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LLU School of Medicine Grad and Triple Amputee Authors Inspiring Autobiography — and More News Shorts

2020-10-20-olson

In this week’s news round-up, Linda Olson, an LLU School of Medicine graduate has authored her first book detailing her career as a radiologist and professor of radiology at UC San Diego, raising two children with husband David Hodgens, and traveling the world despite her physical limitations. Plus, news from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda.

LLU School of Medicine Grad and Triple Amputee Authors Inspiring Autobiography. Linda Olson, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, has authored her first book, Gone: A Memoir of Love, Body, and Taking Back My Life, in which she details her career as a radiologist and professor of radiology at UC San Diego, raising two children with husband David Hodgens, and traveling the world despite her physical limitations. She survived an accident 35 years ago that left her a triple amputee when they were vacationing in Germany with Hodgens’ parents, brother, and sister-in-law.

Its been a good life,” says Olsen, a La Jolla Shores, California, resident. She was motivated to write Gone to show people who have something bad happen to them that if they… work [with loved ones] as a team, they can have a wonderful life. It may not be the way they thought it was going to be; it might even be better than they thought it would be because they do it together…. Thats my message,” Olson said. Get out and go. If you’ve got the team that will do it with you, you can go anywhere.”

Not even a Parkinsons disease diagnosis in 2015 has stopped Olson, who has continued in the last five years to speak to large crowds to encourage others to overcome adversity. The book goes on sale October 27. From La Jolla Light, “‘Get out and go’: La Jollan publishes memoirs about life and teamwork after triple amputation.”

Read Linda K. Olson’s 2013 Spectrum article, “A Little Help from My Friends” about her trip to Machu Picchu (Vol. 41, Issue 3, pg. 28) by clicking here.


Nigerian SDA Students Ask Governor to Repeal Required Saturday Classes. Seventh-day Adventist students in Rivers State, Nigeria, have called on the state Governor Chief Nyesom Wike to reconsider the Ministry of Education’s newly introduced Saturday school classes. Some of the students affected by the new directive who spoke to The Tide appealed to the governor to cancel the directive as it infringes on their worship on Saturday.

Chigozi Nwubi, a student of Government Secondary School, said such change was done without considering the religious rights of Adventists and Sabbath-keeping churches in the state. Nwubi said Rivers State is a Christian state and that all Christian religious bodies in the state should be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs.

Love Okere, a female student of Rumueme Girls Secondary School, described the new policy as not conducive for her as an Adventist and urged the government to reconsider its stance. She hinted that if the policy is not reversed, all the Sabbath worshippers in the state would be denied their worship time. From The Tide, “Adventist Students Urge RSG To Reconsider Saturday Classes.”

Zimbabwe Adventist Church Freely Shares Water with Community during Drought. Bulawayo, Zimbabwe is currently facing crippling water shortages as its dam levels have gone down. Residents now go for days without receiving tap water. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was singled out as the only church where residents are allowed to get water for free, except on Saturday.

Residents in Tshabalala Extension, a high-density suburb of Bulawayo, are outraged against bullying by individuals who have taken control of local boreholes and are demanding cash from them to access water. The individuals are camping daily at the borehole and are demanding US $1 for one to fill in six buckets of water. The situation is the same with some local churches that are also demanding money for residents to get water. From New Zimbabwe, “Tshabalala Residents ‘Buying Water’ From Community Borehole.”

Rwandan SDA Church Offers Digital Payment System for Tithes and Offerings. The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in Rwanda and MoPay, a local tech-based company, on Thursday, October 15, launched a digital payment system, dubbed the Church Finance and Management System (CFMS). The system will provide Rwandan SDA church members a convenient way to give offerings and tithes using their mobile phones.

According to Pastor Hesron Byilingiro, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rwanda, CFMS is more efficient compared to the current method. We believe that the church shouldn’t be left behind when it comes to embracing technology and its positive benefits. Based on tests we carried out recently, this new system is more fast and efficient compared to the manual method because it will ensure accurate accounting among other various benefits,” he said. He added: We are now going to train church leaders across the country on how to use this system to ensure that no one is left behind. These church leaders will also train their church members.”

The idea of CFMS is timely because the government is encouraging cashless payments in prevention of the COVID-19 pandemics spread. From The New Times, “BPR partners with Adventist Church to digitize collection of offerings, tithe.”

 

Please note: Spectrum news round-ups are an aggregation of regional, national, and international publications around the world that have reported on stories about Adventists. As such, the accuracy of the information is the responsibility of the original publishers, which are noted and hyperlinked at the end of each excerpt.

 

Pam Dietrich taught English at Loma Linda Academy for 26 years and served there eight more years as the 7-12 librarian. She lives in Yucaipa, California.

Images courtesy of Linda K. Olson.

 

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