Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

Ohio Conference

Children re-enact one of several events from the book of Exodus during the recent Hispanic Ministries Children’s Festival.

As visitors looked up, they saw large red letters spelling LIBRES (freedom). Near the letters were kites. “After all, what can express the feeling of freedom better than happy kids flying kites?” says Wanda Lugo. The kites told the story of Israel’s freedom from slavery in Egypt to nearly 400 festival visitors, including 175 children, at the First Hispanic church of Columbus in Westerville.

Kettering Medical Center Chaplain Elliott Smith speaks at a prayer vigil at the hospital.

A second mass shooting in less than a year has directly impacted the Columbia Union Conference territory. Among the nine killed in a nightclub in downtown Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning was Nicholas Cumer, 25, a trainer interning with Maple Tree Cancer Alliance, an organization that serves patients in several of Kettering Adventist HealthCare’s (KAHC) facilities.

Ohio Conference Baptism

In the early months of 2018, the Ohio Conference launched an initiative designed to help congregations regain their focus on growing spiritually. The program, known as Disciple Ohio (DO), began as an idea and hope of conference President Ron Halvorsen Jr., to have a practical and tangible way to help churches become more effective in reaching their communities in Ohio.