Sir Silas Atopare on the platform
Sir Silas at his meeting with Pastor Paulsen
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Sir Silas Atopare, Governor General of Papua New Guinea (PNG), addressed the World Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church this afternoon (July 1).
“I am proud to be Seventh-day Adventist,” said Atopare, who has served as PNG’s Governor General since November of 1997. He spoke of his conversion experience when as a boy he almost drowned in a river, and he credits his rescue to divine intervention.
After this experience, his father enrolled him at a local Seventh-day Adventist school where he made his personal decision to follow Christ and join the church.
“I would like to take this opportunity to tell Seventh-day Adventists around the world to hold on to the truth of the second coming of the Lord,” he concluded.
Accompanying the Governor General in Toronto, Canada, are his wife, Lady Agatha Atopare; the Official Secretary to the Governor General, Mr. Tipo Vuatha; and Aide-de-camp to the Governor General, Captain Jerry Geno. Over 2,000 Papua New Guineans are participating in the General Conference World Session–one of the largest contingents from a single country in attendance.
Seventh-day Adventists began their work in Papua New Guinea in 1914 at Manus. Adventists currently make up eight percent of the state’s population and number almost 200,000 baptized members. |
