Best-kept secret in the world
When Sean Carney first encountered Seventh-day Adventists, he was only 16 years old. He's since decided that the Adventist message is the best-kept secret in the world.
Sean wasn’t raised in a Christian family—far from it. Sean’s dad had been a heroin addict, and his Jewish mother had died of a medication overdose when Sean was 11 years old. After deciding he and his brother were too out-of-control to handle, Sean’s maternal grandparents eventually sent the boys to live with their father in Vancouver, British Columbia. He had immigrated—or rather, fled—to escape investigation by the FBI for drug dealing.
Sean and his brother liked living with their father for one reason: no rules! Their dad was no longer a heroin addict, but had become dependent on alcohol. The boys received a weekly allowance of marijuana instead of cash.
The threesome eventually moved to the province of Ontario, where Sean attended public high school for one year. He wasn’t happy in public school, and apparently school officials weren’t pleased with him either. He applied to an alternative “free school” rehabilitation program back in Vancouver, but was turned down.
On the morning of his last day in grade ten, Sean snuck out of the house at 4:00 a.m. and left home in a taxi with only a sleeping bag, a sack of clothes, and his guitar. He headed to the airport where he boarded a flight back to Vancouver. After his plane landed, he called to tell his father he wouldn’t be coming home. Sean was just 16.
Sean had two goals for his life in Vancouver: to get into the alternative school that had turned him down, and to become a vegetarian without family interference. After finding a job and renting an apartment, he showed up at the school to announce his arrival and plead his case. He was accepted.
Now to become a vegetarian! Two blocks from his tiny apartment was a popular health food store. One day, he went there in search of a bargain: a cheap cookbook full of vegetarian recipes. He browsed through the available titles and settled on one called Ten Talents, by Frank and Rosalie Hurd. On the cover was a picture of a lady with her hair up in a bun. She was reading the Bible.
Sean recalls that the cookbook “was filled with amazing quotes from the Bible and from a stranger named Ellen White.” He’d never read the Bible and certainly had never heard of Ellen White.
“That cookbook became my hippy Bible,” says Sean. “In fact, that book became treasured by all my friends. Since I was on a limited budget but loved to cook, I worked out an arrangement with them: They would purchase groceries and bring them to my place, and I would cook vegetarian feasts using the Ten Talents cookbook. It was a win/win situation that helped keep food on my table so I could get through high school. My friends especially liked the delicious peanut butter cookie recipe on page 129, which I modified slightly by adding marijuana to the batter. Those cookies were always a big hit!”
The Ten Talents cookbook was Sean's first—but not his last—encounter with Seventh-day Adventists.
“God brought me into contact with other good-hearted Adventist Christians through providential encounters around the world in the ensuing years,” he says. “Through a series of amazing journeys, I joined the remnant church, and my joy was made complete many years later when my dad was baptized just before he died.”
Today, Sean shares two pieces of advice with anyone who will listen: “First, get your hands on a copy of the Ten Talents cookbook. Second, ‘yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God’” (Romans 6:13, KJV).
A “new improved” version of the Ten Talents cookbook was recently published with new photos and even healthier recipes. “In the new edition, that great peanut butter cookie recipe is on page 201!” hints Sean.
Photo Left: Sean Carney with Ten Talents authors Rosalie and Frank Hurd at the recent ASI convention in Phoenix.