AWR News

by AWR Staff

The former director of the Adventist Media Center in India, Pastor Edwin Charles, passed away on September 28, 2011, after a lifetime of service in the Adventist Church. We mourn Pastor Charles’ loss, and wish to pay tribute to his dedicated work for AWR.

After Charles completed his bachelor’s degree in English Literature at Mar Ivanious College, he began four decades of denominational service as a humble proofreader at the Oriental Watchman Publishing House (OWPH) in 1970. Before long, he joined the Southern Asia Division as an assistant editor of the Southern Asia Tidings, and later was appointed as editor. In 1979, he got married to Rajamma Chacko, and they were blessed with two children, Andrew and Sophia.

Charles assumed the illustrious responsibility of editor-in-chief of OWPH in 1993, then changed roles to become the Division’s youth director and, later, assistant secretary. He moved to Pune, India, in 2004 as the director for the Adventist Media Center, from where he retired in May, 2011.

During his tenure, Charles introduced numerous initiatives: launching radio programs in the Oriya and Guajarati languages, encouraging the recording and release of a music album in Marathi, organizing the provision of radios for blind listeners for a church in Chennai, helping to set up the first AWR church in North India, encouraging the radio speakers to conduct evangelistic meetings and also personally conducting many evangelistic meetings himself, setting up new studios at the Media Center as well as in Orissa and Nepal, archiving old recording and studio equipment and setting up a small museum in the Media Center, and developing a library for the radio speakers.

Charles was active with the youth of the church and had a passion to be with them. He was instrumental in starting a church library in Salisbury Park. During his tenure in the youth department, he organized a division-wide youth congress in 1999 at Spicer College. He enjoyed working with children in Sabbath School and inspired hobbies such as coin and stamp collecting, jigsaw puzzles, and bird watching.

In September 2010, Charles was diagnosed with cancer, and a year later he peacefully passed away at Pune Adventist Hospital.