The weekend of Jan. 12–14, Adventist-laymen's Services and Industries (ASI) officers, members, and friends joined General Conference (GC) leadership at the close of their annual retreat in St. Petersburg, Fla. A first for the two groups to join together in this setting, they enjoyed Friday vespers, Sabbath worship, and fellowship together before the Sabbath afternoon training session began for the ASI group. Conducted by Mark and Ernestine Finley, Mike Ryan, and ASI leaders, the GC-ASI partnership initiated the Train Them Now program to multiply lay-led evangelism in countries around the world. The ASI group received instruction on how to train lay people to use the New Beginnings DVD sermon presentations in their own locales.

At the end of the session, lay people who were selected by their pastors for the training received a DVD player and a New Beginnings DVD of sermons provided by ASI for use in home-style or larger meetings to spread the gospel.

Retired GC secretary, G. Ralph Thompson, now in Naples, Fla., and GC vice president, Pardon Mwansa, sat in on the Sabbath afternoon session. They were excited with what they witnessed. Mwansa was so delighted with the program that he pledged his support to assist in working with countries in Africa.

Viorel Catarama, ASI vice president for evangelism, works with GC vice president for Global Evangelism, Mark Finley, to oversee the project and assign the newly-trained ASI attendees to countries in Europe, Africa, and Inter-America to pilot the project on a larger scale. It is anticipated that this next wave of training will empower more than 2,500 lay people to preach the gospel in their home territories during the next year, reaching thousands for Christ!

Almost 2,000 lay people, including 400 youth, were trained in early 2006 in Moldova, Panama, and Cambodia by a GC-ASI team—Mark Finley, Denzil McNeilus (past ASI president), and Leasa Hodges, ASI vice president for Youth Evangelism—who piloted this initiative. Pray that God will direct and lead the new trainers as they teach others to go out and preach about Jesus.

Debbie Young, Adventist-laymen's Services and Industries president