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Message from the President: A Retrospective of 2023

Eli Tenorio
December 23, 2023
The GC President's annual message for the members of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement. This year, Brother Eli Tenorio invites you to revisit the activities held in 2023 and has a personal invitation for each one.

 

My dear Reform Movement church family,

 

May the peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with each one of you.

 

A look back at 2023
Every year surrendered to the pages of history is punctuated with events that make it meaningful. For the Reform Movement, 2023 was a year of doubled efforts to hasten the Lord's coming.

 

Since the pandemic, our Movement has been established in seven new countries, with churches formed in Lesotho, the Ivory Coast, Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, the Cayman Islands, Gabon, and Eswatini. In the last months of this year, the work has begun in the Mauritius and Guinea-Bissau, and workers are on their way to Benin and Sudan!

The prayers and support of our brethren around the world—including you—are important to this work. Please, keep them in your prayers.

 

Around the world, our brethren have been actively living and sharing the Gospel message. As we touch on some of the events that took place in 2023, you can see the photos in the gallery below.

In January, the GC held its annual council in Colombia as a preview of the upcoming General Conference session, and in several countries, the brethren united in the distribution of hope through literature. Humanitarian mission trips took assistance to those who needed it and left the Gospel's impression in the hearts of the communities.

Our brethren gathered for conferences in numbers larger than before the pandemic, and, in April, the second annual music camp took place in Honduras. In the summer of 2023, the Reform Movement was busy with an international mission trip that spanned three locations.

Missionary school graduations took place in the United States, Colombia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Worker seminars across the world helped workers refresh their knowledge and motivated them to continue in the Lord's cause.

Aware of the challenges that families are facing, we held marriage and family seminars and prepared materials for our engaged couples to help them establish a happy future with God at the center.

In September, the brethren from the Media Studio in São Paulo organized a campaign to offer support, education, and hope to those who find themselves combating depression and anxiety. Over 600,000 magazines were distributed with topics under the theme "It's not your fault".

The magazines had QR codes that, once scanned, took the person to the studio's social channels, where more content awaited them. Additionally, they had access to counselling from pastors and professional support.

We praise the Lord, "Ebenezer, hitherto has the Lord helped us."

Looking forward to 2024

As we look forward to the year ahead of us, I want to personally invite you to trust your future to the Lord. He has blessings for you that you cannot imagine. Surrender your heart and plans to Him.

I would like to invite you to our next worldwide gathering as a Reform Movement family: from February 6-9, 2025, we will gather in Medellín, Colombia, for our 24th General Conference. It will be a special occasion where we gather to reflect on the 100 years of our church's history—a time of spiritual refreshing and a call to arise and shine!

We nurture the hope that this will be the last General Conference before the Lord's return. So don't miss it. Embark on an adventure in 2025. Come fellowship with your brethren, make new friends, visit a new country, and most importantly, draw closer to our Lord.

I hope, by God's grace, to see you there.

 

Your Brother in the Blessed Hope,

Eli Tenorio
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Registration for the 24th General Conference public meetings, will open in the first quarter of 2024. Follow our social media pages and check our website for official announcements concerning registration and the broadcast of the event.