Pentecost weekend is coming in a few days. This Holy Day coincides with the 25th anniversary of United Church of God's first official church service on Pentecost weekend 1995. This was shortly after a conference of ministers in Indianapolis. Many of us still have vivid memories of those days where our faith and trust in God were put to the test. This led to the dedicated and courageous efforts by the ministry of that time to preserve God's Truth and to serve the people whom God has called out of spiritual darkness. While it was a period of great upheaval and uncertainty for us, it was also one of witnessing God's deliverance as He opened the "Red Sea" for us as well as revealed Himself to us through His Holy Spirit. I reflect on those days in a letter I wrote yesterday for distribution to our brethren. You can download it here at:

Letter to the United Church of God on its 25th anniversary of keeping the Day of Pentecost https://www.ucg.org/members/news/letter-from-the-president-may-27-2020

From the home office we wish you all a rewarding and spiritually fulfilling Feast of Pentecost!

Western Canada Regional Ministerial Conference

This past Sunday, May 24, all Western Canada elders, ministerial trainees, and two lay members joined an online meeting chaired by Rainer Salomaa. Reports were given on how all congregations are managing during lockdown. Individuals gave updates on the activities of the National Office, National Council and the Ministerial Services Team.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I made presentations to individuals who recently reached milestones in the employment of the Church. They were David Palmer (20 years), Paul Wasilkoff (20 years) and Anthony Wasilkoff (50 years).

As we have reached the 25th anniversary of the United Church of God, we acknowledged those at this online meeting who have served from the start of UCG. They were Rainer Salomaa, Tony Wasilkoff, Bob Berendt and John Elliott. Bob Berendt retired in 2017, and at this coming Feast of Tabernacles will have served 50 years as an elder in the Church.

Everyone enjoyed being online together for two and a half hours sharing experiences and relating how members and ministers were coping during this time of pandemic challenges.

UCG Streaming Radio

I'd like to periodically remind you of this innovative resource produced by the UCG Australia that can be found at: https://www.ucg.org.au/radio.

This is the online radio station for the United Church of God, now streaming seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Listen to booklet and magazine readings, Bible readings, Bible Q&As, Sermons, Bible class lectures, podcasts, the BT Daily series, and more! It offers quite a variety of content along with musical interludes and greetings from around the world.

You can take UCG Radio with you as you travel and listen via your mobile device. Simply search at your app store for "UCG Radio" to install the free app. We appreciate the work of the Australia office, Geoff Robertson, in particular, for creating and maintaining this useful resource.

Zambia News

Derrick Pringle, our Copperbelt pastor of four congregations stretched across northwest Zambia, wrote this inspiring report about his recent visit to his outlying congregations. It is reprinted from the current May 2020 News from South Africa newsletter. You can see a more complete story with photos at https://lifenets.org/solwezi-zambia-may-2020/

"It is business as usual. We have to wear face masks in public, church services are restricted to 50 people and to last no longer than an hour and that's about it. A health official had to inspect our hall to see, amongst other things, that we could have social distancing. It was passed with favourable comments.

"So Cherry and I packed our bags, loaded two of our trucks with eight tons of material and headed to our Church in Mufumbwe, 500 km from us. With assistance from LifeNets we set up a drip line irrigation system for vegetable production of cabbage, rape and tomatoes. I had previously built a stout room 4 metres high to accommodate two 5,000 litre tanks for this scheme. At present, I only put one up to see how the enterprise develops. As a kick off, they have been provided with fertilizer, seed, insecticides and 260 cabbage seedlings. We have had electricity connected to the site so we pulled up the hand operated pump and put down an electric pump to deliver water up to the tank for gravity feed to the drip lines. It is a community project with the proceeds being split in three ways. One, as income to the members, two, for fertilizers, seed etc., and 10% for the Church. I am hoping that the 10% will cover the Church operating costs for that area.

"We have dedicated members and there is a shortage of vegetables, so this should develop into a viable enterprise.

"I also took one of our fencing gangs up and we erected a 300-metre security fence around the property.

"We travelled up on a Sunday and had everything completed by Friday. On the way back to Kitwe on the Sabbath, we stopped over in Solwezi for the church service. This was in our new building of 135 square metres replacing the old one which we had outgrown. It is still very rough, just the walls and a roof but it was very well built by our member, Rodrick Epomba, and a few helpers with their services freely given. Rodrick conducts a successful radio broadcast once a week. He also has a Bible study at the local prison. Due to the Coronavirus, his visits have been temporarily suspended. He then went and bought six small radios at his own expense so that the inmates can listen to his radio broadcasts.

"Rodrick, who graduated last year as the best student-teacher of the year, has also proved himself in the past in organizing and conducting activities at the Feasts and other events. It was, therefore, my great pleasure to ordain him as a deacon on May 2. I have high hopes for his continued excellent service to God and man. All praise goes to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for a successful journey to the Northwest."