Thompson, George Ralph (1929–2023)

G. Ralph Thompson was executive secretary of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for 20 years (1980-2000)—the longest period of service in this position in the denomination’s history.¹ Thompson also served as acting president of the General Conference for three weeks in 1999.² He was a vice president of the General Conference from 1975 to 1980.

Prior to his years at the General Conference, Thompson served in a wide range of positions including evangelist, pastor, academy instructor, college professor and chair, radio evangelist, conference president, and union conference president.³ He was a gifted and charismatic teacher and preacher widely admired, respected, and beloved by Adventists around the world especially within the Inter-American Division’s Caribbean Union where he served for decades in various capacities.

Early Years and Education

George Ralph Thompson was born on March 20, 1929, in a quaint village, in the second-most northern region, Connell Town, in the most rural and northern parish of St. Lucy on the formerly British Caribbean island of Barbados. He was the second son of George Gilbert and Edna Loleta Griffith Thompson.⁴ From an early age, Ralph demonstrated an exceptional curiosity regarding life and his immediate environment. His mother observed that he enjoyed learning to read and quickly could read far beyond his age group. On Sundays his parents first attended the local Christian Mission Church but by his seventh birthday they became very active members of a nearby Pilgrim Holiness congregation and his mother became one of the preachers.⁵

At the age of four, Ralph attended the nearby Church of England elementary school, the Saint Selah Boys’ School, excelling in his classwork. On completing his primary education ahead of his age group, his mother enrolled him in the Leeward High School, a private high school many miles away in the island’s second largest and northern town, Speightstown. Ralph continued to excel in his classes and later transferred to the region’s leading government operated high school, the Parry School in St. Lucy. For his future career, Ralph aspired to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.⁶ His mother insisted that he also learn a trade—customary for most youths in the Caribbean at that time. Ralph became an apprentice of a Seventh-day Adventist tailor, Fred Greaves, who observed the young man’s interest in religious matters and gave him a copy of The Great Controversy by Ellen G. White. He immediately read it and became very interested in learning more about the Seventh-day Adventist faith.⁷

A few months later, Arthur R. Tucker, the newly elected president of Caribbean Training College (CTC) in the neighboring island of Trinidad made his first recruiting visit to Barbados and invited Ralph to matriculate at this Seventh-day Adventist institution, later renamed Caribbean Union College (CUC), then the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC). On March 22, 1946, at age 17, Ralph arrived on the Trinidad campus, located in the Maracas Valley.⁸

Ralph quickly learned more about Seventh-day Adventism, along with his studies in the school’s secondary curriculum. Within a year, following a Week of Prayer series conducted by President Tucker, he was baptized in the nearby St. Joseph River. Ralph’s friendly demeanor made a lasting impression on many of his fellow students and all his teachers. He again excelled in his classes and worked at the College Press to pay for his tuition and boarding. After completing his secondary education in December 1948, he enrolled in the college’s Theology Department. He graduated with nearly 50 classmates in December 1950, thereby fulfilling one of his most significant boyhood aspirations. While at CTC, Ralph sang in a very popular men’s double quartette called the College Heralds that held numerous concerts helping to popularize Negro spirituals across the islands of Trinidad and Barbados in the early 1950’s.⁹

In addition to absorbing Adventist doctrines and their scriptural basis, Thompson began perfecting the art of homiletics during his years at CTC. He dropped his northern Barbadian accent and began developing the winsome preaching style that became a highlight of his worldwide appeal as a leader, as would be seen in the robust sermons he preached as General Conference secretary at each GC session from 1980 to 2000.¹⁰

Early Ministerial Experience and Advanced Education (1950-1962)

Immediately after graduation, Thompson was recruited by the South Caribbean Conference that served the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He worked with Pastors Harold Nembhard and Samuel L. Gadsby in Southern Trinidad, assisting in the conducting of evangelistic meetings. His success with these two senior ministers was rewarded by being assigned to work without senior leadership in the neighboring island of Tobago. There, he conducted his first solo successful evangelistic meeting with the support of young and eager youth leaders. His success encouraged him to seek further ministerial training.¹¹

In the fall of 1954, he migrated to the U.S. and enrolled in the Department of Theology at Atlantic Union College (AUC), in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. Both teachers and fellow students quickly recognized his developing leadership talents and elected him during his final year as president of the AUC Ministerial Student Association.¹² However, it was on this campus that he first experienced incidents of racial discrimination but attributed them to random acts befitting his new American environment. He graduated with the class of 1956.¹³

Elder Thompson returned briefly to Trinidad to teach at his alma mater. However, desiring to study further, he enrolled in 1957 at Potomac University, in Washington, DC, then the locale of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. Thompson was one of a small number of select Eastern-Caribbean, Adventist clergy that attended this recently established Adventist university that was offering graduate training in North America. Within just a year, he completed a master’s in religion in 1958.¹⁴ He was the first Caribbean student to graduate from this institution and to receive a master’s degree. Upon completion, he returned to CUC in Trinidad to continue his teaching career, serve as pastor of the college’s campus church, and begin a family.

Thompson met fellow Barbadian, Imogene Clotilde Barker, during his initial years at CTC. They were joined in holy matrimony on July 19, 1959, at the Park Place Seventh-day Adventist Church in Brooklyn, New York City. To this union came three children: Carol-Jean, Linda-Mae, and Gerald Randolph.¹⁵ Throughout their marriage, Imogene worked as a nurse at several hospitals and finally at the Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Thompson, along with four other young ministerial interns, was ordained to the gospel ministry on the campus of Caribbean Union College in August 1959.¹⁶ In 1961 he returned to graduate study at the SDA Theological Seminary, by then relocated to Berrien Springs, Michigan, as part of Andrews University. When he received the master of divinity in June of 1962, he was again the first Caribbean student to graduate with this degree from this institution. While attending classes in the Seminary, he found time to serve for one year as principal of the school operated by the Cassopolis, Michigan, church, and regularly preached at the church’s Sabbath services.¹⁷

Church Leadership in the Caribbean Union (1962-1975)

In September of 1962, Elder Thompson and his young family returned to the Caribbean, where he was appointed the chairman of the Theology Department at CUC. In addition to overseeing the training of the ministerial students, he was also the pastor of the College Church and taught a wide range of courses including World Civilization, the history class that all college students were required to take.

Although he was deeply involved in all the spiritual activities at the college he also reached out beyond the campus, spearheading a successful evangelistic series in the Curepe area for which senior theology students were the main speakers. He also worked with his theology students in Port-of-Spain on the initial planning and field preparation for the upcoming E. E. Cleveland evangelistic campaign that resulted in 840 baptisms in 1966.¹⁸

In the fall of 1964, Thompson was called away from his academic role on the CUC campus when elected president of the East Caribbean Conference, with headquarters in Barbados.¹⁹ He had demonstrated his leadership capabilities at CUC and the wider church constituency felt that he was up to this new responsibility. This conference directed the church’s congregations in a territory that included the United States Virgin Islands in the north and all the English-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles: St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla, St. Martin, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as Grenada. His first task was to fill various administrative conference positions with other young, vibrant clergy that had some experience and would support his more direct, hands-on approach toward church growth. Elder Thompson required that each pastor conduct at least one evangelistic effort per year. In a series of workshops held across the conference, he instructed the pastors and lay leaders in developing an effective stewardship plan that proved very successful in increasing church membership as well as the tithe and offering receipts for each of the four years he led that conference.

One of Thompson’s most far-reaching actions was the founding of a religious radio program in April 1967 called “Faith for Today” that was broadcast every Sunday morning across the eastern Caribbean.²⁰ He was the main speaker on the broadcasts that also included Christian music and other features that attracted numerous non-Adventist listeners. The broadcast ran for ten years (1967-1977). His eloquent preaching caught the attention of a large cross section of listeners, demonstrating that Adventist beliefs were based on the Bible alone. The broadcasts helped to radically change the negative perception that many listeners had regarding the Seventh-day Adventist faith that had lingered for decades.

One unexpected development that occurred during Thompson’s first year of leadership at the East Caribbean Conference was the spontaneous eagerness among many of his female coworkers at the conference office to become active in evangelism and, specifically, to conduct evangelistic meetings with a woman as the main speaker. After initial hesitation, he agreed to their proposal. Surprised by the successful outcome of these meetings, Thompson authored an article about this new role that women had assumed in his conference that was published in the September 1965 issue of Ministry, the denomination’s professional journal for clergy.²¹

At the August 1970 Caribbean Union Conference session in Trinidad, Elder Thompson was elected president, becoming the first West Indian to hold this position.²² The delegates voted for him because they believed that the success that he had achieved at the conference level could be replicated across the other conferences and missions in the union. As he had at the conference level, Thompson, with the cooperation of his fellow Union leaders, introduced an ambitious plan focusing on stewardship and evangelism, this time emphasizing lay participation in evangelistic outreach. His five-year tenure saw a large increase in the number of district pastors conducting major evangelistic efforts each year. Among the most successful was Kembleton S. Wiggins, a charismatic Barbadian educator-turned-pastor who held numerous evangelistic campaigns and, during one year baptized over 1,000 persons.²³

General Conference Vice President (1975-1980)

At the 1975 GC session in Vienna, Austria, Elder Thompson was elected to serve as a vice president of the General Conference—one of the first persons of color to hold that position and the first West Indian to do so.²⁴ Over the years he had developed a close working relationship with GC president Robert H. Pierson, who was re-elected in 1975. Elder Pierson had himself served for decades as a missionary in the Caribbean and was a former president of the Caribbean Union Conference.

During Thompson’s tenure as a GC vice president (1975-1980) the programs and policies that he helped to implement as a union president were featured. These efforts were such a demonstrable success that they were duplicated across the Inter-American Division, making it the largest of the 14 divisions of the world church by 1993, with a membership of 1,368,476, worshipping in 4,442 churches.²⁵

One of the many far-reaching issues that he dealt with as vice president was the racial tension that had been building in England since the 1950s when Caribbean Adventists began migrating to the country in large numbers. As their numbers and proportion of the overall membership in England continued to grow, conflict developed at many of the English churches and schools. Elder Pierson assigned Thompson to deal directly with this matter. Over time “the London Forum” accepted “the Pierson Package” that accentuated a reasonable Christ-centered compromise that included appointment of several experienced Caribbean ministers to serve in church leadership roles in England.²⁶

General Conference Executive Secretary (1980-2000)

At the 1980 GC session in Dallas, Texas, Elder Thompson was elected executive secretary of the General Conference, the second highest office in the church’s administrative structure. He was the first West Indian and person of African descent to hold this position.

Elder Thompson was re-elected three times and thus served for four consecutive five-year terms (1980-2000) making him the longest serving person to hold this position. He described his role as executive secretary in a 1987 interview published in the Adventist Review: “I serve as one of the three officers (with the President and Treasurer) in the general administration of the General Conference and the worldwide church. I am specifically responsible for the operation of the Secretariat, the part of the General Conference whose work it is to fill the hundreds of personnel requests from overseas divisions. The Secretariat also coordinates the General Conference Committee agenda. In addition, I serve as a member of most General Conference institution boards.”²⁷

The thing that he enjoyed most about his, work, Thompson said, was meeting people throughout the world church: “Going on airplanes, spending time in airports can be a drag. But what mitigates the whole thing is the people I meet on the other side. . . . This to me is the most interesting part, along with seeing how God’s work is progressing in various countries of the world.” One of the areas that was of great concern to him in 1987 was declining interest in missionary service. “Getting missionaries is becoming more and more difficult,” he remarked. “People just aren’t standing in line saying, ‘Send me overseas.’”²⁸

However, the church’s worldwide membership almost doubled during Elder Thompson’s tenure as GC executive secretary (1980-2000). This growth was aided by implementation of two endeavors initiated in 1990 to mobilize involvement in world mission—the Global Mission Initiative and targeting the 10/40 Window, the portion of the globe with the least Christian presence.²⁹

In 1990, at the 55^th GC session, held in Indianapolis, Indiana, Elder Thompson was re-elected to his third term. He pledged his to working as a member of a team alongside newly-elected GC president, Elder Robert S. Folkenberg, who had served for nearly two decades in the Inter-American Division.³⁰ After Thompson was re-elected for a final term at the 1995 GC session in Utrecht, Netherlands, he stated, “For the past five years I have really enjoyed working with Elder Folkenberg. In the Inter-American Division, we learn to agree, and to disagree heartily on issues, but love each other nevertheless.”³¹

On February 9, 1999, following Elder Folkenberg’s sudden and unexpected resignation, Elder Thompson became the acting president of the General Conference and served in that capacity until March 2, 1999, when the General Conference Executive Committee elected Jan Paulsen as president.³²

Elder Thompson’s role as General Conference secretary involved developing plans for the future growth of the church, an extremely busy daily itinerary of committee meetings, and extensive international travel. He visited most of the countries that have Seventh-day Adventist believers including Russia, India, Israel, and many nations in Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and southeast Asia. Among his most complex deliberations as a representative of the executive leadership of the denomination were the investigation into accusations that some professors at the SDA Theological Seminary leaned towards the liberalizing of certain doctrines of the church, the redistribution of church funds among the existing church entities, and proposals for the creation of Black Unions across the North American Division, the expansion of world divisions, and the ordination of women to serve as ministers of the gospel like their male counterparts. He was committed to team leadership and thus even when a decision was not in agreement with his personal views, he continued to support the collective decision of the majority.

Final Years

After retiring from administration in 2000, Elder Thompson remained involved in church work as a field secretary of the Ellen G. White Estate.³³ In 2003, he and his wife, Imogene, moved to Naples, Florida. There, he served part-time as assistant pastor at the All Nations SDA Church located near their retirement home.

Imogene Barker Thompson, his wife of 55 years, died in Naples, Florida, on February 7, 2015.³⁴ After a brief illness while staying with his daughter, Linda Mae Carter, in Olney, Maryland, Elder Thompson quietly passed to his rest on Sabbath morning, May 20, 2023.³⁵ He is buried alongside his wife in the Palm Royale Cemetery in Naples, Collier County, Florida.

Three memorial services were held in honor of his exemplary, lifelong dedication to the Christian faith. The first, held on June 23, 2023, at General Conference headquarters, Silver Spring, Maryland, members of his immediate family were joined by coworkers and fellow believers from around the world. Many spoke about the outstanding impact that Elder Thompson had on their lives. These included Elder Ted Wilson, president of the General Conference, who testified to Thompson’s very strong spiritual influence over the many years that they worked together.³⁶ At a second service held on July 10, 2023 at the All Nations SDA Church, in Naples, Florida, two of his closest Caribbean coworkers, Dr. George W. Brown, former president of the Inter-American Division, and Dr. Walter B. T. Douglas, former professor of church history at the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University, were among the participants. A few days later another service took place in his homeland, held at the Checker Hall SDA Church in St. Peter, Barbados.

Legacy

Over the years, Elder Thompson was recognized by various entities and organizations both within his church family and in the wider world. The government of Barbados awarded him the Barbados Centennial Honour in a ceremony at the country’s Government House on January 1, 2001. He thus became one of one hundred Barbadians to receive this honor, bestowed annually over the previous century to an individual for outstanding contribution to the nation. Thompson was recognized specifically for “his contribution to religion.”³⁷

A number of institutions awarded Thompson an honorary doctorate, including Andrews University in June 1983, his alma mater, the University of the Southern Caribbean in Trinidad in May 2014, and Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Maryland. Additionally, the East Caribbean Conference of SDA, near Bridgetown, Barbados established a media center on the conference campus and named it in his honor.

In a ministry that spanned more than 50 years, G. Ralph Thompson served as a pastor, Bible teacher, evangelist, college lecturer, and church administrator. Through it all, his overarching desire was to do whatever he could to help the church that he loved dearly to extend its witness to the world, growing in membership each year so that everyone may be ready for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Sources

Ashworth, Rachel. “G. Ralph Thompson Passes Away at 94,” ARH, May 26, 2023. Accessed March 3, 2025. https://adventistreview.org/news/g-ralph-thompson-passes-away-at-94/.

“Black Advance at G.C. Session.” ARH, July 7, 1985.

“Celebrating the Life of George Ralph Thompson, March 20, 1929-May 20, 2023.” June 25, 2023, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists World Headquarters.

Knott, Bill. “What Happens Next?” ARH, February 18, 1999.

Jones, Clifford. Preaching with Power: Black Preachers Share Secrets for Effective Preaching. Silver Spring, MD: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2005

McKenna, Hayden. “Tribute to Elder G. Ralph Thompson.” University of the Southern Caribbean. Accessed March 3, 2025, https://usc.edu.tt/2023/07/09/elder-g-ralph-thompson-to-be-laid-to-rest/.

Medley, Carlos. “Adventist World President Resigns.” ARH, February 18, 1999.

Murphy, Caryle. “Adventist Leader Resigns Over Controversy.” Washington Post, February 9, 1999.

Phillips, Glenn O. The Making of a Christian College, Caribbean Union College, 1927-1977 (Maracas Valley, Trinidad. College Press, 1977.

Phillips, Glenn O. Seventh-day Adventists in Barbados: Over a Century of Adventism, 1884-1991. Bridgetown, Barbados: Caribbean Graphics & Letchworth Ltd, 1991.

Phillips, Glenn O. Singing in a Strange Land: The Hanson Place SDA Church, Brooklyn, New York, 1958-2008. Littleton, MA: Tapestry Press, 2008.

Reynolds, Louis B. We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh-day Adventists with an African Heritage. Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald, 1984.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Online Archives (GCA). https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/AllItems.aspx.

Thompson, G. Ralph. “Begin the Millenium During this Quinquennium, A Challenge to Us All.” Ministry, October 1976.

Thompson, G. Ralph. “The Challenge of the Unfinished Task.” ARH, July 2, 1995.

Thompson, G. Ralph. “A New Venture in Evangelism: Our Women Conduct a Public Effort.” Ministry, September 1965.

Whitney, K. W. “Five Ordained in Trinidad.” Inter-American Division Messenger, March 1960.

Widmer, Myron. “Interview with G. Ralph Thompson,” ARH, June 4, 1987.

Notes

1. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (2002), 16.↩

2. Caryle Murphy, “Adventist Leader Resigns Over Controversy,” Washington Post, February 9, 1999, A8; Carlos Medley, “Adventist World President Resigns,” ARH, February 18, 1999, 2.↩

3. Rachel Ashworth, “G. Ralph Thompson Passes Away at 94,” ARH, May 26, 2023, accessed March 3, 2025, https://adventistreview.org/news/g-ralph-thompson-passes-away-at-94/.↩

4. “Celebrating the Life of George Ralph Thompson, March 20, 1929-May 20, 2023,” June 25, 2023, General Conference of SDA World Headquarters; George Gmelch and Sharon Bohn Gmelch, The Parish Behind God’s Back, (Long Grove, IL; Waveland Press), 1997, 5, 8. Woodville Marshall, et. al., Of Hills and Holes; Place Names of Barbados (St. Ann’s Garrison, St. Michael; The Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 2016), 305, mentions that this small hamlet was part of a plantation property that began around 1679 and in the 19th century named after one of the owners, Thomas Connell. The 166 square mile island of Barbados, the most easternly of all islands in the Caribbean Sea, colonized by the British in 1626, was the only island never to change hands to other European colonists and is often referred to as “Little England” until it became politically independent on November 30, 1966. See Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados, From Amerindian Settlement to Nation State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).↩

5. Edna Griffith Thompson, interview by author, Connell Town, St. Lucy, Barbados, August 20, 1988.↩

6. Edna Griffith Thompson interview; Caribbean Training College Student Enrollment Record Book, 1927-1947 (Office of the Registrar, Royal Road, Maracas Valley, Trinidad, West Indies), 23.↩

7. Hayden McKenna, “Tribute to Elder G. Ralph Thompson,” University of the Southern Caribbean, accessed March 3, 2025, https://usc.edu.tt/2023/07/09/elder-g-ralph-thompson-to-be-laid-to-rest/.↩

8. Caribbean Training College Student Enrolment Record Book,1927-1947, 23.↩

9. Glenn O. Phillips, The Making of a Christian College, Caribbean Union College, 1927-1977 (Maracas Valley, Trinidad. College Press, 1977), 48.↩

10. See Clifford Jones, Preaching with Power: Black Preachers Share Secrets for Effective Preaching (Silver Spring, MD: General conference of SDA, 2005), 148; G. Ralph Thompson, “Begin the Millenium During this Quinquennium, A Challenge to Us All,” Ministry, October 1976.↩

11. G.R. Thompson, interview by author, Adelphi, Maryland, July 31, 1988.↩

12. Ibid.↩

13. Larry E. Smart, ed., Atlantic Union College Alumni Directory,1882-1987 (White Plains, NY: Barnard Harris Publishing Company, Inc., 1987), 21.↩

14. Alumni Today Directory, Andrews University (Berrien Springs, Michigan; Harris Connect,2013), A22 and C10.↩

15. “Celebrating the Life of George Ralph Thompson,” June 25, 2023; U.S. Marriage License Indexes 1907-2018, Brooklyn, NY: License Number 9422, 1959, George Ralph Thompson and Imogene Barker, Ancestry.com; Glenn O. Phillips, Singing in a Strange Land: The Hanson Place SDA Church, Brooklyn, New York, 1958-2008 (Littleton, MA: Tapestry Press, 2008), 27.↩

16. K.W. Whitney, “Five Ordained in Trinidad,” Inter-American Division Messenger, March 1960, 10-11.↩

17. Louis B. Reynolds, We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh-day Adventists with an African Heritage (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald, 1984), 282.↩

18. Ibid, 342.↩

19. Glenn O. Phillips, Seventh-day Adventists in Barbados: Over a Century of Adventism, 1884-1991 (Bridgetown, Barbados: Caribbean Graphics & Letchworth Ltd, 1991), 74-75, 142.↩

20. Ibid; “Black Advance at G.C. Session,” ARH, July 7, 1985, 6.↩

21. G. Ralph Thompson, “A New Venture in Evangelism: Our Women Conduct a Public Effort,” Ministry, September 1965.↩

22. Phillips, Seventh-day Adventist in Barbados, 142-143.↩

23. See Glenn O. Phillips, “Wiggins, Kembleton S. (1938–2020),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, January 21, 2022, accessed February 27, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=CJAJ; K. S. Wiggins, Soul Winning Made Easier: The Psychology of Getting More Decisions (Pacific Press Publishing Association, CA: 1925).↩

24. Ashworth, “G. Ralph Thompson Passes Away at 94.”↩

25. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (1993), 147.↩

26. Everette Howell to Glenn Phillips, December 4, 2024.↩

27. Myron Widmer, “Interview with G. Ralph Thompson,” ARH, June 4, 1987, 8.↩

28. Ibid.↩

29. See Kayla Ewert, “Global Mission,” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, January 23, 2024, accessed March 4, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=GI8Z; “Adventist Report Mass Growth at World Session,” Sunday Barbados Advocate, August 27, 2000, 48.↩

30. “Business Meeting: 55th General Conference Session, July 8, 1990, 3:15pm, “Session Proceedings,” ARH, July 10, 1990, 7; “Adventists Re-elected G. Ralph Thomson their Executive Secretary,” Indianapolis Record, July 21, 1990.↩

31. “Fourth Business Meeting: Fifty-sixth General Conference Session,” June 30, 1995, ARH, July 3, 1995, 15; “Thompson Re-elected,” Sunday Advocate (Barbados), July 23, 1995, 27; G. Ralph Thompson, “The Challenge of the Unfinished Task,” ARH, July 2, 1995, 9-11.↩

32. Murphy, “Adventist Leader Resigns Over Controversy,” Washington Post, February 9, 1999; Medley, “Adventist World President Resigns,” ARH, February 18, 1999; Bill Knott, “What Happens Next?,” ARH, February 18, 1999, 3; “Paulsen Chosen to Lead World Church,” ARH, March 11, 1999, 8-9.↩

33. Tim Poirier, Vice Director Ellen G. White Inc, GC Offices to Glenn O. Phillips, October 5, 2023.↩

34. “In Memory of Imogene Clotilde Thompson,” January 15, 1930 - February 7, 2018 held at Golden of All Nations Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2320 Rivers Road, Naples, Florida.↩

35. See, “In Memory of Imogene Clotilde Thompson,” ibid.↩

36. See, “Celebrating the Life of George Ralph Thompson,” ibid.↩

37. The Barbados Prime Minister’s Office, Presentation of Insignia of the Barbados Centennial Honour 2000 (Bridgetown: Cole’s Printery Ltd., 2001), 4, 11, 75.↩