Main Pavilion Speakers

David Trim

David Trim was born in Bombay, India, to missionary parents and spent his childhood in Sydney, Australia. Educated in Australia and England, he earned a BA in history from Newbold College and PhD in history from King’s College in London. Trim was on the faculty of Newbold College for a decade and held the Walter C. Utt Chair in History at Pacific Union College. He has also held visiting fellowships at the Huntington Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. A prolific author, he has authored, co-authored or edited seventeen books, and his other publications include over 150 articles and chapters in scholarly journals, popular magazines, and books. He has served as Director of the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research since 2010.

Ed Keyes

Ed Keyes was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, where the street life of the inner city was his daily fare.  Attending 5,000-student William L. Dickinson High School, he had experiences that would later translate into some pretty amazing sermons. Truly, God spared his life many times as he lived on the wrong side of the law and had numerous brushes with death. His mother, a Free Will Methodist, and his father, a Southern Baptist, taught him to believe in God.  But he was more consumed with living a fast-paced life on the streets with his brother and two sisters. On April 24, 1981 he gave his life to Christ and was born again.  He began attending the Church of Bible Understanding, then made his way back to the Baptist Church.  A year later he attended a Prophecy Seminar held in a local firehouse near Atlantic City, NJ and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a paramedic in Atlantic City working to save lives, he felt called to save souls. He began his college studies at Washington Adventist University and married his best friend, Lillian. They have served the church in team ministry for more than 36 years. Ed and Lillian Keyes are blessed with two wonderful children. Andrew is a graduate of Thunderbird Adventist Academy, Southern Adventist University and  Loma Linda University Medical School. He currently is in residency in Chattanooga, TN. He is married to Rhina who is a nurse. They have one son, Benjamin Edward and a daughter Emma Evilyn. His daughter Becky, is also a graduate of Thunderbird Adventist Academy and Southern Adventist University. She completed her Master’s Degree and is a speech therapist in Birmingham, Alabama. She is married to Dr. Harrison Filler, who is a dentist. Keyes has served as pastor, evangelist, church planter, academy teacher, administrator, ministerial secretary, executive secretary and president while working in the Potomac, New Jersey, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada-Utah Conferences. He has conducted evangelistic meetings, weeks of prayer, and training seminars in more than half the conferences in the North American Division. His foreign mission trips include the Middle East, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Ted Wilson

 

Wilson began his church career as a pastor in 1974 in the Greater New York Conference. He married Nancy Louise Vollmer Wilson, a physical therapist, in 1975. The couple has three daughters: Emile Louise, married to Pastor Kameron DeVasher; Elizabeth Esther, married to Pastor David Wright; and Catherine Anne, married to Dr. Robert Renck. The Wilsons have ten wonderful grandchildren. Born in Takoma Park, Maryland on May 10, 1950, the son of former Adventist world church President Neal C. Wilson and Elinor E. Wilson, Wilson spent part of his childhood in Egypt. Wilson served as an assistant director and then director of Metropolitan Ministries in New York from 1976 to 1981. He went on to serve in the church’s then Africa-Indian Ocean Division, based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, until 1990. There he served as a departmental director and later as executive secretary.

Following his post in West Africa, he served for two years at the Adventist world church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, as an associate secretary. He went on to accept the position of president of the church’s Euro Asia-Division in Moscow, Russia, which he held from 1992 to 1996. 

Pastor Wilson returned to the United States to serve as president of the Review and Herald Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Maryland, until his election as an Adventist world church vice president in 2000. An ordained minister, Pastor Wilson holds a doctor of philosophy degree in religious education from New York University, a master of divinity degree from Andrews University, and a master of science degree in public health from the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. In addition to English, he speaks French and some Russian

Brad Thorp

Pastor Thorp was born and raised here in British Columbia, in the town of Oliver in the South Okanagan. He is a BC boy! After his education at Burman University, Walla Walla University, and Newbold College in England, Pastor Thorp began his ministry in Kelowna. Through the years, he has served in the USA, Europe, and our world headquarters near Washington, DC. He conducted evangelistic series in the Metro Vancouver area, and in 1982, at Oakridge Church in Vancouver, he and his wife Kandus were married. Pastor and Mrs. Thorp are most well known as the founders of the Hope Channel TV network and have travelled globally for the development of Hope Channel International. Today, there are 80 channels on the Hope Channel network. Pastor and Mrs. Thorp have a deep passion in their hearts for mission and evangelism. Pastor Thorp had retired in 2020, but in September 2022, the BC Conference Board of Directors elected him as our new conference president, and he is now serving full time as our church leader here in BC. The Thorps have three sons, three beautiful daughters-in-law, and eight grandchildren.

Paul Llewellyn

Paul Llewellyn, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada, hails from the lovely island of Prince Edward Island (PEI). He grew up in a military household and saw God slowly bring his whole family to know Jesus. Paul started serving the church in the field of education and then moved into teaching Bible classes and serving as a chaplain. Eventually, he moved into pastoral ministry and then into administration.
God has always led in an amazing way, as his wife and he has learned to trust in His leading. No matter where God plants them, they know that God will never leave or give up on them.

Jira Moskala

Jiří Moskala, Ph.D., is professor of Old Testament exegesis and theology and dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. He joined the faculty in 1999. Born in the Czech Republic, Moskala earned in 1979 a doctor of theology in 1990 from the Comenius Faculty of Protestant Theology (now Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University, Czech Republic. In 1998 he completed a doctor of philosophy degree from Andrews University with a dissertation on clean and unclean foods in Leviticus 11. Moskala has served in a variety of capacities within the Seventh-day Adventist Church including ordained pastor, administrator, and teacher. In 1989, after the Velvet Revolution when the Communist regime fell, he established the Theological Seminary for training pastors and became the first principal of that institution. Moskal travels widely throughout all the divisions of the world church and is an active member of the Adventist Theological Society. He also belongs to a variety of other professional societies, and contributes to a wide variety of scholarly and denominational publications.

Dr. Neil Nedley

Neil Nedley, MD, is founder and medical director of the community based and residential Nedley Depression and Anxiety Recovery Programs™. Dr. Nedley is an award-winning practicing physician who also serves as president of Weimar University, a higher education college that houses the world-famous NEWSTART program. He has presented and published numerous scientific studies in the medical and scientific literature and is well known as an author, public speaker, and teacher throughout the world. He and his team developed a K-12 curriculum that is taught in public and private schools to enhance emotional intelligence in youth. Many souls have been won or revived because of Dr. Nedley’s medical ministry.

Gary Gibbs

Gary Gibbs is the president of the Pennsylvania Conference. He is the author of several books and numerous GLOW tracts, including The New Winsome Witnessing and Prophecies of Hope Bible study guides. He has served as a church administrator, television and media pioneer, pastor, evangelist, and church growth consultant. He is a sought after trainer and coach for his practical approach to growing churches, evangelism, and personal witnessing.

Dr. Felix Cortez

Félix H. Cortez-Valles is Professor of New Testament Literature at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. He completed a Masters degree in Modern Literature at Universidad Iberoamericana (México, 2001), with an emphasis in Literary Theory and Hermeneutics. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Religion with an emphasis in New Testament Studies (PhD) at Andrews University (USA, 2008).
Cortez was president of the Adventist Theological Society from 2014–2016. He also chaired the Catholic and Pastoral Epistles Section of the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature from 2010–2016. He has served as member of accreditation teams and of an advisory team for the Association of Theological Schools, as invited professor for universities in South America, Inter-America, and Asia, and has lectured in more than 40 countries around the world. He also hosts the Television series “Faith & Life” for Hope Channel. 
Cortez has published more than 90 articles and book chapters for both academic and non-academic presses. He contributed study notes on 4 biblical books for the Andrews Study Bible and the commentary on First Timothy in the Andrews One-volume Bible Commentary. He is also the author of Within the Veil: The Ascension of the Son in the Letter to the Hebrews, in the series Studies in Jewish and Christian Literature (Fontes, 2020) and of the SDA Sabbath School Adult Study Guide “In These Last Days: The Message of Hebrews” (first quarter of 2022).
Cortez is married to Alma Gloria Alvarez Yanes and they have two children: Hadid, a pastor at the New Jersey conference, and Alma, a graduate student in Archaeology. Cortez enjoys running, sports, sightseeing, reading, wood-working, and music.

Mike and René Lemon

Mike and René Lemon are the hosts for It Is Written Canada, a worldwide media ministry that spotlights stories of lives transformed by the power of God. They are both 100% organic, non-GMO, sweet and sour lemons. René is the sweet one. Mike and René are passionate about faith, family, friends, fitness, and finishing the work of preparing souls for our Lord’s soon return, to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). They have two wonderful daughters and one magnificent grandson.

Shad Lehmann

Shad Lehmann is currently serving as the Director of Education for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada (SDACC).  Prior to this, he served seven years as Associate Director of Education for the SDACC, the Superintendent of Education for the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Conference, and as both a teacher and principal in the British Columbia and Alberta Conferences.  Shad holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from La Sierra University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Educational Leadership from Andrews University.  During his time with the SDACC, Shad oversaw the development of a new SDACC Education Code, adapted documents for accreditation, and participated in various other initiatives.  Most importantly, Shad loves to spend time with God and his family doing activities such as rock climbing, hiking, and disc golf.