Our Sabbath School program has always been linked to the support of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission program. This video provides a little insight into this important work.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/mission-spotlight-for-april-19/

Inside Story for Friday 18th of April 2025

By Andrew McChesney

After someone stole the family cow, Mother got a dog to watch their new cow. Mother also wanted the dog to guard the tithe: a big bucket of butter.

Father, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, was far away in a Soviet labor camp on charges of keeping the Sabbath. The cow was the only source of income for Mother and her two small children in the then-southern Soviet republic of Tajikistan. Mother milked the cow and exchanged the milk for food at a market. Mother also set aside 10 percent of the milk as tithe, churning it into butter and storing it in a bucket. When the bucket was full, she sold it.

One day, Mother milked the cow and told the two children to wait as she went to the market. “Don’t open the door,” she said. She checked that the bucket of butter was near the dog, who was tied up in the yard, and she left.

The children waited and waited. Then the gate opened, and a stranger entered the yard. The dog didn’t bark. The man, who was wearing Muslim clothes, walked over to the dog. It was as if the dog didn’t see him. The man picked up the butter bucket, turned around, and left. Later, the children excitedly told Mother about the man. No one understood what had happened.

Many years passed. Father was freed from the labor camp and resumed his duties as a pastor. He and Mother had five more children. Their eldest daughter, Nina, married and had children of her own. She also got a job, cleaning the offices of a fertilizer company. Now to get paid, Nina had to go to the company’s accountant. One day, as she was waiting for her salary, she told the accountant about the bucket of butter. The accountant listened politely until Nina described seeing the man in Muslim clothes. The accountant blurted out, “When did that happen?” Nina told her. The accountant began to cry. “Do you want to know how the story ended?” she asked. She said she and her four siblings grew up in Siberia. Their parents were killed during World War II, and they lived with their grandmother. Times were tough, and the day came when the food ran out. Grandmother called the five children to pray around the empty table. After praying, a knock sounded on the door. Outside stood a man wearing Muslim clothes. In one hand, he held a bucket of butter. In the other, he held a loaf of bread.

At the fertilizer company, the accountant begged Nina to tell her more about God. In time, the accountant and her daughter gave their hearts to Jesus and joined the Adventist Church.

To this day, no one knows the identity of the mysterious man. But Liubov Brunton, Nina’s daughter, has no doubt that he was an angel.

“For an angel, it took only a split second to transport the bucket of butter from Tajikistan to Siberia,” she said. “I just wonder where the angel found the bread. I can’t wait to get to heaven to hear the rest of the story.”

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-03-inside-story-big-bucket-of-butter/

Daily Lesson for Friday 18th of April 2025

Further Thought: Read John 2:1-11, Matthew 22:1-14, 2 Corinthians 11:1-5, and Matthew 25:1-13.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Once you realize how much data is available in the rest of the Bible to help you broaden your understanding of prophecy, it can be tempting to over-apply it. Throughout the centuries, some Christians have emphasized the symbolism and imagery found in Bible stories to the point where they virtually begin to treat the historical narrative as a myth. While layers of meaning are to be found just about everywhere in Scripture, we must always remember that God has a way of taking real events that involve real people and using them to teach us things about His future interactions with the church.

The wedding feast in Cana, for example, may offer insights into the meta­phor of marriage used by prophecy, but the wedding was a literal event. “The word of Christ supplied ample provision for the feast. So abundant is the provision of His grace to blot out the iniquities of men, and to renew and sustain the soul.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 149.

Or as she writes here: “ ‘The Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.’ While ‘the secret things belong unto the Lord our God,’ ‘those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.’ Amos 3:7; Deuteronomy 29:29. God has given these things to us, and His blessing will attend the reverent, prayerful study of the prophetic scriptures.”—The Desire of Ages, p. 234.

Discussion Questions

<–Thursday

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-03-further-thought-images-from-marriage/