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Caribbean nurse Yvonne Eurick gave many years to missionary service in West Africa and became affectionately known as “Nigeria’s Mother Teresa.”
Trans-European Division Biography Died/Imprisoned for Faith Missionaries Women
Frydenstrand Badesanatorium was the first Seventh-day Adventist sanatorium in Europe, situated in the Danish port city of Frederikshavn. It was operated as an institution along the principles of John H. Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitorium and attracted a good number of Scandinavian guests. Financially it was challenged and remained only 16 years as a church owned health institution. In private hands it was still run by Adventists after the principles of Kellogg and J.C. Ottosen until 1952.
Melcom Hagopian Gasparian worked as a Seventh-day Adventist teacher and pastor in Iran (formerly Persia) for almost a lifetime. He was born on July 25, 1909, in Van, Turkey, 50-60 km from the border of modern Iran.
The Adventist message was originally brought to Greenland by fishermen from the Faroe Islands who shared Adventist literature as early as the 1930s and 1940s that resulted in a few contacts being made. In 1953 Andreas Nielsen went to Greenland, sent by the Northern European Division.
Johannes Heinrich Gronert was a missionary to Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa.
Julius Gudmundsson was an Adventist educator, pastor, and administrator from Iceland.
Carl Christian Hansen, Sr. (better known as C. C. Hansen) played an important part in the early years of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Denmark and gave of his time, effort and means to support the cause that he loved. He had a special interest in literature work and the health message, and worked as an evangelist, teacher and business administrator.
The first-known Seventh-day Adventist to enter Iceland was the Norwegian minister O. J. Røst who, in the summer of 1893, made a trip to Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He sailed around the island of Iceland, stopping at various ports to visit with people and share the Adventist message. In November 1897, the Denmark Conference sent David Östlund of Sweden to be the first Seventh-day Adventist missionary to Iceland.
Trans-European Division Iceland Country (Based on SDA membership)
The Iceland Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (Kirkja Sjounda Dags Adventista) covers the territory of Iceland.
Iceland Publishing House (Frækornið-Bókaforlag Adventista) is a publishing firm, without a printing plant, operated in Reykjavík, Iceland, by the Iceland Conference. This institution was established in 1932, but even before that, the sale of publications was a prominent feature of Seventh-day Adventist work in Iceland.
Trans-European Division Iceland Publishing House/Media Institution
Iceland Secondary School (Hlíðardalsskóli) is a coeducational boarding school on the senior high school level that is situated at Ölfusi 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Reykjavík and owned by the Iceland Conference.
Iran was first entered by Seventh-day Adventists in 1911, when Frank F. Oster and Henry Dirksen (both Americans) went there from Germany and settled in Rezayeh (Urmia) in northwestern Iran near the Turkish border. There they worked among the many Armenian and Nestorian Christians living in the area.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Iran Country (Based on SDA membership)
The Jengre Seventh-day Adventist Hospital began as a dispensary in 1934 following the establishment of the first missionary station in northern Nigeria by John Jacob Hyde and his wife Louise from England.
It was said of Ib Jensen that “Ib loves the Faroe Islands and the Faroe Islands love Ib.” He gave 45 years of service as a literature evangelist to the islands.
Svein Karl Birger Johansen was a Norwegian missionary to Scandinavia, West Africa, and the Middle East for almost 40 years.
Seventh-day Adventist work in the early 1900s was conducted on both sides of the Jordan River from Jerusalem, headquarters of the Palestine-Transjordan Mission. In 1913 Ibrahim El-Khalil, one of the earlier converts to Christianity in Lebanon, held evangelistic meetings there but was forced to leave a year later due to World War I. The seeds had been planted, however, and as a result of his work, Michael Hilal El-Haddad began to keep the Sabbath and pay tithe. He is believed to be the first known Jordanian man to accept the Adventist message.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Jordan Country (Based on SDA membership)
George Arthur Keough was an educator, administrator, editor, and missionary who served the Seventh-day Adventist Church for 57 years on four continents. He founded Middle East College and later served as its president. He was the author of four books, several adult Sabbath School quarterlies, and numerous articles.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Biography Groundbreakers
Issa George Kharma was an Adventist educator with a pastoral touch. His high standards as well as his kind and constructive guidance inspired many young people, and his name became closely connected with Adventist elementary and secondary education in Lebanon.
In his service for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Thorvald Kristensen inspired a number of people and left his appreciable impression on the work of the Church in Denmark and West Africa. He worked as Bible teacher, evangelist, pastor, administrator, missionary, and editor. By his side was his faithful wife, Irene, with her pleasant attitude and dignified manners.
In 1928 the unentered territory of Libya was assigned to the newly formed Southern European Division.14 Colporteurs selling Italian publications were sent in to visit the Italian colonies of Tripoli in Tripolitania and Benghazi in Cyrenaica.15 The following year Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were organized as part of the North African Union Mission comprising Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Tangier. Over the next period of twenty years there is no record of any decided attempts to establish organized mission work in the Libyan territory. In 1948 Libya was assigned to the Middle East Union, which was attached directly to the General Conference. When the Middle East Division was organized in 1951, Libya was assigned to the Nile Union Mission of that division.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Country (Based on SDA membership)