Pastor Alberto C Gulfan, Jr, on Sunday, June 27, was elected president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the southern Asia-Pacific region (SSD) by the 2,410 regular delegates to the 59th General Conference Session of Seventh-day Adventists here in Atlanta, Georgia along with the presidents of the other 12 regions of the world field.
A dedicated administrator and evangelist, having conducted several evangelistic meetings every year, Pastor Gulfan has been president of SSD since 2003. He is committed to vigorously pursuing evangelistic programs of the church in the next five years with the support of all church organizations and departments. Since he assumed his post, he has encouraged his fellow officers and associates and the directors of departments to conduct at least one evangelistic meeting each year. His leadership style has united his constituents in the region.
On Monday, June 12, after the 246 members of the nominating committee submitted the names of Pastor Samuel and Mr Keith Heinrich as secretary and treasurer, respectively, the delegates voted to confirm the said nominations.
Pastor Samuel, a Burmese by blood and married to a Thai, has served Thailand Adventist Mission as pastor and seven years as executive secretary; and for the last one and half years served as ministerial secretary of the Southeast Asia Union Mission (SAUM), which is based in Singapore. Pastor Samuel takes the post vacated by Pastor Joshua W Mok, who accepted his appointment as president of SAUM. Asked by this writer how he felt being elected to the post, he said that he felt “so unworthy of the calling but by God’s grace and through the help of veteran colleagues I will be able to carry out the sacred task the church has assigned me to perform.”
Mr Heinrich, on the one hand, has been the SSD treasurer since 2005. With his able financial management skills, SSD has been consistently assisting the eight unions, two attached missions, and one field with financial allocations. He also has soft hearts for big projects within the division territory, foremost of which is the Hope Channel Philippines which is slated to have television coverage Philippine-wide soon.
The associate officers and department directors are slated for election within the next two days of the Session.[Jonathan C Catolico]
Source: Adventist News Dispatch
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