June, 2008

Dear Friends,

I am praising God for His wonderful blessings to us – past, present and future.

Looking back, I’m awed at how, for over twenty years, He has guided the Sabbath Project – providing
huge funding and needed personnel, and directing our steps to present the Sabbath in a new way.

Today He is blessing us with a time of testing. Testing our commitment, our faith, our reliance on Him.
God has led us through low points in the past—times when we were down to our last few dollars. But we
have never slowed down for lack of funds; we’ve always moved forward with absolute confidence in
God’s promises to provide. And He always has.

Today He is leading us on a “walk in darkness” unlike anything the past. I cherish His counsel in Isaiah
50:10 to, “trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon our God.”

God’s promises have sustained all along. His hand guided in producing The Seventh Day. I’m convinced
He will use it to bring a knowledge of the Sabbath to many. People like a dear lady from New Zealand:
The issue of Sabbath floated around my consciousness over five years ago but I put it down as too hard to
deal with. …[now] I am free to stand up for the truth of His word. I was led to The 7th Day series and
have been speaking of my journey with the pastor.

This is really rocking the boat but my husband Mike is in agreement and it all ties in with what he knew as
a young man in the Catholic church. We have begun to practice the 7th day sabbath of creation and our
redeemer Jesus as He leads us by His Holy Spirit.

Our pastors have asked to speak with us and we are going to ask them to watch the series…. We may well
separate from the denomination if it chooses to stay Sunday worshipping, but we believe we are following
our Lord and He will gather us with other sabbotniks!

Twenty years ago, when my husband Jim dreamed of the “Sabbath Project,” he had three goals:
First, trace the Sabbath through history in a professional documentary. That’s done, by God’s grace.
Second: Translate the series into many languages. You already know about the recording of Arabic,
German, Mandarin and French voices. But more and more appeals for foreign-language versions are
expanding our vision. Just recently we received a Serbian translation to review and use.
Finnish and Norwegian translations are underway right now, and we have transcripts of both Dutch and
Danish. None of these five languages were part of our initial “wish list.”

During the month of April we finished recording the French voices for the entire series. To be accurate,
“we” includes LLT and the staff of Il Est Ecrit – the French It Is Written. Il Est Ecrit is based in Montreal, and has a worldwide reach. The French version of The Seventh Day will be featured in Il Est Ecrit’s
weekly telecast, and they will distribute the DVDs to the French-speaking world.

There’s much more to say about translations, for now I just want to give you a snapshot of what’s
happening. Some of the translation work is done without cost to us. Our part, and a very costly part, is to
verify and edit those translations. Then there is the cost of preparing the translations for subtitling.
It’s almost ironic that with our funding at an all-time low, an increasing demand for The Seventh Day is
surging around the world. Surely the foreign language versions are just as important as English and
Spanish! The whole world needs to know the Sabbath story.

Jim’s third goal was to broadcast the series on national television around the world.
For this, some of the most exciting news is just breaking! On April 15 I met with several church
leaders from the South American Division. Why? Because they plan to use The Seventh Day as the South
American Division’s primary evangelistic effort early in 2010!

Now, Brazil is the largest Roman Catholic country in the world. But it’s also the largest Seventh-day
Adventist country in the world, with nearly 1.9 million baptized members.

The Division plans to purchase major network prime time in Brazil and the rest of South America, and
coordinate the effort with all the pastors in all the churches up and down the length of that continent. Can
you imagine the impact?

The Portuguese version will feature one of Brazil’s most prominent news media personalities—a
Seventh-day Adventist gentleman who will take Hal Holbrook’s part as host. Production will be done at
the Adventist media center in Brazil, with filming the new host, then recording and dubbing the other
voices, creating and editing Portuguese graphics/text, and dividing the series into half-hours for television
time. There will be significant cost to LLT.

My friends, you get the picture: Tremendous opportunities, high demand for The Seventh Day, heavy
financial obligations, and a faith-demanding dependence on God to provide for His work.
He has the means, I know. I’m writing because I want you to know what’s happening. I want you to be
able to pray intelligently for this work. Pray for a world of people who desperately need the Sabbath rest –
peace for their anxious souls, trust in Jesus’ sacrifice, assurance of salvation.

Pray for men and women, boys and girls, who may soon be faced with the ultimate issue – the choice of
loyalty to God and complete trust in His Word, or submission to manmade laws.

If God has blessed you with the ability to give, please prayerfully consider this work. We’re small but we
have a huge task. We have no “fundraiser” on our staff. What we have is a Father in heaven who has
used folks like you all the way along. We continue to lean on His promises, to trust His Word.
I cherish your prayers for me personally, and my colleagues. Please pray that we will be given divine
wisdom, firm commitment, and unshakeable faith for the task that God has called us to.

Thank you. 

Pat Arrabito

Previous newsletters: November 2006, December 2007