Gasikara Kolotora sy Kolontsaina

M ore than 650 Seventh-day Adventists captured the attention of residents of Puerto Rico’s capital by staging a first-ever march on the importance of the seventh-day Sabbath and providing seven reasons to observe it. Pathfinders held up signs and banners, and Adventist Medical Cadets led the march on a Sabbath afternoon in San Juan as hundreds of participants sang and distributed literature that reminded business owners, street vendors, and bystanders of the holy day. David Sebastian, communication director for the church in eastern Puerto Rico and organizer of the event, speaking to a crowd about the importance of the Sabbath. “You could see people coming onto their balconies to see what the music and marching crowds were all about,” said David Sebastian, communication director for the Adventist Church in eastern Puerto Rico, who helped organize the event. The church holds several marches every year, but this was the first that focused on the Sabbath day, Sebastian said. The march

Thomas S. Marvel, an architect whose regional style of modernism left an imprint on dozens of public buildings, churches and houses across the Caribbean, died on Tuesday at his home in San Juan, P.R. He was 80. The cause was prostate cancer, his son Jonathan said. Mr. Marvel first went to Puerto Rico in 1959 to build low-cost housing for the International Basic Economy Corporation, a company founded by Nelson A. Rockefeller to improve developing nations. At the end of his three-month assignment, he decided to stay. Using local materials whenever possible, including cement mined from local limestone mountains, he designed stylish buildings sensitive to their tropical island settings. He preferred natural ventilation to air-conditioning; he also liked to use natural light and incorporate gardens into his structures. Some of his more notable projects included the American embassies in Costa Rica and Guatemala; the United States Court House and Federal Building in St. Thomas, Virgin Island