Who We Are, How We Serve

The Columbia Union Conference coordinates the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s work in the Mid-Atlantic United States, where 150,000 members worship in 860 congregations. We provide administrative support to eight conferences; two healthcare networks; 81 early childhood, elementary and secondary schools; a liberal arts university; a health sciences college; a 49 community services centers; 8 camps; 5 book and health food stores and a radio station.

Mission Values Priorities

We Believe

God is love, power, and splendor—and God is a mystery. His ways are far beyond us, but He still reaches out to us. God is infinite yet intimate, three yet one,
all-knowing yet all-forgiving.

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High School Freshman Amazes College Professors

Story by Ron Mills

"When he was 7 years old, he was able to master certain computer applications, and his gift started to develop from there,” states Yanic Hardie, regarding her son Darius. And thus began the amazing odyssey of Takoma Academy (TA) Freshmen Darius Hardie and the amazing gift of mastering information technology that God has bestowed upon Him.

Recognizing that their child had a unique gift, but not sure of what to do, Darius’ parents enrolled him in the Python computer course at the University of Maryland. He received an A+. Neither the students nor the professor realized that Darius was only 12 years old.

The World is Our Classroom

Story by Darren Wilkens

Mark Twain famously wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

At Spring Valley Academy (SVA), we take the truth in this quote seriously. We believe education must be global, not provincial. The only way to acquire those “charitable views of men (and women) and things” is to go and meet them on their home turf.