The $10 Church: Barias
Are you ready to help solve a 28-year old problem?
In 1998, a group of Seventh-day Adventists in the town of Azua, in southern Dominican Republic, constructed a simple, small building to serve as a place of worship. The hope? That they would one day replace the structure with something more spacious and dignified.
They named it the Barias Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Today, this original structure still stands. But now the concrete is crumbling. The walls are cracked and damaged by water. The roof is rusting. There are gaps between the wall and where the rafters connect, leaving plenty of space for pests to invade.
Beyond the visual aesthetics, the Barias church building is simply too small. The congregation, which started with seven people in the 1970s, is now at 50 members with more than a dozen children. They can barely fit into the space. Children’s Sabbath School classes meet outside–except when it rains and everyone has to pack inside. When visitors arrive, the crowding is exacerbated, leaving everyone uncomfortably cramped, hot, and frustrated.
The congregation itself does not have the means to build a new church. Construction is expensive, and this is a poor community. But the potential for growth is huge–there are approximately 10,000 people in this area. Also, a Maranatha-built school in the same region has done very well over the years.
But what good is growth if there is no place to sustain it?
This is why Maranatha has chosen Barias as the next recipient of The $10 Church. For the next several months, your $10 Church donations will go toward building the new Barias Church. This will be the larger church design in the Dominican Republic, at 32 x 60 feet and have capacity for 150. The cost for this church is $250,000. It’s a large sum of money, but with everyone giving a little, we can accomplish a lot.
“Having a new sanctuary would impact not only the lives of the congregants who gather there, but the community in general,” says Nestor Sanchez, one of the church leaders. “We truly care deeply for every individual. We always seek to assist others. Therefore, just as we received the message of Christ, that same experience motivates us and fills us with joy to share it with others.”
Barias will be constructed during the 2026 Christmas Family Project. So your dollars will double the impact by not only building a strong, lasting place of worship, but by also providing an opportunity for families to experience the transformative power of service on a Maranatha mission trip!
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