JUNE/JULY 2020 THE GOD WHO HEARS PRAYER ILLINOIS MEMBERS ILLINOIS FOCUS INSIDE NEWS ON THE WEB IN THIS ISSUE / TELLING THE STORIES OF WHAT GOD IS DOING IN THE LIVES OF HIS PEOPLE FEATURES Visit lakeunionherald.org for 14 Illinois — Camp Akita more on these and other stories By Mary Claire Smith Wisconsin’s Adventist Community Service volunteers made much needed 16 tie- and elastic-strapped masks for facilities and individuals. They were Download the Herald to your Indiana — Timber Ridge Camp asked to make masks for a 300-bed facility By Charlie Thompson in Pennsylvania which had experienced 38 mobile device! Just launch your PERSPECTIVES deaths due to the virus. camera and point it at the QR code. President's Perspective 4 18 (Older model devices may require Lest We Forget 8 downloading a third party app.) Conversations with God 9 Michigan — Camp Au Sable On Tuesday, May 5, the Michigan So, how’s your world? I remember Conference Executive Committee voted Conexiones 11 By Bailey Gallant my grandparents telling me about the to close the Adventist Book Centers One Voice 42 in Lansing, Berrien Springs and Cicero old days in North Dakota. One day I 20 (Indiana). They are exploring options to was walking through the Watford city EVANGELISM continue supplying printed material in cemetery where my great-grandfather Wisconsin — Camp Wakonda more efficient ways. Sharing Our Hope 10 Melchior was buried. I noticed that By Kristin Zeismer Telling God’s Stories 12 Follow us at lakeunionherald so many of the tombstones were Partnership With God 41 As part of its Everyone Counts, dated 1918, the year of the Spanish flu 22 Everyone Matters theme for the year, pandemic. Lake Region Conference launched a LIFESTYLE Our Family’s Journey with monthly YouTube livestream program. MaryAnn and I happen to share a COVID-19 Family Focus 6 The first episode featured first responders THIS WEEK backyard fence with Berrien Spring’s By Ann Hamel Alive & Well 7 who were on the frontlines of battling the Rose Hill Cemetery. It’s a peaceful COVID-19 disease. place to live, and we enjoy our walks CURRENT MATTERS there. Yet, from time to time, we Taurus Montgomery, pastor of the AdventHealth 28 New elementary school see friends and strangers gathering Harbor of Hope Church in Benton opens is Indiana Andrews University 29 to bury a loved one. It’s a constant Harbor, Mich., is featured on the cover News 30 of the May issue of Adventist Journey reminder to cherish every moment. Welcome to the launch of our weekly e-newsletter Lake Union Herald E-News Get the latest news to your Lake Union Herald Reader Survey 38 magazine. You can see his video testimo- I think you will be encouraged, and Mileposts 39 ny here: https://vimeo.com/412831571 challenged, by the scope of this issue Classifieds 40 Michelle Hamel LAKE UNION HERALD that depicts a spectrum of experiences NEWSLETTER Get the and views in response to our new latest news to your COVER PHOTOGRAPH: MICHELLE HAMEL ADDRESS CORRECTION Only paid subscribers (see below) should contact the Lake Union Herald office with norm while also offering practical their address changes. Members should contact their local church clerks directly for all Lake Union Herald email inbox each week. counsel and reasons to hope. ON THE COVER: Lowell Hamel recovered miraculously from the coronavirus, address changes. Contact phone numbers and our mailing address are listed below for your convenience. photographed with his wife, Judy Online submissions can be made at http://herald.lakeunion.org under “Subscription Change.” Sign up at Lake Union Herald office: 269-473-8242 Michigan: 517-316-1552 The Lake Union Herald (ISSN 0194-908X) is published monthly (except for January/February, June/July and November/ Lake Region: 773-846-2661 Indiana: 317-844-6201 ext. 241 December) by the Lake Union Conference, P.O. Box 287, Berrien Springs, MI 49103-0287. Periodicals postage paid at Berrien Illinois: 630-856-2860 Wisconsin: 920-484-6555 Gary Burns Springs, Michigan, and additional mailing offices. Yearly subscription price is $12.50. Vol. 112, No. 5. POSTMASTER: Send all Members outside the Lake Union may subscribe by sending a check for $12.50 (per year) to lakeunionherald.org address changes to: Lake Union Herald, P. O. Box 287, Berrien Springs, MI 49103-0287. P.O. Box 287, Berrien Springs, MI 49103-0287. Editor Note: If you are a member of a church in the Lake Union but are not receiving the Lake Union Herald, please request it through your church clerk or local conference secretary. 2 JUNE/JULY 2020 LAKE UNION HERALD LAKE UNION HERALD JUNE/JULY 2020 3 PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE Hold On! Picture, if you will, four angels holding fabric that slips ever so slightly from their hands as the weight of the world bears down in the center of a sheet-like cloth which they are grasping Timeline of Global Pandemics as tightly as they can. The muscles in their arms, hands and especially their fingers begin to burn as they attempt to keep the sheet from slipping. Flu Pandemic Flu Pandemic Flu Pandemic Ebola SARS HIV Avian Flu H1N1 Swine FLu Zika COVID-19 Albert Einstein used the idea of an invisible fabric to in which the angels’ hands seemed to hold firmly depict gravity through which he postulated each planet with only ever so slight micro-slips indicated by some 1957 1976 2003 is influenced by each other. Even galaxies are said to smaller epidemics between those years. Now we have a 1342 1918 1981 1997 2009 2015 2020 coalesce in groups and are drawn toward each other as better understanding of what it means to see the winds noticed how each of these plagues are coming closer A time is coming when there is no such thing as each share this invisible space-time material. He may slip as they did in 1918 when a major life-destroying together in quicker succession, increasing virulence “time.” Then, thanks to Jesus, all creation and all have been on to something as in some ways it reminds contagion swept the globe killing, by some estimates, and greater severity. The greatest pain my heart feels me of the picture that John the Revelator described as many as 50 million precious souls whose fates were the redeemed will enjoy eternal existence in God’s is, painful as it is, not how many people have died glob- when he stated, And after these things I saw four angels forever sealed. presence. So, for now, while there may or may not be ally in a COVID-19 world, but how many people are standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four Some would ask, “Is God judging the world?” I would “space-time fabric,” as postulated by an astrophysicist, being swept by the enemy into Christless graves with winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the have to have a face-to-face conversation with God to there is, one way or another, four winds being held by E Maurice Valentine no hope of eternity in view? earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree (Revelation 7:1 know the answer to that question. So, to them, I would the grace of God. We know this to be true because, We COVID-19 is a tectonic slip that, while small by NKJV). say, “Jesus identified who is really at work.” He stated, Jesus’ last day predictions, is still, hopefully, enough have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do Is it possible God is attempting to grasp our atten- A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come slippage that a sleepy church awakens from its lethargy well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark tion as tiny “micro-slips” of this illustrative “sheet” in so that they may have life and have it in abundance (John and a sin-entranced world is shaken enough to look to place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your Einstein’s case or metaphorical “winds” in John the 10:10 CSB). the holy writ of God’s Holy Word. My prayer is that we hearts (2 Peter 1:18-19 KJV). For the prophecy came not in Revelator’s vision, the latter of which, although meant That said, my first point is, since 1918 there was only will rise from our spiritual slumber so we can hear His old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as to depict cosmic activities beyond our understanding, a 100-year pause before another global pandemic, not voice in the distance and be ready to go out to meet they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21 KJV). nevertheless, yield for earth’s inhabitants life-destroy- 576 years. Certainly, since 1918 life on earth has been Him with our lamps trimmed and burning. Is it possible that there are angels working with God ing wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, interrupted by the destroyer of life as smaller epi- For Seventh-day Adventists, this is our day! This attempting to save you, me, our families, neighbors wildfires, floods and pandemics, too? demics typically lacking in global impact such as the time is the end time about which we have invited our and friends who are collectively crying in the celestial From a spiritual perspective, is it possible He’s 1957 flu have occurred. But notice how, since 1918, the family and friends, even strangers, to take Bible studies shaking us from our spiritual slumber in an attempt to sheet has slipped ever so slightly again and again.