2018 North American Division Sabbath School Mission Investment Projects
LAKE UNION CONFERENCE
DENTAL AND EYE CLINICS: With the high cost of healthcare, many people neglect visiting their dentist or eye doctor because they “just can’t afford it.” Most people will have access to medical services through a county hospital or clinic, but this is not true for dental or vision services.
The mission for providing these clinics is three-fold:
- To provide services to those in need who would otherwise not seek dental or vision services due to low/no income or no insurance.
- To show the people who are seeking services that we as Seventh-day Adventist Christians care about their physical needs in a tangible way.
- Once people’s physical needs are provided for, our desire is that they will want to know why these volunteers are doing this; thus, a door to share Jesus with them.
Prior to each event, churches are encouraged to plan some form of follow-up to the clinics, such as cooking classes, depression recovery seminars, etc. By the end of 2017, more than 30 clinics will have been conducted since its inception in early 2016. Many churches have reported that people have signed up for various classes, asked for Bible studies, and a couple of people have attended church as a result of having participated in the clinics.
NORTH PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE
NATIVE AMERICAN LIVING HOPE CENTER: The Fort Peck Reservation is the home of the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes. Many are swallowed up in drugs, alcohol, meth, and tobacco use. Diabetes runs rampant. Their lifestyle is detrimental to their physical and spiritual well-being.
No Seventh-day Adventist church exists on the reservation for the purpose of ministering to the Native people. Ministry has been home-based and ongoing for several years, but this is limiting due to the culture’s unwillingness to regularly meet in a non-neutral space. To accomplish this, our objectives are as follows:
- To establish and thriving church and school.
- To provide mission housing for groups that come to serve them (i.e., dental professionals, VBS, Community Services, etc.).
- To provide healthy lifestyle education, such as grief and depression recovery, cooking, stop smoking, and reversing (type 2) diabetes classes.
Our greatest desire is to offer them tools that will help them achieve better health, hope, wholeness, and, ultimately, salvation.