Thirty-seven literature evangelists(LEs) from the North Philippines were deemed pioneers for completing the certification program for Preventive Health Education offered by the Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) on July 25, 2019, in The Literature Ministries Seminary in Lipa, Batangas.
All 37 LEs received their certificates as conferred by AUP's VP for Academics, Dr. Miriam Narbarte.
Dr. Ma. Rizaline C. Alfanoso, Health Ministries director for the Adventist church in the Southern Asia-Pacific region who was in attendance to this meeting congratulated the pioneering LEs for completing the certification. In her message she challenged the LEs to utilize their spheres of influence not only in sharing the gospel message through literature, but to use their newly aquired knowledge on health to organize community based health seminars on preventive health.
"They(literature evangelists) will be effective salesmen if they live as role models on healthy lifestyle, and if they always point their clients to Jesus as the master healer who can help them with their physical disorders and addictions.”
This certification program in Preventive Health Education is a 12 unit course completed in six months and is facilitated and offered by the Public Health Graduate department of AUP. It was designed by the AUP's Graduate Public Health under the College of Health implemented as a ladderized program for Master in Public Health.
"This certification program will also be made available to ministers who will take a ladderized Master in Public Health program in cooperation with the Health Ministries Department and the Ministerial Association of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division(SSD). This program aims to equip more pastors to become medical missionaries," Alfanoso explained.