The battle for religious liberty is fought perhaps more often in the quiet corners than on the grand stage. No one knows this better than Pastor Eliezer
Benavides, associate director of the Church State Council, who began handling primarily Sabbath accommodation cases for the Church State Council in 2006.
At 87 years old, Pastor Benavides, who chuckles when he says he “officially” retired 20 years ago, never thought he would spend his “last days in ministry”
working tirelessly for religious liberty. “The Lord is wonderful,” Pastor Benavides says, “and He had a purpose, and so I thank the Lord for His goodness.”
There is a peace in his softly accented, lilting voice that can only be attributed to an unshakable confidence in the power of prayer and a deeply rooted
faith in God. It is a faith he lives out daily and a power he seeks constantly.

Benavides credits the beginning of his ministry with gratitude to God for saving his life in World War II. As a junior at Fresno Adventist Academy in
Fresno, California, he received a letter from Uncle Sam telling him it was time to register. “I got a letter from the president congratulating me because I
was 18 years old,” he remembers. “Forty-five days after I turned 18, I was in the service for the Second World War. But the Lord was good even then,
because I learned to be faithful to my Lord. I battled to be a noncombatant and to keep the Sabbath. I had to appear before officers and talk about my
faith, but the Lord was good. I took medical training and was sent to Germany and later into France. Then we came home; thank the Lord, the war was over.
The very first thing I thought was Lord, You saved my life; I give my life to You. And that’s how my ministry started.”

Following his return, he finished his schooling, spending three years at Pacific Union College, then graduating with a B.A. in religion from La Sierra
College (now La Sierra University), and officially began his ministry in June of 1951. After working for the Southeastern California Conference for 16
years, he received a call from the General Conference to go as a missionary to Colombia, South America, in the Inter-American Division. He pastored the
1,900-member church including many groups for two and a half years. Then he worked as the ministerial secretary and evangelist for the Colombia-Venezuela
Union, being greatly blessed in soul winning. While on furlough he completed his studies and received his Master of Arts degree from Andrews University.
When he came home on permanent return, he was appointed to be the first director for Hispanic ministries for the Pacific Union Conference. He worked there
for eight years before returning to pastoral and evangelistic work for a few years before his retirement in 1994 from the Fresno Spanish Seventh-day
Adventist Church, where he was the senior pastor. “I retired from Fresno Spanish Church, and I had graduated from Fresno Academy,” he says, “so it was nice
to retire from the place I had spent my younger days.”

Although he should technically be spending only a third of his time working on cases for the Church State Council, many times he puts in long hours
obtaining the information he needs to help someone get Sabbath accommodation as well as praying with them and counseling them as they face difficult
situations because of the threat of job loss. Ruth Parra, who was dismissed from her job as a housekeeper at the Vdara Condo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, on
April 20, 2012, for refusing to work on the Sabbath, credits prayer with strengthening her faith during her ordeal.

She had been working at the hotel for a little more than four months. She was allowed to refuse work four times a month, and she used those refusals for
Sabbath observance. But then she found herself in a month that had five Sabbaths, and they told her that if she did not work on Sabbath they would dismiss
her. She spoke to her local pastor and asked him to send a letter for her, explaining why she needed to take the Sabbath off. Unfortunately management paid
no attention to the letter her pastor sent. Pastor Benavides and attorney Alan Reinach of the Church State Council happened to be giving a seminar in Las
Vegas at the time Ruth was fighting to keep her job.

“I talked with her and told her this country has laws and that I might be able to help her,” Pastor Benavides says. “I called and spoke with the human
resources person, laying out what they should do. I said I hoped we could settle this problem because we didn’t want to file any charges. He said, ‘Maybe I
have to learn some things, but as far as I’m concerned right now, I have to follow the orders of the company.’ ”

Pastor Benavides advised Ruth to file charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the Church State Council would back her up. So
she filed charges of discrimination and retaliation with the EEOC. “I told her it would take quite a long time,” Pastor Benavides says.

“All the time I had to wait,” says Ruth, “I felt anxious and depressed because I didn’t know how these things were going to end up. I didn’t know what
God’s will was. I had to wait about two years. I felt good every time I was able to talk with Pastor Benavides. He told me to have faith in the Lord, and
whatever the outcome, it would be the will of God and that would be sufficient. We had many prayers together, which strengthened my faith. This led me to
feel that I must have faith in the Lord.”

“We did pray together many times,” agrees Pastor Benavides. “I would call her, or she would call me. Thank the Lord, Alan and I worked very hard, and after
filing charges, with the backing of EEOC, everything we asked for in the settlement was finally given.”

“It wasn’t so much the money,” says Ruth, who got quite sick during the long ordeal, which was very hard on her and her family. “It’s important to know
that in everything we do that we are communicating with the Lord. This was a great experience in my life. I have grown in the Lord, in my spiritual life,
and in my confidence in my God. It has been very good for my life.”

“I told her to be faithful to the end; the Lord will take care of this,” Pastor Benavides says. “I would always tell her that the Bible says, ‘Call to Me,
and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know’ [Jeremiah 33:3, NKJV].* That strengthened her faith. There is no one as
great as the Lord.” 

José Carrizosa also ran into trouble with Sabbath accommodation. He applied for work at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San José, California. “They
accepted my application,” he says, “and they said they would be willing to hire me as an extra-help janitor. They could give me a Monday through Friday
schedule, and if they needed me, I was willing to work on Sunday. In the beginning they respected my Sabbath, but eventually they wanted me to work on
Saturday.” He asked his local pastor to write a letter to the hospital, but the hospital didn’t listen. Next he asked his conference to write a letter, and
the Spanish director wrote a letter, but the hospital still refused to listen. “It was like nothing had been sent,” José says. “When that happened, I
communicated with Pastor Benavides, who also wrote a letter stating what my rights were and so forth.”

When the hospital again ignored the letter, Pastor Benavides drove eight hours to the hospital to try to arrange for a dialogue with someone in human
resources at the hospital. He and José spoke to the human resources person for almost an hour. Pastor Benavides says, “I told her, ‘You have received
letters from the pastor, the conference, and myself as a representative of the Church State Council, and you have not responded.’ She said, ‘Well, I
haven’t seen the letters.’ ” Pastor Benavides, who had copies of all the letters, showed them to her.

“She said, ‘You are so right. There has been discrimination. You have the right to file charges.’ I asked her why they couldn’t just give him his job back,
but she told me they had recently been cutting help, and it wasn’t a good time. I told her, ‘I have no other choice. We’re going to file charges with the
EEOC.’ ”

Attorney Alan Reinach filed charges, but the process dragged on for a year and a half before the hospital finally agreed to settle for $40,000 and give
José his job back. Although it was a difficult time for José and his family, he says, “I feel very good, very positive about this because I know the
Religious Liberty Department is doing exceptional work in helping people with their Sabbath problems. Prayer had a great effect on me and my family. We
prayed together that the Lord would direct and guide. The outcome was positive because I got my job back. Prayer to us meant so much. We prayed a lot. Many
times I cried with Pastor Benavides. He helped me very, very much, and he continues to help me.”

José learned so much from his experience that his church of 1,000 members appointed him director of religious liberty. In his position he can help others
as Pastor Benavides helped him. “When people have problems,” he says, “I can help them. Thinking about what I went through, I can encourage them. They
helped me, so now I feel the Lord wants me to help others. And I will continue to do this as long as the Lord permits me to.”

When confronted with a Sabbath accommodation situation, Pastor Benavides says he always prays with the person involved first. “Then I direct myself to the
human resources person, or a supervisor, and I always send a letter stating that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a Church State Council, which is the
oldest public policy organization in the western United States that is devoted exclusively to issues of religious freedom. I tell them one of our
responsibilities is to provide counsel and assistance to church members faced with religious discrimination in the workplace on the basis of their
observance of the Sabbath.

“I also always ask their pastor to write a letter stating that the member is a member in good standing with the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that we
observe the seventh day of the week from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday and that we are asking for religious accommodation.” Though Seventh-day
Adventists often encounter difficulties because of Sabbath observance, they are not the only denomination the Church State Council assists. Pastor
Benavides recently helped a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“The first thing he asked me was ‘Are Seventh-day Adventists willing to speak up for a Jehovah’s Witness?’ I said, ‘You know, we don’t discriminate. We’re
all created by the same God, and when you’re in a trouble, we’re ready to help anybody.’  We have helped people of many faiths.”

When preparing to help people with religious accommodation, Pastor Benavides says, “I inform them that we also provide legal counsel if it’s needed, and I
remind them that the EEOC says, in relationship to religious discrimination, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from
discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing, and other terms and conditions of employment. I always write a letter
spelling out an employee’s rights because I know I’m going to be facing people who don’t want to give religious accommodation. I have to let them know what
the civil rights are, what the human rights are, what they should do, and that we’re hoping they will cooperate with us.

“I also deal directly with the person involved with Sabbath accommodation. I pray with them; I read to them from the Bible to encourage them because many
times they’re threatened with dismissal. I assure them that the Church State Council and the EEOC, which is a federal agency, are there to protect our
religious rights. And, thank the Lord, I would say that the good Lord helps us get Sabbath accommodation for between 80 and 90 percent of all our cases. In
the others, we have to fight.”

“Once people are dismissed, it takes time. Often we are able to negotiate in mediation, but if not, it generally takes at least six to eight months for us
to settle. We have been able to help many, many people. I feel that prayer has been a great force and a great impact. The Lord has said ‘Call upon me and I
will answer,’ and He sure has. I thank the Lord for His goodness.

“And I’m thankful that I can still be working,” says Pastor Benavides. “The Lord’s been good. He’s given my wife and me good health, so we never say no to
the Lord. As long as He keeps us alive we’ll serve Him; that’s the way I feel.”