The Southern Asia Division (SUD) of Seventh-day Adventists is headquartered at Hosur,

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It heads the activities of the Seventh-day Adventist Churches and its affiliated bodies in

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

and

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

.The Division has 1,143,346 members as of June 30, 2021.

History

The Adventist presence in India began in the early 1890s. Progress was slow. By 1904, there were about 130 Adventists there. The church began with book sales and pamphlet distribution. Early endeavors also included medical work, schools, care of orphans, and

zenana Zenana ( fa, زنانه, ur, , bn, জেনানা, hi, ज़नाना) literally meaning "of the women" or "pertaining to women", in Persian language contextually refers to the part of a house belonging to a Muslim, Sikh, or Hindu f ...

work. At first, converts were of European heritage. There were some among the Indian population. One of them, A. C. Mookerjee. He was the grandson of William Carey's first convert. pages 108-109. In 1899 the mission director, D. A. Robinson, died from smallpox. William A. Spicer, at thirty-five years old, became the director. He was editor of the Oriental Watchman, the first Adventist periodical to be published in a completely non-Christian land. His leadership of the field was brief. In 1901, while attending the General Conference, Spicer was appointed as the secretary of the Foreign Mission Board located in the United States. John L. Shaw took over the leadership of the India field. Shaw came from the principalship of the church's South African school at Cape Town. With a few brief absences, he remained in India for twenty-three years. The first of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission Quarterlies focused on the need for evangelism in India's major cities. Many people of India, still under British rule, spoke English. The 1912 Quarterly included a thrice repeated appeal from Shaw. He emphasised the need for missionaries who could preach in English. In 1912, five Adventist missions formed the organisation of the India field: North India, West India, South India, Bengal and Burma. (See the map to the right.)

References

Bibliography

*{{Cite book , last = Spalding , first = Arthur Whitefield , title = Origin and History, Volume 3 , publisher = Review and Herald Publishing Association , year = 1962 , location = Washington, D.C. , url = http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/OH/OH1962-03__B.pdf#view=fit , isbn = History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Seventh-day Adventist Church in Asia

History

See also

References

Bibliography