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William Loveless was an exceptionally gifted church pastor and innovative educator who served at length in the two largest Seventh-day Adventist communities, Sligo Church near the General Conference headquarters on the East Coast of America in addition to Loma Linda University Church on the West Coast with its diverse medical and educational fraternity.
Theodore E. Lucas, educator and youth department administrator, served in the General Conference Young People’s Missionary Volunteer department for 24 years, 15 of them as its leader.
Don C. Ludington was an educator who served in Burma (now Myanmar), then in Florida as head of the youth and educational work, and finally at Southern Missionary College where he taught for 25 years.
Morris Lukens served as a conference and union conference president in the United States and Australia during the early decades of the 20th century.
Frank Edward Lyndon was a teacher, pastor, evangelist, and missionary.
Henele (or Henry) Ma’afu was one of a small contingent of Fijians who early served the Seventh-day Adventist Church as missionaries to a foreign land.
Benjamin Franklin Machlan was a teacher, academy principal, and college president of several institutions.
Oti Maekera was a pioneering Solomon Island missionary responsible for initiating the work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in New Britain, Mussau, Manus, and Kainantu in Papua New Guinea. Each of these areas was to become a center of Adventist influence in the country.
South Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Joseph M. Marsh was captain of the Pitcairn on its first missionary voyage to the South Pacific, 1890-1892.
North American Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Died/Imprisoned for Faith
Alfred Walter Martin was a missionary, educator, and administrator from Australia.
Harry Rowland Martin was an evangelist, educator, and church administrator. Harry Martin’s construction projects provided numerous facilities for the Seventh-day Adventist church in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Australia.
John and Kathleen Martin served the Church in Australia and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Kathleen Martin trained as a nurse and John Martin was a printer, pastor, and mission administrator. He served as a non-combatant in the Australian armed forces during World War II.
Paul Matula pioneered evangelism among fellow European migrants in New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan.
Joseph Mave, from Emirau Island, Papua New Guinea, was the first Papua New Guinean to be elected as an officer of the Papua New Guinea Union Mission.
The initial Seventh-day Adventist missionaries to Australasia used literature and tent crusades to win converts but it was less than a decade before they experimented with Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s model of evangelism, one that promoted a healthy lifestyle, simple hydrotherapy, and massage treatments.
The Medical Missionary was a monthly periodical published for its first two years by the Good Health Publishing Company, Battle Creek, Michigan, under the auspices of the International Health and Temperance Association. In March 1893 the newly-organized Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association (MMBA) became its publisher. The publishing entities were established and operated under the direction of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, editor of the periodical.
Harold James Meyers was a pastor, missionary, and administrator in Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand.
Seventh-day Adventists first attempted evangelism among the Miao in 1929 when a national worker, Kwang Yu Tsen of the West Kweichow Mission, visited Chaotung (now Zhaotong) in the north-eastern arm of Yunnan Province. He found many Miao in the surrounding villages developing an interest in his message.
Pastor Charles Michaels commenced his working life with the Seventh-day Adventist Church as one of the first literature evangelists in Australia. He held a number of pastoral, departmental and administrative roles in his forty-nine years of service.
Esta Miller was a younger brother of Dr. Harry Miller, a pioneer missionary to China. He was counted among the early Seventh-day Adventists who learned the Mandarin language and was instrumental in winning the initial Chinese converts prior to his premature death at twenty-six years of age.
Chinese Union Mission China Biography Missionaries Died/Imprisoned for Faith Groundbreakers