SNEC Welcomes Home Mark & Ernestine “Teenie” Finley

United Camp Meeting, Monday, June 22

Southern New England Conference is delighted to welcome home Mark Finley and his wife, Ernestine “Teenie,” as guest speakers for United Camp Meeting from Monday to Thursday.  Born in Connecticut, Finley graduated from Atlantic Union College and was an intern pastor at the Rockville-Tolland and Hartford churches, pastored the Quinebaug, Brimfield, and Putnam SDA churches, and later served as the conference evangelist.  He and Teenie were married at the Village SDA church 59 years ago on June 25.  Their first ministry assignment after they were married started on July 1--SNEC Camp Meeting--making their wedding anniversary nearly their ministry anniversary, too. Trained as an elementary school teacher, Teenie soon joined her husband in ministry when he asked her to teach a healthy cooking class to reach the community.

In Southern New England Conference, the Finleys launched a lifelong ministry together that has spanned several continents and many levels of the Adventist church administration. Even in retirement they are still traveling, preaching, teaching, and discipling pastors and lay people.

Mark Finley Preaches Hope at SNEC Camp Meeting: On Monday night, Pastor Finley opened God’s Word to give us hope (Psalm 71:5)—for ourselves and to share with others. In the Bible we see characters at all stages—happy and sad, ups and downs—but the Bible is always filled with hope, said Finley, citing Hosea 2:15. In fact, Romans 15:4,13 says we are to abound in hope.  Finley illustrated this Bible truth with a story of an Adventist pastor in Russia who wanted to translate the Bible into a version of the Russian language that people could understand, but he didn’t know Hebrew.  Soon he was put in prison . . . in a cell with Jewish rabbis for five years! Was he imprisoned or blessed by God to learn Hebrew with private tutors and plenty of time?  Ephesians 1 says we are blessed, chosen, and predestined to be saved and live forever. God wants our hearts to be filled with hope (Romans 5:5). Hope isn’t static. There are no hopeless circumstances, only hopeless people. But even hopeless people can become hopeful!  An English teacher was sent to a hospital to tutor a boy who had been badly burned and was not responding well to treatments. She felt inadequate and uncomfortable, but proceeded to teach him nouns, verbs and so on.  Amazingly, he started to improve. The nurse asked the teacher what she was doing. “I’m just teaching him English,” she said.  When the nurse asked the boy what happened, he said, “I knew they wouldn’t send a teacher for nouns and verbs to a dying boy.” It gave him hope!  Christians have the hope of Ephesians 1: we are blessed, chosen, and predestined to be saved. In this we wait for the blessed hope of Jesus’ soon return.

 Jeremiah Cruz (left), recent theology graduate from Walla Walla University, is one of the youth and young adult speakers. Jessica McGowan Smith (center), SNEC DEAF Ministries coordinator, translates Mark Finley's (right) sermon into American Sign Language for Deaf attendees.