“These past several months have been extremely stressful for pastors and church leaders as we’ve tried to navigate a pandemic situation for which none of us have ever prepared.  With the addition of Elder Rick Jordan to our Ministerial team, we will be able to provide more support to our pastoral staff as we negotiate the steps toward reopening our churches and re-engaging our communities."

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The small quiet town of Boring, Oregon, near the base of Mt. Hood, is home to DeVere and Cynthia Crawford who have been adopted by Betty the Chicken.

“Do what you say you are going to do.” This is a motto living in my mind every day. I’m realizing more and more that if I make plans to do something, even if those plans were just made in my mind and not said out loud, I feel obligated to follow through. If I don’t follow through I think of myself as “not good," a failure.

Bonnie Dwyer, editor of Spectrum magazine and executive director of Adventist Forum, has announced that she will retire at the end of 2021. Bonnie has served as editor of Spectrum for 23 years.

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The poems began in 2003 when God gave Marcia the idea of writing a short poem, putting it on a postcard, and then mailing the postcards to each of the church members who were housebound and unable to attend church in person. “Even if I couldn’t visit everyone,” Marcia thought, “at least they would all have a note of encouragement.”

This past week I got to visit Big Lake Youth Camp. The old lodge made some good memories for thousands of us through the years, but it was so good to see the progress of the new lodge being built. Ross von Pohle, facility manager at Big Lake, gave me a tour.

In the face of growing violence against the Asian-American community, the Adventist Church in North America (NAD) calls on members to stand up and support their Asian-American friends and neighbors.

The 2020-21 school year began with all four Oregon Conference schools in Washington able to open fully, but only 6 of 28 of our schools in Oregon able to offer full in-person instruction. Now, due to a shift in Oregon’s guidelines that became effective in January of this year, the Conference’s Oregon schools have joined their sister Washington schools in offering daily in-person learning.

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Coming together for camp meeting is the highlight of our year, a special opportunity to experience common faith and enjoy the fellowship of believers. Since pandemic restrictions do not allow us to meet together at the Gladstone campgrounds, this year’s event will be a new way of meeting – programming that allows us to gather both online and in person.

This year has been financially challenging for some families to attend Adventist Education, but God will always provide when we seek him. Recently, the Oregon Conference Education Department team was approached by three of our school principals asking if there was any financial assistance available to support a couple of families attending their schools. These community families were thriving in the Adventist school system but could not afford to continue for the second half of the school year. Just ten minutes after the prayer session, one of our superintendents was notified of a missed phone call from an Oregon Conference church member. He called this person back and found out that they were wanting to donate scholarship funds.