Mission-minded physician unexpectedly delivers baby at World Church Headquarters :: Adventist News Network

Oct 13, 2017
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Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission
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Silver Spring, Maryland, United States

A physician praying to be used by God after hearing an Annual Council sermon about mission work in the cities unexpectedly delivered a baby in the parking lot of the Seventh-day Adventist world church’s U.S. headquarters.

Dr. Yvette C. Ross Hebron delivered a healthy baby boy in the car of the parents, who had been rushing to the hospital but pulled into the church’s parking lot in Silver Spring, Maryland, after getting lost shortly before 10 a.m. on Oct. 12. 

Hebron said she believed God arranged the events.

“The most wonderful opportunity in response to our prayers was orchestrated by the Master,” she said.

Hebron began praying about how to do more to serve God after hearing Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson preach to several hundred church leaders during the Annual Council business meetings at the church’s General Conference headquarters on Oct. 7. The physician and her husband, Harold, members of the Emmanuel Brinklow Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ashton, Maryland, had been driving to church and, seeing a full parking lot at church headquarters, stopped to attend that worship service instead.

“As the service progressed, it was quite evident that we were in the right place for this particular Sabbath and God had led us there for a purpose,” Hebron said.

Wilson, in a sermon titled “Work the Cities Without Delay,” appealed for a renewed effort to reach people in the cities and spoke of the need for physicians and other health-care professionals to reach city residents.

Read Adventists Urged to Intensify Work in the Cities

Five days after the sermon, Hebron and her husband were driving past church headquarters when they saw a man pull into the parking lot, frantically jump from his car, and run around it. Rolling down the window, she heard him crying and screaming, “The baby is coming!” Then she heard the screams of the expectant mother in the car.

“My husband and I immediately pulled into the driveway,” she said.

Moments later, the baby was born. As Harold Hebron telephoned the paramedics, the new father removed his shoelaces from his tennis shoes and found a pair of scissors in the car. Following Hebron’s directions, he tied off the umbilical cord and cut it.

Yvette Hebron wrapped the baby in a blanket from her car and made sure that he was comfortable and breathing fine. General Conference security arrived and fostered a calm environment. After a short time, the paramedics took a healthy and stable mother and baby to the hospital. 

Later that day, Hebron visited the mother in the hospital and again held the baby in her arms. 

The mother excitedly told the nurses that God sent an angel to help her in the parking lot. 

“I don’t know where she came from,” the mother said. “I just looked up, and she was there.”

The new parents have voiced a desire to visit the General Conference headquarters to learn more about the Adventist faith.

In an interview, Wilson expressed amazement at God’s manner in opening ways for people with willing hearts to serve.

“God provides even the most interesting circumstances like an emergency birth to magnify His name and let committed people participate in proclaiming the three angels’ messages through their personal witness,” he said.

The three angels’ messages, found in Revelation 14, are a call to proclaim the soon coming of Jesus to the world.

“What a blessing that many of those who heard the appeal on Sabbath about Mission to the Cities have taken this biblical and Spirit of Prophecy challenge to heart,” he said. “I praise God for humble people who love Christ with all their hearts and are willing to be used by Him in the great cities of the world — even in the General Conference parking lot! May we all be faithful to following the leading of the Holy Spirit as we minister to people as Jesus did and through His power.”

Hebron said she has no doubt that what happened in the parking lot was an answer to prayer.

“My husband and I contribute all to God’s plan,” she said.