wfn.org | International Temperance Role of Adventists to Continue

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

August 30, 2004
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief APD
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD
CH-4003 Basel, Schweiz

International Temperance Role of Adventists to Continue

Auckland, New Zealand, 12.08.2004/ANN/APD	       Seventh-day
Adventists continue to influence the international temperance movement
with the election of a church leader to the World Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, or WWCTU.

Joy Butler is the WWCTU's new director of Christian outreach. She
accepted the position at the organization's 36th triennial convention,
held recently in Auckland, New Zealand.

"I have had misgivings about the WWCTU, but attending the convention
has strengthened my commitment to it," says Butler, the director of
women's ministries for the Adventist Church in the South Pacific. "The
WWCTU might be an old organization, but it's an important organization
with an important message."

Butler initially declined the position, "but once I realized the closeness
of
the connection between women's ministries and the WWCTU, I just had
to accept."

That connection goes far back into Adventist history: One of the early
leaders of the WCTU in the United States of America, writer Sarepta
Henry, became an Adventist while a patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium
in 1896. She resigned as national evangelist for the WCTU in 1898 to
implement, with the encouragement of Adventist church co- founder Ellen
White, a plan for what she called "woman ministry."

The church's Women's Ministries Department works to prevent and
eradicate abuse and poverty--social issues with strong links to drugs
and alcohol--as part of its mission.

In other appointments, Margaret Martin, a member of the Adventist
Church in Albany, Western Australia, becomes the new director of
alcohol-free
hospitality. "It is an honour to represent the WWCTU," says Martin. She
speaks
of the motto of the organization, "For God, home and every land."

"We work to protect the home and the family. The WCTU encourages Christians
to stand up and be counted, especially on social issues." Martin will
continue
serving as president of the WWCTU [branch] in Australia, a position she has
filled since 2001.

And Sarah Ward replaces Margaret Jackson, a member of the Adventist Church
in Cambridge, New Zealand, who has served as president of the WWCTU for
the past three years. Miss Ward has served as president for the WCTU in the
United States of America since 1996.

About 150 people from 21 different countries attended the convention. Butler

named India, Korea and the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway and
Sweden, where membership totals about 7000, as regions of the world where
the WWCTU receives the most support.

Butler says the number of young women impressed her: "They bring a freshness

and enthusiasm to the organization."

Frances Willard, an educator, temperance reformer and women suffragist,
created the WWCTU in 1883 during her 19-year term as president of the WCTU
branch in the United States. The organization has held special consultative
status
with the United Nations since 1947. Anita Gudinchet, an Adventist from
Switzerland,
is the WWCTU's representative at the United Nations in Geneva.

Butler asks for reader's prayers. "I want to see the WWCTU grow. We have
achieved a lot in the past 130 years, but we have a lot still to do. It is
not time
to give up."

More information on the activities of WCTU can be found at
http://www.wctu.org
[Brenton Stacey for ANN/APD]

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