During the 2004 Arizona Conference camp meeting, Right Arm of Love, a valley-wide group of Seventh-day Adventists, presented the health booth ministry — complete with free health/age assessments, cholesterol and blood pressure screenings, health lectures, a cooking school and free literature. As part of the week’s activities, the camp meeting attendees were “trained” to take part in hands-on health evangelism.

Early Sabbath morning, 10 men moved the health booth to downtown Prescott to exhibit during a one-day art and music festival with more than 5,000 people in attendance. Festival administrators were so pleased with the booth that they profusely thanked the health team for their participation, stating that the booth was a real asset to the event.

They were not alone in their enthusiasm; festival attendees flocked to the booth. Six booth attendants could not keep up with the continual line of people waiting to be evaluated. In only seven hours, 100 people were evaluated. Most provided their contact information in order to receive more information on topics ranging from how to lower blood pressure to what the Bible says about health and other matters. These interests will be followed up by Adventists in upstate Arizona.

According to the February 2004 issue of the Harvard Health Letter, the secular and scientific communities are now, more than ever, focusing their attention on lifestyle modifiers of disease. Increasingly, vegan vegetarianism is considered by those in the medical community to be a treatment for many diseases.

One secular cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) nurse, who gathered Spirit of Prophecy literature, asked if similar lifestyle information would be offered in the form of a health lecture series for Phoenix.