Reprint from the Adventist Review - Aug 23, 2007

Editor’s Note: This article is based on Jeffrey Rosario’s sermon, given at the December 2006 General Youth Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. At our request, Rosario has modified it for print.

SOMETIMES IT REALLY pays to revisit things you think you know well. Recently, while rereading the introduction to The Great Controversy, I discovered this amazing statement: “During the first twenty-five hundred years of human history, there was no written revelation. Those who had been taught of God communicated their knowledge to others, and it was handed down from father to son, through successive generations. The preparation of the written Word began in the time of Moses. Inspired revelations were then embodied in an inspired book. This work continued during the long period of sixteen hundred years—from Moses . . . to John” (The Great Controversy, p. v).

Amazing! Not many things can render me speechless, but this declaration does. Ellen White is reminding us that for almost half of human history there was no written Word of God! God’s mighty works and His dealings with man were preserved only by what was passed down from generation to generation. That was the Word of God, a precious treasure conveyed from one generation to the next throughout history. In essence, God was saying to each era of believers, “What is your experience? Pass it down!” . . READ COMPLETE STORY

Study: Sex trafficking contributes to AIDS epidemic
Posted on Aug 16, 2007 | by Erin Roach

CHICAGO (BP)--Intervention to release sex-trafficked girls and women from forced prostitution may be an important strategy in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, according to a study released in August by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers called for strengthened efforts to prevent sex trafficking and to protect trafficking survivors after they found that victims of forced prostitution in India contributed to the HIV/AIDS epidemic when they were repatriated into their native country of Nepal.

"Currently, relatively few such efforts exist, and organizations that do engage in this work often lack adequate political or financial support," the authors of the report from the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in reference to intervention work.

The study's authors worked with a nongovernmental organization to examine the medical records of 287 girls and women who were rescued and repatriated after being sex-trafficked from Nepal to India between 1997 and 2005, and 38 percent of them tested positive for HIV. About 14 percent of the girls were trafficked before they were 15, and 60.6 percent of that age group was infected with HIV, researchers found . . READ COMPLETE STORY