General Conference and Loma Linda University Host Tongan Royals

The General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (GC) hosted King Tupou VI and Queen Nanasipau’u of Tonga at the denomination’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, on October 1.

During the royal couple’s visit, the king presented GC president Ted N. C. Wilson with a special gift: a hand-carved fishhook made of whale bone and mother-of-pearl. According to Wilson’s Facebook page, the king remarked that it was an appropriate gift for Christians since they are to be “fishers of men.”

The royal couple visited the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, where director David Trim gave a presentation on the history of the Adventist Church in Tonga. The king and queen also visited the Ellen G. White Estate, where director Merlin Burt explained the history of the Adventist Church and the role of Ellen White and her writings.

“The king and queen have a special interest in health and were delighted with a presentation by GC health ministries director Dr. Peter Landless,” Wilson posted on his Facebook page. “Their majesties were delighted to receive the gift of several books on health.”

The meeting concluded with a luncheon in honor of the royal party and their Tongan delegation, during which Wilson shared words of encouragement from the Bible.

At Loma Linda University

On October 4, the Tongan royals visited Loma Linda University Health (LLUH) in Loma Linda, California, United States. The king and queen were welcomed by LLUH president Richard Hart, along with health-care and university leaders.

Their majesties received presentations on the organization’s mission and operations both in Southern California and throughout the world, a post on the LLUH Facebook page reported. “Several presentations focused on nutrition and healthy lifestyle and their contributions to disease prevention,” it said. Their majesties visited LLUH as one of several organizational and cultural visits during an extended trip across the United States.

A Visit to Tonga

In May 2024, Wilson spent four days in Tonga and had an audience with the king and queen when he and his wife, Nancy, visited the island nation at the end of evangelistic meetings in Papua New Guinea and across several South Pacific islands, the Adventist Record reported.

During his stop in Tonga, besides meeting with the royals and other government leaders, Wilson dedicated restored buildings at Beulah and the Tonga Mission office that had been damaged in the tsunami created by the 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in the Tongan archipelago. 

The original version of this story was posted by Adventist Record.