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Julius Persson was one of the first Swedish missionaries to East Africa. His was a life with different commitments: colporteur, evangelist in Sweden, a multi-task missionary in East Africa, and health worker in Brazil and Germany.
Trans-European Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Meanou was the first Papuan missionary to leave his home village and travel to other villages and districts. Initially he worked with William Lock at Bisiatabu.
South Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Bernard and Bertha Petersen served the Seventh-day Adventist Church for several years in America prior to 22 years of distinguished mission service in China. They returned to America to minister in the Iowa Conference and the Upper Columbia Conference, Washington State.
Baldur Pfeiffer was both an important Adventist mission historian – one of the first to explore Adventist missionary impulses coming from Europe – and a dedicated humanitarian. He contributed both to the Seventh-day Adventist denomination and to the landscape of education and humanitarian work internationally by building up institutions and organizations such as Middle East College, Theologische Hochschule Friedensau, the European Adventist Archives, and Support Africa.
Inter-European Division Biography Educators Groundbreakers Missionaries
Erik and Ida Pilquist were pioneer missionaries to China. Erik worked for several Bible societies as an independent missionary. At one point he played a pivotal role in the development of Adventist missions in China. Ida was a steadfast advocate on behalf of the women of China, training “Bible women” and starting girls’ schools.
Chinese Union Mission China Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Couples
Albert Henry Piper was the first missionary from Australasia to serve in the Pacific Islands, and he also served as Australasian Missionary College principal, conference secretary and president, and Australasian Union Conference secretary for 12 years.
South Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Couples
James Edward Pittaway was a pioneer Adventist member and church builder in South Africa who came to the faith in the early days of the Adventist message coming to Africa.
Lucy Belinda Post, a missionary from North American, was the first Bible instructor in South America and did pioneering work in Uruguay and Argentina in her mature years.
South American Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Women
Forrest and Jennie Pratt were among the first Adventist missionaries to enter Thailand. They served also in the Philippines and the United States.
Southern Asia-Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Couples
Arthur John Raitt was a British missionary educator in Southern Africa who became a teacher at Solusi College. He was diagnosed with cancer and died young at the age of only 27. However, he greatly impacted the students he taught in the fleeting years of his life.
East-Central Africa Division Biography Educators Missionaries
William Raitt and his wife Hilda were British missionaries to East Africa, serving in Tanganyika and then Kenya in later years. He was the founder of the Kenya Coast Mission in 1934 and was responsible for the establishment and spread of the Adventist faith in the Kenyan coast.
East-Central Africa Division Biography Missionaries Couples Groundbreakers
Alberto Fernando Raposo was the first ordained Portuguese pastor and the first Portuguese Adventist missionary.
Inter-European Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Felix Gaylord Reid, popularly known as F. G. Reid, was an American missionary to Kenya and other countries in East and Central Africa. He was also one of the longest-serving missionaries, arriving in 1938 and leaving in 1970. He served as a minister, instructor, and later as a church administrator, eventually becoming the president of a mission field -- the Tanganyika Mission Field and two Unions -- the Zambesi Union and the East Africa Union.
Karl Alexandrovich Reifschneider was a pioneer missionary, pastor, and administrator who worked in Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Russia.
Otto E. Reinke gave leadership to Adventist mission work in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia. During World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, he persisted in leading the church forward in the face of severe hardship, violent upheaval, and repression, until exhaustion and illness led to his death at age 46.
North American Division Biography Missionaries Died/Imprisoned for Faith
Herbert Panmure Ribton was a physician and the first known Adventist missionary to enter the Muslim areas of the world. His dedicated and impressive service was very short, and in the end, he paid the ultimate price.
Middle East and North Africa Union Mission Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Died/Imprisoned for Faith
Dr. William Campbell Richli was a missionary medical doctor in the Philippines and in Africa known as the “Flying Doctor of the Philippines.” He also distinguished himself as the first individual to cross the Pacific in a solo flight in a single-engine plane, and as a gifted self-taught engineer who restored hospital facilities and designed and built hydro-electric plants to benefit the institutions he was serving.
Southern Asia-Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Died/Imprisoned for Faith
Geörg [George] Heinrich Riffel was the first self-supporting Adventist missionary in Argentina and who made the first converts in the country. He formed the original nucleus of the first organized church in the current South American Division territory.
South American Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Petro Kime Risase was a teacher and pioneer missionary in East Africa. Petro Kime Risase was born between 1888 and 1891 at Kihurio Village, South Pare Mountains, in Same District, Kilimanjaro Region in Tanzania.
East-Central Africa Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
Alva Paul and Avanelle Ruth Ritz spent two decades as missionaries in the Far Eastern Division. They were instrumental in the establishment of the first Adventist church in Bangkok in 1933. They also pioneered the Adventist work in the northern part of Thailand.
Southern Asia-Pacific Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries Couples