The Seventh-day Adventist Gospel Medical Missionary Movement of Greater Huntsville (SDAGMMM) has been active since 2005. It began in 2003 when Wildwood Health Evangelism School graduate Jim Ayodo, accompanied by Wildwood Lifestyle Hospital MD’s, Ervin Davis and Scott Grivas, started training classes at the New Life SDA Church in Huntsville when Harold Goodloe was the senior pastor. Graduates of that class coalesced to form the nucleus of what is now the SDA Gospel Medical Missionary Movement of Greater Huntsville. SDAGMMM consists of health ministry leaders, health professionals, lay pastors, ordained elders, and others who desire to see the Lord’s closing work done and to hasten His return.
The group’s main goal is to advance the cause of gospel medical missionary work in cooperation with duly ordained gospel ministers, in accordance with the prophetic writings of Ellen White (see, for example, Counsels on Health, pp. 557,558). In this spirit of cooperation, the SDAGMMM has, in cooperation with Oakwood, Southern, and Andrews Universities, co-sponsored medical missionary conventions at each of these schools. In the same spirit of cooperation, we want to revive this important and oft-neglected work. We would like to see the youth, the older members, the ministers, in fact every member to embrace this work, according to the Spirit of Prophecy (Testimonies, Volume 7, p. 62).
SDAGMMM has trained medical missionaries in America and Africa. In 2012, we conducted a training course at the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville under the leadership of Senior Pastor Marcel Wip and Health Ministries Leader Joy Cavins.
To advance our educational mandate, we have trained interested students in gospel medical missionary work, what the North American Division Health Ministries now calls Comprehensive Health Ministry. We wanted students to be able to go back to their churches and to be out in the community doing health evangelism.
SDAGMMM has trained medical missionaries in America and Africa. In 2012, we conducted a training course at the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville under the leadership of Senior Pastor Marcel Wip and Health Ministries Leader Joy Cavins.
To advance our educational mandate, we have trained interested students in gospel medical missionary work, what the North American Division Health Ministries now calls Comprehensive Health Ministry. We wanted students to be able to go back to their churches and to be out in the community doing health evangelism.
The 12-week training began on March 1, 2015, and was completed on June 7, 2015, with 80 credit hours of instruction. Our host church was the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville, a church which boldly proclaims the Three Angels’ Message and our historic Health Message. Dr. Rupert Bushner, Jr., and the Mount Calvary family and its liaison, Elder Plenty Germany, were extremely gracious hosts. Our teaching staff included Joy Cavins, Pamela Chester, Ceola DeJean, Bill and Louise Daniels, Plenty Germany, Blanche Harrison, Michael Palmer, Sylvester Quainoo, and Louis Williams. The students included Olga, Abdi, Frances Allison, Dr. Lydia Andrews, Warren Brookshire, Melanie Kit Buford, Rochelle Davis, Sophia Felix-Jones, Marea Ilean Ford, Olivia Hampton, Loretta Huggins, Deborah McDaniel, Carrie Elaine Logan, B.J. Price, and Dorothy Purifoy,
To invest the graduates of the training course, there was a Health and Temperance Day certificate ceremony on July 18, 2015, at the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, where Dr. Rupert Bushner, Jr., is the senior pastor, and Mark and Kindra Moore are the Health Ministries Leaders. The invited guest speaker for the 11:00 divine worship service was James Hartley, the founder and director of the Lay Institute for Global Health Training (L.I.G.H.T.) at Wildwood Lifestyle Center in Wildwood, Georgia. Wildwood is one of the oldest supporting ministries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, founded in 1942 by the late Elder W.D. Frazee and company. L.I.G.H.T.’s Essentials of Health Evangelism was the primary text book for the training course.
During the historic service, quite likely the first of its kind in the North American Division, several teachers and students participated. Kindra Moore, Health Ministries Leader, gave a health-oriented Children’s Story. Jared and Kendra Lewis shared two beautiful musical selections that left the congregation spellbound. James Hartley then delivered an informative, stirring message that so moved the congregation that nearly the entire church responded to his appeal to minister to others as Christ did. See The Ministry of Healing, p. 143. Certificates were awarded by Pastor Bushner and Brother Hartley. Following the divine service, there was a celebratory dinner at the Powell Auditorium of the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center on the campus of Oakwood University, during which the graduates were shown giving their testimonies and were given the cookbook, Bountiful Blessings, to help them in their ministry as newly trained Gospel Medical Missionary Evangelists. They were then sent out into the world to heal and to save souls.
To invest the graduates of the training course, there was a Health and Temperance Day certificate ceremony on July 18, 2015, at the Mount Calvary Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, where Dr. Rupert Bushner, Jr., is the senior pastor, and Mark and Kindra Moore are the Health Ministries Leaders. The invited guest speaker for the 11:00 divine worship service was James Hartley, the founder and director of the Lay Institute for Global Health Training (L.I.G.H.T.) at Wildwood Lifestyle Center in Wildwood, Georgia. Wildwood is one of the oldest supporting ministries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, founded in 1942 by the late Elder W.D. Frazee and company. L.I.G.H.T.’s Essentials of Health Evangelism was the primary text book for the training course.
During the historic service, quite likely the first of its kind in the North American Division, several teachers and students participated. Kindra Moore, Health Ministries Leader, gave a health-oriented Children’s Story. Jared and Kendra Lewis shared two beautiful musical selections that left the congregation spellbound. James Hartley then delivered an informative, stirring message that so moved the congregation that nearly the entire church responded to his appeal to minister to others as Christ did. See The Ministry of Healing, p. 143. Certificates were awarded by Pastor Bushner and Brother Hartley. Following the divine service, there was a celebratory dinner at the Powell Auditorium of the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center on the campus of Oakwood University, during which the graduates were shown giving their testimonies and were given the cookbook, Bountiful Blessings, to help them in their ministry as newly trained Gospel Medical Missionary Evangelists. They were then sent out into the world to heal and to save souls.
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