Update from the President

We are gradually returning home from the many Feast venues around the world. Beverly and I spent the first half in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, and the second half in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Each had over 500 in attendance and were set in beautiful locations, one in the mountains and the other on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

By all accounts that have come back to us, this was an exceptional year of celebrating the coming Kingdom of God. Reports of well-prepared and delivered sermons abounded as we collectively worshipped in about 60 locations. The Feast of Tabernacles is for the entire family to experience and a great opportunity for promoting healthy family and marriage relationships.

Many brethren told me about how much they appreciate the work of the Church through our publications, television, Internet, youth camps and special events such as the Women's Enrichment Weekends. Many came to me expressing thanksgiving for their caring pastor and his wife. I was greatly encouraged by all this.

Not the least of comments was eager anticipation of the new television studio that we will be building shortly. We appreciate all the contributions that have been made towards this vital project. While we have received a significant portion of the funding needed, we are still short of what will be needed to complete the project.

Now, back to work!

Death of John W. Cafourek

We sadly announce the death of our brother and fellow pastor John Cafourek, 70, on Oct. 12. Earlier in August he had a heart attack but had been recovering well. I spoke to John just before the Feast and he was optimistic about returning back to work before the end of the year.

John and Sandy went to the Feast of Tabernacles in Bend, Oregon. While there, he experienced congestive heart failure symptoms and they both went back to Salem, where John had an echocardiogram. An unexpected situation was uncovered. He has had a pseudoaneurysm, a hole in the wall/muscle tissue of the heart.

Immediate surgery was needed and John underwent nine and a half hours of surgery on the seventh day of the Feast. He made it through the surgery successfully, and the initial prognosis looked good. As the night continued, however, his condition deteriorated. The doctors struggled to control the bleeding, but his body would not respond to efforts to warm him up. His heart finally gave out a little after 1 a.m. Pacific time on Oct. 12.

Salem, Oregon, elder Ben Light who was keeping the Feast in Mexico at the time notified us as follows:

"It is with the heaviest of hearts that I notify you of the death of John Cafourek. John has served God's people for many years, in many different congregations and was a shepherd in its truest sense. The sheep always came first. We're going to miss him terribly, but we praise and thank God for the example he set and for the time that we had with him. Precious in the eyes of God is the death of His saints. We all look forward to the fulfillment of God's plan, and the resurrection of His saints—when we will see him again."

John Cafourek was born in South Dakota. He attended Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, from 1965 to 1969, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He received a Master's degree in psychological counseling from Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1978. John pastored churches in Nebraska, North Dakota, Missouri, Mississippi, Washington and Oregon.

He directed speech clubs for men, gave seminars on abuse and addictions, and traveled as an international speaker in Canada, England, New Zealand, Jamaica, Australia, Estonia and other areas. He also directed a United Church of God preteen camp for children ages 6 to 12. He married his wife, Sandy, in 1969, and they have two daughters and eight grandchildren.

Over the years, John used his Master's degree in conjunction with his pastoral work to help many with unique issues within the body of Christ. John had a very kind, patient, and caring way about him that sincerely helped many.

In July of 2004, John Cafourek became chair of the United Church of God's Focused Education Program which involved providing support for addictive behaviors, dysfunctional marriage/family issues, abuse and many other dysfunctions. He authored many articles on addiction for our publications, including Breaking Free (http://breakingfree.ucg.org).

John Cafourek and I both graduated from Ambassador College the same year and our ministerial careers paralleled one another. He started in Nebraska as a trainee and I in South Dakota. We saw each other often at ministerial conferences. Later in the 1970s, we were neighboring pastors in Missouri and Kentucky and we combined church services regularly for holy days. In 2011, we both kept the Feast together in Estonia where he gave a particularly enlightening sermon "The Rest of the Dead" that was well received by Eastern European attendees who had never heard this truth before.

John was a principled and honest person. He is described by friends and acquaintances as a person without guile and deeply converted. He was respected as a good listener and understanding counselor. He was well-studied in the scriptures. We consulted with him from time to time when referring brethren to competent sources of help for addictions and abuse.

I will greatly miss John's laugh and good humor, as well as his signature "C4X" on memos and e-mails.

Tragic Death of Allan and Joey Levitt

Allan and Joey Levitt (ordained into the ministry this past April) from the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, congregation, were killed in a tragic car accident on their way to the Feast of Tabernacles in Cochrane, Alberta, on Wednesday morning, Oct. 4. They had been assigned many duties with speaking and music at the Feast.

The Levitts were 81 and 80, respectively, and long-time members of the Church, starting to attend back in the mid-1960s. They were highly regarded and greatly loved. The Saskatoon congregation is small and the loss of both an elder and his wife will affect all the members there greatly.

Al and Joey began attending the Radio Church of God in the mid-1960s, when the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, church began. They were always there from those early days, front and center in their service to the church in general as well as serving their spiritual brothers and sisters one-on-one. They were always one of the first to volunteer for special music, both choir and duets, and Joey played the piano for hymns for the 50-plus years they attended church. Al was never short of one-liners and groaner jokes to lighten up everyone.

Even though they suffered many trials and heartaches, they always had big smiles and hugs for everyone around them. Despite being in their 80s, both Al and Joey still served their brethren with all their loving hearts and had a stabilizing, calming influence on those all around them.

I left today, Thursday, for Salem, Oregon, where I want to spend time with the brethren in the Salem and Eugene congregations at this time of loss. I also plan to visit with retired Vern Hargrove and others as I'm able to. I want to give special thanks to Ben Light for giving his support to Sandy Cafourek and the congregations.

Starting Monday, we will hold a three-day Camp Directors conference at the home office that I really look forward to. Then, towards the end of next week, our Ministerial Education team is headed to southern Minnesota for the North Central Region ministerial conference as well as a one-day leadership workshop on Sunday, Oct. 29 (details below). Following that, we will hold a 10-day Pastoral Development Program training session at the home office where we will be bringing in 11 couples from the US and abroad for pastoral training. There is a lot going on!

Let us make sure we pray for the Church and for one another. Let us seek to those things are not our will but God's will.