Notes to Teachers
You will want to have a hard copy of the Mission Story ready to
read during the Mission Story section. You can find the story on
pages 4 and 5 of the First Quarter Adventist Mission Youth and
Adult Magazine. The title of the story is “The Path of Life.” You
can go to the website http://www.adventistmission.org/ and find the
link titled “Publications” to download the Adventist Mission
Youth and Adult Magazine.
Copyright Notices
Art and graphics copyrighted by the General Conference and
the Review and Herald® are included on slides
Images and artwork are copyrighted by the Pacific Press
Publishing Assoc., Review and Herald Publishing Assoc., It Is
Written and others. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Copyright Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist School
Junior and/or Earliteen
Sabbath School
January 3, 2009
Commitment to Mission—Still Vital to
the Seventh-day Adventist Church
In 1874 the first Seventh-day Adventist missionary
was sent from North America to Europe. Adventist
missionaries today come from everywhere around the
globe and serve wherever there’s a need. They come
from different countries, cultures, and career paths;
but they’re united in a common goal--to share the love
and hope of Jesus with a world that desperately needs
Him.
Medical missionaries serve a vital role in
the outreach of the church. They’re often
the first point of contact the local
community has with Seventh-day
Adventists. The care and compassion that
the medical missionaries show their
patients is a small glimpse of the love that
Jesus shows us all.
The mission offerings you bring to church
every Sabbath can work little miracles all
around the world. You can feed a child.
Bring a sense of joy and purpose to an
AIDs victim. Put a Bible in the hands of
someone who has never even seen God’s
word.
Your weekly Sabbath School offerings support
Adventist Mission and help missionaries touch
lives in 204 countries around the world. And
every thirteenth Sabbath your offering helps
complete special projects in one region of the
world. Please continue to give generously.
This Quarter the Thirteenth Sabbath
Offering is going to the
Southern Asia-Pacific Division
Information adapted
from Adventist
Mission, Youth and
Adult Magazine and
the SDA
Encyclopedia.
The Thirteenth Sabbath
Offering will be used to help:
•Build a junior college classroom
block for Palawan Adventist Academy
in northern Philippines
•Build a classroom block for a
secondary school in Dumaguete,
central Philippines
•Complete a secondary school in
Zamboanga, in southern Philippines.
The Southern Asia-Pacific Division includes 20 countries,
almost 744 million people and more than 876,000
Adventist members in the countries of Bangladesh,
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
It also includes several islands in the Pacific north of the
equator.
The future may be tomorrow, but preparation
for it must be done today. Please prayerfully
support the believers in the Philippines as they
train their youth for leadership. With a
generous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, you can
help direct many of the youth of the Philippines
to the feet of Jesus.
Collect Offering
Exploring God’s World
In this section we study one of the countries in the division where our Thirteenth Sabbath offering is going.
Today we are going to learn
about the Philippines.
Flag from the Philippines
Time for the Mission Story
We are taking the good news to
the entire world.
Read the Mission Story on pages 4 and 5 of the First Quarter Adventist Mission Youth and Adult Magazine
while slowly progressing through the next 3 slides.
The name of
the person
in the story
is “Rey.”
This story is from The Philippines.
The title of the story is “The Path of Life.”
Lesson Study
Time
Today's lesson is called:
Photo by Neva MacPhee
ALTARS, ALTARS
EVERYWHERE
Imagine, half your family is
moving away. You can
choose to go or stay.
How would you feel about
leaving them—and your
friends—to go somewhere
you knew nothing about?
Photo by Neva MacPhee
POWER POINT
We can serve God
wherever He leads us.
Photo by Neva MacPhee
POWER TEXT
John 12:26, NIV
“Whoever serves me must
follow me; and where I
am, my servant also will be.
My father will honor the one
who serves me.”
Lot faced an important decision.
For someone so young, it seemed
that changes were always coming
his way. And they weren’t always
happy changes. Sometimes they
were pretty scary.
First, his father, Haran, had died
at an early age. Lot went to live
with his grandfather Terah.
Photo by Neva MacPhee
Then Terah moved the entire
family out of the city of Ur,
where Lot’s father was buried.
Photo by Neva-copied from Bible
Lot had to pack up and leave
his birthplace, his friends,
everything!
Together with his uncles,
Nahor and Abram, Lot went
along with his grandfather as
they set out for the land of
Canaan.
When Lot
asked what
their new
home would
be like, no
one knew the
answer.
The most direct way to Canaan
would have been to go across
the Arabian Desert, but that
was impossible.
No one would
have survived
that. Instead
they set out on
an indirect
route up the
great Euphrates
River.
Photo by Neva MacPhee
Along the way, after traveling
600 miles, they settled in a city
called Haran.
Life in their new
home brought with
it some further
changes in the
family. In the past,
they had been close
to God. They
had always followed
His leading,
but by now some of them had
begun to worship other gods
as well. Little by little they
became more like the people
of Haran.
After grandfather Terah died,
Lot’s uncle Abram said that God
had told him to go on to Canaan.
This was where they had been
headed in the first place. It was
time, Abram said, to move
again.
Everyone knew that Abram was
faithful to God.
If he said God had brought him a
message, this was not something
that could be ignored. Now he
said that God had
warned him of the
dangers of staying
where they were.
But Canaan sounded so distant,
so different from what the family
was used to.
Instead of living in solid,
comfortable homes, with
four walls and a roof,
they might be spending the rest
of their lives in flimsy tents.
And the people who lived in that
place were known to be even
more wicked than the people of
Haran. Why would this decision
to go on to Canaan be a good
idea?
Lot’s uncle Nahor declared
flatly that he and his family
were staying right where
they were.
Abram and his wife, Sarai,
and their family prepared to
leave. As they
packed their
things, they
urged Lot to
come with
them.
“God has made us a promise,”
Abram said. “If we follow His
leading, our people
will become
a great nation.
God said this,
and I believe
Him.”
Lot was torn. Which uncle
should he follow?
Finally, when Abram was ready
to leave, Lot decided to go with
him. Throughout this great
migration to Canaan, however,
Abram never claimed to be a
great leader.
Wherever he went, he always
said God was the leader of His
people.
When they reached a place called
Shechem, they camped in a broad,
grassy valley. It was a beautiful,
fertile area, known for its
grainfields and orchards.
Photo by Neva MacPhee
To show his thanks for God’s
leading, Abram built an altar.
Canaan had long been the home
of a people who worshiped idols.
As Abram further explored
Canaan, he came across many
altars that
were built
to honor
false gods.
It was easy to see that the
Canaanites had actually offered
human sacrifices on
these altars. Into this
kind of surroundings
he boldly placed his
own altars for the
worship of the one
true God.
Wherever Abram pitched his
tent, he immediately set up an
altar to God and called everyone
to worship.
Lot always
enjoyed these
celebrations.
Everyone came
together to
praise God for
His leading.
Lot observed
the influence
that Abram
began to have in
Canaan.
Abram and Sarai became known
throughout the new land, as
they had in Haran, for their
service and love to all.
Whenever Abram left one of
his encampments, the altar
remained as a witness
to anyone who happened by.
Throughout the
rest of his life,
Lot learned
from his uncle
Abram’s
example that
wherever you
are, you can
serve God.
Ask Jesus today how you can
be a blessing to someone.
John 12:26, NIV
Whoever serves me
must follow me; and
where I am, my
servant also will be.
My Father will honor
the one who serves
me.
Let’s make a list of Biblical characters who
served God in foreign countries. Tell where they
came from, where they went, and how they
served God there.
1. Joseph
Where was Joseph from?
Does anyone know the
answer?
(Can you show from the Bible?)
Canaan is correct –
Genesis 37:1, 2
Where did Joseph go?
And a Bible text, please.
Very good. A free, but not very
fun trip to Egypt, courtesy of his
brothers. Genesis 37:28.
How did Joseph serve God in Egypt?
In many ways – stayed
faithful to God under
temptation; did his best
in every situation, good
or bad; witnessed to
Pharaoh of God’s
knowledge and care;
forgave his brothers and
saved his family.
Genesis 39-47.
2. Esther and Mordecai.
Where were they
from?
Jews of the tribe of
Benjamin, from
Jerusalem. Esther 2:5-7.
Where did they end up?
The citadel of Susa, in Babylon. Esther 2:5, 6.
How did they serve God there?
Mordecai persuaded Esther to help her people. Esther
bravely went to the king. Esther 4:12-14; 7:3, 4.
3. Daniel
Where was he from?
Jerusalem. Daniel 1:1-6.
Where was he taken?
The king’s palace in
Babylon. Daniel 1:4.
How did he serve God there?
Kept the Godly principles he had learned as a
Hebrew youth; revealed the dreams that God had
sent to the king; kept praying publicly to God when
others tried to use it as a way to kill him. Daniel 1, 2,
4 and 6.
4. Naaman’s maid.
Where was she from?
Israel. 2 Kings 5:2.
Where was she taken?
Aram. 2 Kings 5:2.
How did she serve God there?
Helped her master find healing from
leprosy by directing him to Elisha, the
prophet of God. 2 Kings 5:3.
Can you think of
other people in the
Bible who were
missionaries?
Jonah, John Mark,
Paul, Philip, Luke,
and others.
Power Point
We can serve God
wherever He leads
us.
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Herald® Publishing Association.
Text and illustrations from Adventist Mission Youth and
Adult Magazine is copyright © by the General
Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists.
Scriptures quoted from NIV are from the Holy Bible, New
International Version, copyright © 1973, 1980, 1984,
International Bible Society. Used by permission of
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