Who Are the Nominating Committee Members?

Spectrum Website
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In every General Conference Session, the Nominating Committee plays a central role in shaping the leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. On the second day of the 2015 Session, the Nominating Committee's work led to significant drama on the floor of the Alamodome, when delegates two times referred the nominee for president, Elder Ted Wilson, back to committee. The move to refer the name back twice was if not unprecedented, certainly uncommon. Ultimately, Wilson was appointed to another five-year term as president, but the intrigue that led to his re-election spotlighted the work of the Nominating Committee.

So who are the Committee members? Their names are listed below.

VOTED, To appoint the following as members of the standing Nominating Committee for the 2015 General Conference Session:

Abali, Comfort Abraham, Raju Acevedo del Villar, Cesario Akombwa, Harrington Altink, Willem Alvarado Benavides, Washington Alyeksyeyenko, Viktor Annan-Nunoo, Christopher Arciniegas Naranjo, Yovany Arco, Stanley Aromaki, J Kalervo Asekun-Olarimoye, Esther Asoy, Leonardo Assembe Minyono, Valere Assienin, Salomon Badu, James Baildam, John Baliki, Aho Baloyo, Rudy Bana, Abel Anak Barnes, Clare Barnett, Ed Battle Brooks, Renee Beckett, John R Bezares Lopez, Magdalena Bindas, Stephen Biscaro, Reynaldo Brandão, Alijofran Brill, Debra Brink, Penelope L Brown, Everett Brown, Kabelo Buor, Daniel Burgos, Victor Burt, Christine Byilingiro, Hesron Byrd, Carlton Caceres Lungo, Alvaro Caicedo Solis, Juan Calderon Miranda, Irving Calvo Manso, Jesus Cano, Ramiro Caporal, Pierre Cardoso, Antonio Castillo, Ernest Castillo, Ismael Catane, Agapito Cecil, Germaine Cerdá, Marcelo Cesano, M Gabriel Chekelek, Nikolay Choga, Micah Costa, Myrna Cruz, Deola Culmore, Wayne Danso-Abeam, Kwaku De Abreu, Ruben De Gracia, Jose de Lima, Jose de Sousa, Domingos Dina, Uwankwera Ditta, Michael Doss, Cheryl Duffy, Jonathan Dulan, Garland Espinoza, Tomas Folkenberg, Robert Fournier, Frank Frederick, Roderick Galeon, Bienvenido Jr. Galusha, Dale Garcia Arroyo, Ever Gayoba, Francisco Gerard, Karasira Gill Krug, Carlos Golay, James Gollakoti, Nageshwar Rao Graham, Ricardo Grassl, Christian Guerrero, Alvaro Hachalinga, Passmore Handysides, Allan R Hart, Richard - SECRETARY Heidinger Zevallos, Edward Heinrich, Gene Henry, Bertie Henry, Clerveus Anneus Herinirina, Jasmin Houghton, Daniel Inada, Yutaka Jadhav, Ramesh Jagadhane, Vijay Jacob James, Kaggya Jennah ep. Poligadoo, Nicole Jennah, David Jernigan, Don Jiao, Wang Xin (Daniel) Johannsson, Johann Johnson, Leonard Johnson, Mark Johnson, Vivian Jonas, Carlos Kalbermatter, Ignacio Kampen, Inna Kemp, Bradley Kenaope, Kenaope Kim, Dae Sung Kim, Daesong Kim, SiYoung King, Donald King, Luis Kisile Mikuo, Olive Klingbeil, Chantal Knight, G. Earl Kook, Shurman Krasilnikov, Igor Kulakov, Victor Kuyama, Frackson Kwanin, Kwame Kwegelah, Daud Kyte, Robert Lakra, Ezras Larmie, Samuel Laurent, Max-Rene Lazaro Carballo, Benjamin Lee, Myun Ju Lee-Nam, Young Ja Lekundayo, Godwin Lemon, Thomas Letseli, Tankiso Licite, Aira Lima, Mauricio Livesay, Don Lopes, Marlinton Lozano, Leonel Luxton, Andrea Lyan, Kelly Maangi, Jonathan Maena, Kenneth Majoi, Jose Mallikarjunaiah, Ravindra Shankar Mambu, Amelius Tommy Marques, Jose Martinelli, Mario Maruta, Alemu Mawa, Clement Mbayo, Maloba Mendez, Julio Moacir da Silva, Moises Mok, Joshua Moldovanu, Andrei Moore, Larry Moorooven, Hensley Morel, Hubert Moses, Garikapati Moyo, Makhosiwonke Muchanga, Girimoio Mueller, Anne-May Muhune, Robert Munteanu, Cristian Munyangabe, Emmanuel Munyumbwe, Vanny Musema, Noah Musija, Zlatko Mutero, Andrew Mwakalonge, Magulilo Naether, Johannes Navarro Perez, Ignacio Nebblett, Natasha Nsabiyaremye, Jethron Nyaga, Frederick Obando, Abimael Ocsai, Tamas Odibo, Chioma Omari, Stella Ostrovski, Moisei Ott, Rubin Oyeleke, Owolabi P, Antony Patrick Pacheco, Abel Pacheco, Manuel Palacio, Julio Panayotov, Ventsislav Paris, Stefano Pavlik, Mikulas Peranginangin, Joseph Perez Reyes, Aldo Perez, Carmen Pinto, Luis Mario Pollard, Leslie Pomaleu, Geoffrey Porto, Volnei Proffitt, Kathryn Pusey, Dexter Queiroz, Geovani Rambob, Gaddam Ramos Lagos, Adan Randriamampionona, Joseph Parfait Redondo Ramirez, Edgar Reyna, Moises Rice, Leigh Ricketts, Alyssa Roberts, Randall Lee Rodrigues, Antonio Rodriguez Muniz, Jose Rodriguez, Josney Roger, Guy Romanov, Vladimir Romero, Daniel Rono, Philip Roshchupkin, Aleksandr Ruiz, Wilfredo Sakul, Noldy Sanchez Ruiz, Jose Sanchez Umanzor, Victor Sangoma, Ireen Santiago, Leonino Santos, José Schwarz, Alexander Shimada, Masumi Siburian, Esron Siguelnitzky, Dario Silva, Helder Slusher, Dennis Smith, Ron St Pierre, Mathias Stanley, Chester Swaminathan, Karunakaran Taraniuk, Zhan Tegene, Fesaha Thangavelu, Jeyaraj Thason, Samuel Thomas, Ben Tobias, Kern Tomei, Milagros Torkelsen, Max Torres de Dios, Tomas Tostes, Antonio Townend, Glenn Trajkovski, Djordje Trecartin, Homer - CHAIR Udoh, Bassey Vega Ramirez, Ruth Velasco, Rabi Wanitschek, Rainer Weigley, Dave Will, Evelyn Winston, William Wlodarczyk, Zofia Zahn, Gilmar Zimik, Barnabas Zinke, E Edward

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://spectrummagazine.org/node/6915
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Robert Folkenberg? Also: I Don’t see a single Japanese name—I might be missing something there. How, exactly, was this list determined / decided?

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Thanks for publishing this list. I counted the names of people I know. Just under 10. If seen as picked “randomly” from 19 million - not bad. Viewed from the perspective of someone who thinks he is internationally networked … well, humbling. It simply tells me how diverse our church is - which was meant to be a blessing… I wish it was.

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Wonder how many from the South Pacific Division they didn’t list what division they come from??

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Yep, Bob former GC president alright. Each division meet in caucus and select their reps to the NC.

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Inada, Yutaka: Secretary, Japan Union
Shimada, Masumi: President, Japan Union

Robert S. Folkenberg Jr.: President, Chinese Union
Daniel Wang Xin Jiao: Secretary, Chinese Union

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Somehow, I missed those Japanese names; I feel better, now—didn’t see Shimada or Inada Sensei. Good to see The Chinese Union Mission represented—no one from The People’s Republic? Probably visa issues. We do need to know what’s happening there and what their needs are. Thank you for pointing this out.

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Administration of SDA congregations in mainland China is independent of the Chinese Union and the Northern Asia Pacific Division of the GC. Evidently, no Chinese mainland residents were appointed official delegates to San Antonio.

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That’s sorry. Even though their government might not have let them out or this one let them in, hey should be recognized, somehow. On the other hand, possibly, even doing that would have put them in jeopardy in their homeland. I hope the work on the mainland—possibly the later fruits of the old “China Hands” before the revolution, possibly entirely new workers—is recognized during these meetings.

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You made me wonder how many names I might recognize. I found about 20. Some are leaders in my division, some were former college teachers, some were acquaintances and leaders in other countries where I have been (and I’ve been around). But for a list of that size, even 20 seems like a small drop in the bucket. I hear you. The church is big. I actually like not knowing all of the names, because if I recognized them all it would seem more of a big boys’ club, having only those at the top of the Adventist “Who’s Who” list. I’m glad to see that it doesn’t appear so much that way, though perhaps most of the seats are still filled by positions in the church organization.

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I recognized at least one man from Taiwan in the photos posted online in Adventist Review. I was wondering if the eighty delegates said to have come from China had included Hong Kong and Taiwan. I’d still be interested in knowing the exact numbers breakdown on that. Did any voting delegates come from mainland China? if so, how many? Anyone know?

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We just learned not—note what joselitocoo just reported about who is included in that union. No People’s Republic of China. Headquarters (I just noticed) are in Hong Kong.

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You might want to do a little more research. CHUM Headquarters are in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is governed a little more independently than the rest of China, but China still has a hand in its government.

Taiwan used to be under CHUM. It is my understanding that a few years ago, that changed, and now the Taiwan Conference is under the Division directly (NSD). I’m not up-to-date on how the logistics of that transfer worked out.

For a little more info, perhaps you might visit CHUM’s and/or TWC’s websites:

http://www.chumadventist.org/tc/
http://twcadventist.org.tw

Unfortunately, they’re not so friendly toward anglophones…you’ll find yourself reading Chinese. If you are a good reader, you can find this English page showing CHUM’s address: http://www.chumadventist.org/eng/contact.php I don’t think there is any English for TWC’s webpage.

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I just corrected that (you’ll see in my post) because I did, in fact, check the Yearbook. My original information had been from joselitocoo, and I didn’t dig deeper to see what he meant.

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Right, so I’m still left wondering about the 80 delegates from “China.” Where were they actually from? Diplomatically, as I understand, both Hong Kong and Taiwan would be considered “China” by the US State Dept. I was told that eighty delegates from China were introduced at the Session. (I’m not able to watch the sessions where I am.) It would seem a little misleading to have them be from HK and TW and imply “mainland” to the average viewer at home.

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This is distressing to me, as well: A kind of false marketing, in crude free-market terms.

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http://www.adventistyearbook.org/default.aspx?page=ViewAdmField&Year=9999&AdmFieldID=CHIN

china.jpg914Ă—457 153 KB

http://www.adventistreview.org/delegate-list

nsd.jpg608Ă—544 142 KB

I counted 80 official/regular delegates and 61 special guests representing the Northern Asia Pacific Division.

Maybe, those with two-syllable (characters) Chinese names appearing under the special guests list came straight from the mainland. :wink:@winonaww

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Thank you. I found about ten names of people I know in that list. It has Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names all mixed together–which should not be a surprise if it’s the NSD list. None of the folk I recognized, mind you, are from the “mainland.” They come from Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan mostly. Nor were any in the “Special Guests” list.

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Given that in America a person with Japanese heritage is still an American, I still find it surprising that a number of these names indicate that they are ethnically Korean or Japanese. That doesn’t make these people not-Chinese, but think of how this would play if as many names were European (a different heritage is a different heritage). I also recognize how nationalistic that remark appears, but ethnicity and politics play out differently outside of the United States. This is an observation, not a complaint or objection. However, that over a thousand congregations and more than 400,000 members are not represented in these meetings is an objection. If they are not allowed out of their country, some kind method of giving them voice should be in place, and the assembly should be told about it.

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