Educating for Mission Worldwide

“Educating for Mission” served as the hallmark of Adventist education worldwide this past quinquennium. Adventist educators and educational leaders served on the frontline of mission, engaging students in and out of classrooms in active outreach and service to communities. In this issue of The Journal of Adventist Education®, worldwide directors of education share reports and stories that will inspire, showing that even amid the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, Adventist education around the world continues to educate for mission and to lead students to Christ.

Seventh-day Adventist schools rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, enrolling more than 2.3 million students by the end of 2023. Primary education recovered most rapidly, filling the upstream end of the pipeline for long-term future growth.

The pandemic’s duration and subsequent challenges forced teachers, students, and schools to adopt technology, update the curriculum, and find creative ways to attain academic excellence and nurture spiritual commitment. Around the world, unprecedented school closures accelerated the adoption of technology and innovation, which had the positive side-effect of better equipping students for life and mission outreach to an increasingly technological world.

Because the South American Division (SAD) developed an electronic classroom-management platform (E-Class) in Portuguese and Spanish before the pandemic, this positioned them to rapidly migrate to fully online instruction and to provide spiritual nurture and support to students and families during the pandemic. The SAD publishing houses functioned as vital partners in developing print, graphics, digital books, and learning resources. E-Class has had more than four million website visits and has nearly two million classes available in the system, with more than one million users over the quinquennium. Students continued using digitized books, assignments, and learning resources after the shift from virtual to hybrid education. Between 2022 and 2024, the South American Division’s enrollment grew by more than 80,000 students, and the division inaugurated nearly 40 new schools.¹

Every day, in Adventist schools worldwide, students learn Bible truths and practical applications. “Creation Sabbath” has been embraced by hundreds of teachers to explore the doctrine of creation and involve students in caring for the environment and honoring the Creator (Revelation 14:6, 7). In the East-Central Africa Division, students joined Creation clubs and, among other activities, planted one million trees.²

Medical and Dental Education

Elsewhere in this issue, I outline the development of Seventh-day Adventist medical and dental education (see page 3). The denomination’s eighth medical school opened at Brazil Adventist University, Campus Hortolândia, on February 23, 2025. Loma Linda University continues to serve as a mentor for new medical and dental schools. As we look to the closing of God’s work on earth, we are mindful of Ellen White’s counsel to prepare more medical missionaries because “soon there will be no work done in ministerial lines but medical missionary work.”³ 

Even as medical education continues to grow in all three African divisions, the schools are also diversifying to offer Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Dodoma Adventist Polytechnic College in Tanzania was inaugurated on December 16, 2024, to prepare competent electricians, plumbers, computer technicians, and tailors who will provide needed services, create jobs for themselves and others, and be able to serve as self-supporting missionaries. Bethel College (South Africa) and Ethiopia Adventist College are developing TVET programs with the expert counsel of Snowdon Reid, a TVET specialist from the U.K.

Other Division Highlights

There are exciting quinquennial division reports in this issue of The Journal of Adventist Education and in the Adventist Review 2025 General Conference Supplement.⁴ The Inter-European Division (EUD) selected education as a strategic emphasis for its transformative influence on the lives of students, parents, church, and society. The division made substantial financial allocations to schools, especially for primary through secondary levels, and markedly increased the number of students and schools. The EUD opened 30 new schools and launched a new MA in Pastoral Ministry.⁵ 

In his report, Kayle B. de Waal, director of education for the Trans-European Division (TED), emphasizes the supportive role of chaplains, pastors, and church members in the ministry of education.⁶ TED’s schools are also excelling in the area of academics. In Finland, students at Tampere Adventist Christian School ranked among top 25 percent nationally in mathematics, reading, and natural sciences scores on the International Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The school is at capacity and needs more classroom space to accommodate all who wish to attend.

The Euro-Asia Division serves 12 countries, including many of the “-stan” countries containing unreached people groups. In Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, 490 Heritage Christian School students are Muslim. More parents wish to enroll their children, but the school is not large enough to accommodate them. In Kazakhstan, the church has acquired buildings to establish educational work there.⁷

The war that began in 2022 disrupted schooling in Ukraine. Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), schools, and churches responded by providing food, transportation, temporary shelter, and funds that enabled many displaced students to finish the school year. Kettering College (Ohio, U.S.A.), led by its president, Nate Brandstater, accepted 34 students from Ukraine to study for free in nursing, respiratory therapy, and other health professions.⁸ Adventist churches and schools in Poland, Hungary, Germany, Romania, and France, among others, helped refugees and assimilated them into their churches and schools.

At present, 23 Adventist schools in Ukraine, as well as the Ukrainian Adventist Institute of Higher Education in Bucha, are operating—sometimes as centers for internally displaced persons (IDPs), despite power outages, financial challenges, loss of homes, territories, and life, and the stress of five or six air-raid alarms a day, during which time teachers hurry students underground to bomb shelters and continue instruction for periods lasting from 10 minutes up to 20 hours.⁹ These teachers are heroes!

One in three people in Lebanon is estimated to be a refugee. By November 25, 2024, there were nearly 900,000 IDPs as well.¹⁰ Adventist School Mouseitbeh, founded in Beirut in 1929, became a center for IDPs in 2024, at the expense of school operations, when the bombing of southern Lebanon and Beirut displaced entire communities. Middle East University continued instruction virtually while students, led by professors and administrators, provided humanitarian assistance and food to IDPs sleeping on the streets of Beirut, caring for “‘the least of these brothers and sisters’” as for Christ (Matthew 25:40, NIV).¹¹ There are seven primary and secondary schools, one university, and a new Diploma in Pastoral Ministry in Arabic to prepare those who will serve in the lands where Bible heroes once lived in the Middle East and North Africa.¹²

Director of Education Faye Patterson describes the “Intercultural Mission Project” and “A Path to Comprehensive Health,” which have successfully trained university and younger students in the Inter-America Division to engage in mission outreach. As a result, 15 new congregations have been established in previously unreached regions. The Baptism Caravan, a special type of harvesting across educational institutions in the division, resulted in many accepting Christ as their Savior, numbering more than 4,500 primary and secondary students, 400 parents, and 400 university students.¹³

Our schools are fruitful mission fields. The North American Division underscored starting early for a strong foundation and developed the Infants, Toddlers, and Twos Curriculum to provide “structured learning activities rooted in biblical principles to give children the best possible start long before they step into a classroom.”¹⁴ The Southern Asia Division Education Director, Edison Samraj, reported that they gave emphasis to expanding educational collaboration among teachers, parents, and students.¹⁵Several studies show that attending an Adventist school results in higher academic achievement, becoming a baptized believer, remaining an active Seventh-day Adventist, marrying an Adventist, and returning tithe.¹⁶ Our schools worldwide reported 40,204 baptisms in 2022 and 46,003 baptisms in 2023.¹⁷

Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka moved to the Northern Asia-Pacific Division in a territorial realignment during the quinquennium, and the Ukraine Union Conference was temporarily attached to the General Conference as they navigated challenges brought about by the conflict. Wealthier educational institutions collaborated to provide essential resources, materials, technology, and funds to enhance educational facilities and programs for their less-privileged counterparts in the diverse landscapes of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, reports Edgard Luz, the division director of education.¹⁸

An unexpected donation upgraded Palawan Adventist Academy with new buildings, enabling it to become the Adventist College of Palawan. It is the first tertiary-level institution on the island of Palawan in the Philippines.¹⁹ We thank these and other donors for investing in eternity.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church sent John Nevins Andrews, accompanied by his two children, as the first official overseas missionaries in 1874. In describing Andrews, Ellen White wrote that the church sent “the ablest man in all our ranks.”²⁰ He was a scholar, linguist, editor of The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, local conference president, and president of the General Conference. After the Andrews family learned French and German, John, Charles, and Mary moved to Basel, the location of the best printing press in Switzerland, to publish Les Signes des Temps [The Signs of the Times].²¹

Adventist education aspires to prepare those who will be the J. N. Andrewses for today—the ablest in our ranks, creative and capable of using simple methods and advanced technologies to further the gospel mission. University presidents, chaplains, board chairs, and division/union education directors deliberated on the role of education as an engine for mission at “Educating for Mission” conferences in 2024 and 2025. The first conference was at Indonesia Adventist University, where we focused on mission in non-Christian contexts. The second was at Collonges Adventist University in France, where we zeroed in on mission in postmodern and post-Christian contexts. The conference at the Juliaca and Lima campuses of Peruvian Union University was conducted in Spanish and Portuguese. The grand finale of the “Educating for Mission” conferences was at Solusi University, Zimbabwe, the mother of mission in Africa. As of December 31, 2024, 27 percent of church membership is in divisions where Spanish or Portuguese is the predominant language, and 47 percent are in African divisions.²²

The “I Will Go” initiative that started at River Plate University in Argentina spread to other campuses in South America. In 2023, the flame vaulted across the ocean to fire up youth for mission at Sagunto Adventist College in Spain. “I Will Go” was voted by the church to continue as the title of the quinquennial strategic plan for 2025-2030.²³ Education is a cornerstone to accomplishing its goals, as exemplified by the strategic goals statement of the West Central Africa Division.²⁴

Good and Faithful Service

The more than 120,000 teachers and professors who contribute to the ministry of Adventist education worldwide. Elisapesi Manson, the South Pacific Division education director, makes it clear that, “Sharing Jesus needs to be founded on the deeply personal, thriving, and vibrant relationship of teachers and students with Jesus the Master Teacher to ensure long-lasting Adventist educational outcomes.”²⁵ They will surely receive from Him the accolade, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’” (Matthew 25:21, NIV). We cannot overstate the influence of and need for committed Seventh-day Adventist teachers and professors. We end the quinquennium with a salute to three outstanding educators who recently went to their rest in the Lord: Humberto Rasi (1935-2023),²⁶ Arne Nielsen (1959-2024),²⁷ and Chiemela Ikonne (1949-2024).²⁸ These men represent thousands who educate for mission and eternity.

Lisa M. Beardsley-Hardy

Lisa M. Beardsley-Hardy, PhD, MPH, MBA, is the Director of the Department of Education at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A.