Here’s the transcript of this interview.

TRANSCRIPT

Dee:
Hello, this is Dee.

Two weekends ago Eileen and some other students went to Ozark Academy. That’s an Adventist academy in Arkansas and I’m here just talking with Eileen. She’s one of our key leaders in [the] Ellen White Research Center.

So, we’re just gonna talk about Ozark Academy and the trip she had two weeks ago.

Eileen, good to have you here.

Eileen:
Thank you, Dee.

Dee:
How did we receive this invitation to Ozark Academy?

Eileen:
Well, Ozark Academy had something related to this last year and they called it Phase1. It was the program. And so, this year their Phase2 for the youth program, kinda like a youth rally for the weekend. They invited the recruiting team of Southwestern [Adventist University] to come along and do a program with music and… I don’t know exactly what they asked for but Steve Stafford the VP for recruiting or enrollment, he invited us to do seminars. So the invitation came directly from him. And after talking with Mrs. Hadley regarding this, she actually told me that this is one of the first years that administration here at Southwestern is working directly with the Ellen White Research Center. So, we were pretty excited about that.

We also had Dr. Chadwick [SWAU science teacher] go with us to the trip and so we had some science seminars on the Dino Dig [summer class where you dig up dinosaur bones]. And we had the Ellen White Research Center doing the seminar on dating and marriage. So that’s where our invitation came from, from the administration here at Southwestern.

Dee:
Awesome. So, what happened in Ozark?

Eileen:
Well, what we did is we got there on Friday. They were doing Friday vespers and they had their pastor in the church there in Gentry, Arkansas where they have their academy. He was doing the sermons, the key messages for this weekend. And so, [it] started off with a vespers type of program with music. The recruiting team had beautiful, beautiful music. We have very good talented people here.

And the team consisted of, the Ellen White Research team [for that weekend], myself, Amy Neave, Rolando Brutus, who was the VP for spiritual… the spiritual VP last year at Ozark, and Miguel Serrano. And so, we were a team of four from the Ellen White Research Center. And on Sabbath was mainly what we were focusing on. [That’s] when we had our program. From 2[pm] to 4[pm], we had four seminars. Four series of seminars that were 30 minute seminars.

We had four sessions. The students came in in small groups. And actually, our first seminar was a bigger group and then it started getting smaller. And so, we did four seminars on dating. We focused on dating, on the last section of Messages To Young People which is courtship and marriage.

And Miguel and I did the seminar. We went back and forth on the male point of view and the female point of view… what Sister White once wrote about. And we had male and female in the same room and so we had questions and answers at the same time. It was very interesting to have both parties there represented.

Dee:
Nice.

Eileen:
Amy and Rolando, they took on the public relations for that week. They were working the booth and advertising for us and letting the students know who we were. We had a talk with one girl who is a junior there at Ozark Academy. And she didn’t know anything about the Ellen White Research Center and what we were doing. And I mentioned to her that we just recently came from Ukraine. [And that we were] young people taking the message to different churches and to different people.

A lot of students were really excited. We got a lot of interest forms from people who wanted to join. And we’re actually starting plans to start a Synergy program at Ozark Academy. And hopefully at all of our Adventist academies so that Spirit of Prophecy can be very implemented in the curriculum.

And so, our programs consisted of the seminars and we did a lot of recruiting for the Ellen White Research Center. Just getting the voice out of what we’re doing so if they ever wanted to serve God or do something through missions in other countries or here in the United States, they could find somewhere to go to. And obviously, the Ellen White Research [could help them].

That was basically what the program consisted of.

Dee:
So mostly an afternoon… our direct involvement [was] mostly the afternoon.

Eileen:
Yeah, the afternoon program.

Dee:
And setting up a booth and…

Eileen:
And then just doing the seminars for them.

Dee:
Nice. So there’s the first thirty minutes, the first hour is the male and female question and answer and also teaching?

Eileen:
Well, we had thirty minutes a session which is when we had [a] group. And so, we did about 15 to 20 minutes of us presenting to them the material. It was basic information. We did a few quotes from Adventist Home and Messages To Young People to truly get the work out there. We had a lot of Scripture on true love, on how we focus on Christ, and how his love is perfect. Once we have him in our lives and we find his love, we don’t have to search anymore here on earth. And so, we started off with that. We always centered on the cross.

The last part of the seminar, towards the end, we did questions and answers. And they would ask us questions regarding something they heard us say. Or just something they had on their mind. We talked a lot about the more contemporary version of dating. And how in the world, it’s a lot about the physical pleasures that you find in dating and the things we shouldn’t be doing before marriage and things like that. It was very contemporary questions that we were confronted with.

But it was pretty interesting the whole seminar. We first gave them information and then they asked questions regarding that information. That was the session that we did.

Dee:
And you did that in 30 minutes?

Eileen:
In 30 minutes.

Dee:
Wow.

Eileen:
It was very little time and we had a lot of questions.

But it was amazing. We had one example that we said… actually, a speaker here at Southwestern had come and mentioned [similar things we taught]. And so, we told them at the end, “Maybe we’ve said things that are controversial to your relationship[s] now or to the way you saw dating.” Some people were thinking, “Then, who am I supposed to date? Am I even supposed to date… period?

He told them, “First of all, just run to Jesus. Do not walk. Do not pause and look back and think, ‘Should I keep walking?’ Do not even jog to Jesus, but run. Run. Sprint to Jesus. And whoever you should be dating, you look to your sides and whoever is running as fast as you, choose from them.” That was mainly our focus, a Christ-centered view of dating. That was our seminar. Time wise we were limited.

We left a copy with every person that attended our seminar, whether they had the book or not, a Messages To Young People. We left them a copy and encouraged them to read it and really look for the answers, just them and God through prayer and study of the Word. Just to find the answers on dating.

Dee:
Amen.

I was kinda laughing because I’ve heard that [story] two other times.

You run to Jesus. Look to your left and right and see who’s running with you. That’s the person you should be with.

So, the other hour and a half was other seminars?

Eileen:
Actually, what they had was four seminars on Sabbath during a two hour period. One group would be at one seminar and then, the next thirty minutes they would go to the next seminar. And so, they would be rotating seminars.

Dee:
Oh, okay.

Eileen:
We had four groups. Four groups came to our seminar. And while we were doing one, [the] other three groups were at the [other] seminars that were going on at the same time.

Dee:
Oh, so SWAU and Ellen White Research Center were just part of the whole seminar thing?

Eileen:
Yes.

Dee:
Okay. I understand now. Had to clear that up.