Bible Conference Promises to be an Inspirational Event

The North Bahamas Mission’s Bible Conference 2005 promises to be an inspirational and enlightening experience with special guest speaker, Dr. Charles Bradford, former president of the North American Division and one who is considered the “Dean of Adventist Preachers” within the World Church.

Dr. Bradford’s focus during our Bible Conference this year will be on the research he conducted on the Sabbath which resulted in his bestselling book: Sabbath Roots: The African Connection. 

The meetings will commence on Friday night, November 18, at the Shiloh Church and continue on Sabbath morning with a Joint Service and culminating on Sabbath afternoon, November 19,   with a Power Point presentation followed by a question and answer period.

It should be noted that our Bible Conferences are intended to expose our brethren to some of the best minds of the church in terms of biblical scholarship especially those who have published their material in books.

Therefore, we are encouraging all of our members to make a special effort to attend these services that are planned with your spiritual nurture and growth in mind.  You will find Dr. Bradford to be a powerful, compelling preacher and teacher of righteousness who will grab and keep your attention from beginning to end.

In light of the subject that will be dealt with, I would urge you to also invite friends, relatives and neighbors, who are not members of this church to attend as well.  Dr. Keith D. Albury

Evangelism

Our special thrust in Evangelism on the island of Grand Bahama, for this quarter, will culminate in several baptisms which will take place  today at different venues by the several evangelists who have been preaching almost on a nightly basis over the past three weeks.

We would like to say a special thank you to Pastors Venton Duncan and T. Basil Sturrup for consenting to leave their responsibilities in their respective fields and invest their spiritual gifts toward building up the work of the Lord in this portion of his vineyard.  We appreciate the level of commitment and concern they have shown as they endeavored to work with our members in the Sunrise and Shiloh churches.  Our prayer is that the Lord will honor their faith and efforts with a rich harvest of souls today.

Commendations go out to Pastor Ricardo Bain and the members of the Eight Mile Rock and West End Churches for the tremendous success they have seen thus far in their crusade.  To date, 24 precious souls have been baptized into God’s Remnant Church with the expectation that there will be another baptism today.

The Freeport Church riding on the inspirational wave generated by the Joy in Jesus Gospel Series, with Evangelist Steven Cornwall, is anticipating another baptism to add to the 21 precious souls who were baptized 2 weeks ago.  We would like to say once again thank you to Pastor Cornwall and his Bible Worker, Brother Henry for a job well done.  The spiritual nurture and blessing received by the members of Freeport and visitors who attended will long be remembered.

Finally, let us continue to remember the Abaco District in our prayers as they are engaged in crusades in three centers: Marsh Harbor, North Abaco and Crossing Rock.  The special feature of their evangelistic thrust is the involvement of two lay preachers: Elders Isaac Collie and Lou Ann Thompson who are sounding loud the gospel trumpet in their respective churches.  Pastor Leonardo Rahming, who has already conducted two  crusades this year,  is presently leading out in Cooper’s Town.

As we move to the end of the year let us keep before us the urgency of the hour in which we live and  the need for God’s people to be about their Father’s business by reaching out and pointing someone to the foot of the Cross.  Dr. Keith D. Albury

Community Services

The Community Services and Pathfinder’s Exhibition and Fair will be conducted at the Independence Park tomorrow beginning at 11:00 a.m.  Please come out and support your local Community Services Department.

 Grand Bahama Academy

All persons who pledged in the 25/25 program for Grand Bahama Academy are reminded to remit their funds either directly to the school or through your tithe envelope.  Please mark your tithe envelope properly.

Youth Department

Band practice for all members of the North Bahamas Mission Pathfinder Band will resume on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. 

WIU Session

Some seven persons from the North Bahamas Mission will travel to Jamaica to participate in the 5th Quinquennial session of West Indies Union Conference November 9-12. This session will allow for the election of church leaders and directors for the next five years. Pray much for the outpouring of The Holy Spirit. 

Remembering Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise Parks, a woman of faith whose soft-spoken refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus launched the civil rights movement, died October 24, at age 92.

The Tuskegee, Ala., native, who in 1999 received the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, died in Detroit, where she had lived since 1957. 

The Tuskegee, Alabama, native will be the first female to lie in repose at the U.S. Congress rotunda.

“Surely Mrs. Rosa Parks was sent to us by God, because few among us were so well prepared to play such a momentous role in history,” said Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

At the time of her solitary protest, Parks had been working as a tailor’s assistant in the Montgomery Fair department store and would ride a city bus to and from her downtown job.  For most of the time she rode the bus, black passengers had to sit in the back.  Often, when they bought their tickets at the front of the bus, they were then obliged to step outside and board through a  rear door.  Once, Parks said, she had been ordered off a bus for refusing to reboard it from the rear.

Whites, meanwhile, sat in the front of the bus and city law forbade blacks and whites from sitting alongside each other.  If a white boarded and did not have a place to sit, the nearest black, passengers would have to give up their seats so an entire row would open to the white passenger.

On the afternoon of December 1, Parks and three other black passengers were told to move to the back after whites had filled the front of the bus and a white man needed a seat.  While the other three blacks in the row with Parks moved to the back, she did not.  Two police officers came to arrest her, and one asked her why she did not move, “Why do you all push us around?” she replied.

“I was thinking that the only way to let them know I felt I was being mistreated was to do just what I did – I resisted the order,” Parks recalled years later.  “I had not thought about it and I had taken no previous resolution until it happened, and then I simply decided that I would not get up.  I was tired, but I was usually tired at the end of the day, and I was not feeling well, but then there had been many days when I had not felt well.   I had felt for a long time that if I was ever told to get up so a white person  could sit, that I would refuse to do so.”

Parks was fingerprinted and released on bond,  Then she appeared in a segregated City Court and was fined $10.00 and $4.00 in court costs.  The day of her trial, most black stopped using the Montgomery bus system, relying on their feet or on a coordinated community carpool system to do their shopping or get to work.  That unprecedented protest lasted 14 months.

While it continued, a federal lawsuit was filed to challenge the city’s bus segregation ordinance and the state’s segregation laws, and three-judge panel declared the laws unconstitutional. 

Coming this month

Sun sets today at 5:29 p.m.

Sun sets next Sabbath at 5:24 p.m.

Happy Sabbath!