 15-31, He deals with events that will happen within the lifetime of His disciples and encourages them to not confuse these events with the second coming. (3) In verses 32-44, He states equivocally “no one knows” the time of the end, it will come like a thief in the night when it is least expected. (4) He then spends the bulk of the passage telling four parables on the theme of how to wait for the return of Christ. The final parable—which makes Christ’s penultimate point—is the story in which He pictures the final judgment, “when the Son of Man comes in all his glory,” as being decided on the basis of what believers have done to feed the hungry, help the poor, treat the sick, and stand with the oppressed. Those who declare that they did not see Christ’s mission among the hungry, the poor, the alien or the suffering are sent to eternal punishment. Clearly, it is Christ’s expectation that real Adventists will be involved in the work that ADRA is doing.

  FAMINE IN EASTERN AFRICA

In March ADRA Zambia joined an alliance of relief organizations called C-SAFE, the Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Security Emergency. The partnership pools information and cooperates in dealing with international donors and local government. ADRA Zambia is working to fight hunger in the eastern provinces of Mambwe, Nyimba, Chipata, and the southern provinces of Namwala and Itezhi-tezhi. Thousands of the chronically ill, orphans and other vulnerable children are given regular food distributions. Long-term solutions to famine are targeted with two other programs in the same area. As the agricultural season begins, ADRA will provide seeds and training in conservation farming for 12,000 families. ADRA also has income-generation activities for women.

  HUNGER IN NORTH KOREA

       Access to reliable energy sources has long been a struggle for rural farmers in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Now ADRA, in partnership with the UN is experimenting with a technology that will enable rural households to produce adequate energy for their essential needs.

       This project uses biogas plants, a widely used process for energy production around the world, to produce a year-round energy supply. Biogas is a biological process that utilizes natural cycles to produce energy.

       A particular problem in North Korea is that natural gas production is often interrupted in the winter when the temperature in the biogas plant falls below 59 degrees. “Existing digester tanks are not insulated and are partially above ground [and] lose a considerable amount of energy production in winter,” says Marcel Wagner, country director for ADRA DPRK.

       The new biogas plants utilize both anaerobic processes for fermentation and aerobic processes to naturally heat and insulate. Insulating the biogas plant and placing the “digester” in a greenhouse also increase efficiency. The greenhouse has the added benefit of enabling farm families to extend the growing season for food.

       This application of natural technology will help reduce hunger in North Korea. The pilot project was funded by ADRA Switzerland in collaboration with the Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee (FDRC).

  20 YEARS—WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

       Permit me some editorial comment on ADRA’s 20th anniversary. For a century or more, Adventists have been known for evangelistic, educational, and medical work. That has been the “trinity” of the Adventist organization. With two decades under its belt, ADRA has institutionalized a significant addition to the tripartite mission. Humanitarian work is now an essential element of a four-part organizational strategy, even if all official statements of mission have not yet caught up with reality.

       An ethic of service has become as important as a commitment to sharing our faith among new generations of Adventists in North America. In fact, it is increasingly seen as a valid way to share the Advent hope, especially in our more secular and pluralistic postmodern world. There are still those with questions and concerns about this innovation, but the majority has shifted.

       “I am so proud of ADRA!” I hear it again and again from Adventists of my generation and younger. ADRA has caught the imagination and the heart of contemporary Adventists in a way nothing else about our denomination has. Praise God for 20 years of service! Even so come, Lord Jesus. We need His kingdom now more than ever. ~Editor

  WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY—MAY 31

    Each church in the US will soon receive a packet of resource and activity ideas from ADRA to help your church observe World No Tobacco Day on Sabbath, May 29.  To request a packet call 1.800.424.ADRA (2372) or download the resources at www.adra.org.