Today In SDA History - March 4 - Mrs.Esther White
March 4, 1883
Virginia Conference Organized at Quicksburg, in the Shenandoah Valley. J. O. Corliss presided, and A. C. Neff, of Quicksburg, an 1876 convert and the first SDA minister ordained in Virginia, was elected conference president. Today, most of Virginia is part o the Potomac Conference, a unit of church organizations comprising the territory of Virginia (except Accomac and Northampton counties); the District of Columbia: and those portions of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties in Maryland.
March 4, 1915
Three SDA leaders at Hamburg, wrote a letter to the government in Berlin and reasserted their stand on combatancy, was the ban against Seventh day Adventist churches in Saxony lifted. Previously, as a result of unfavorable statements against the German government made by some of the fanatics, Seventh day Adventist churches in the state of Saxony were closed by the public authority. Subsequently an SDA church elder in Bremen, who had aligned himself with the cause of the extremists, made this reassertion an occasion for accusing these denominational leaders of apostasy and for encouraging extremism and dissension among the believers. They became the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement (German, 1915), an offshoot movement beginning in Germany in 1915, which has had a following also in the Baltic states, Russia, Australia, and in the United States, mostly among persons of German stock. Although the original issue was over visions and time setting, the bone of contention through the years has been the stand taken by the Seventh day Adventist Church concerning the duty of its members in military service.
March 4, 1961
Pine Tree Academy was planned. When the first board meeting was held, and it began operation in September 1961 with 92 pupils in grades 1 10 inclusive, and a staff of seven, including the principal. PTA, a 12 grade coeducational school that primarily is a day school but has two duplex homes, each housing 10 students. Other boarding students live in homes in the community. Grades 9 12 offer college preparatory and general courses. The school is owned and operated by the constituency of five churches in the Northern New England Conference; namely, Auburn, Bath, Brunswick, Freeport, and Portland. The school is located on a 100 acre (40 hectare) farm, on the Pownal Road, Freeport, Maine. The name Pine Tree, an aphorism of the Pine Tree State, is also an adoption from the old Pine Tree Academy that operated on a farm four miles (six kilometers) out of Auburn, Maine, from September 1921 to June 1933, when it closed because of the 1930s depression.
March 4, 1962
Tehran Physiotherapy Clinic was officially opened in Tehran. In 1946 the Iran Training School, later called the Iran Adventist Academy, was opened. In 1963 it offered a full high school curriculum authorized by the Ministry of Education.
March 4, 1967
The first lamb shelter was dedicated at the Togop church in Sabah, Borneo. Lamb shelter are inexpensive Sabbath school rooms constructed for the use of children. They are used extensively in the Asia Pacific Division. The idea originated with Mrs. Paulene Barnett, who in 1967 was serving as Sabbath school secretary of the Southeast Asia Union Mission. At a presidents' annual committee meeting in Singapore, George Munson, president of the Borneo Mission, was given $100 for the building of the first lamb shelter. Church buildings consisting of one room in some missions of the Asia Pacific Division were for adults only. Mrs. Barnett insisted that the lambs must be fed too!
March 4, 1982
Vitória Adventist Hospital (Hospital Adventista de Vitória) established in Vila Velha, Brazil. The hospital has 13 beds distributed in five apartments, two nurses, a surgery center with two fully equipped surgery rooms for general surgery, orthopedics, and gynecology. It also offers services in X ray, clinical laboratory, digestive endoscopy, ultrasound, and physiotherapy. There are 42 employees. The chapel is located in the center of the hospital. During the morning worship, when all employees gather to seek divine guidance for another day and to study God's Word, many patients are impressed by the singing that reaches them as pleasant aroma from heaven.