The end of the year is a great time for reflection, and Maranatha Volunteers International has many blessings to praise God for. We’ve been honored to work on roughly 1,200 projects in nine countries during 2025. This project sum includes construction, water well drilling, and well repairs and maintenance. None of this work would have been possible without the dedicated efforts of Maranatha’s in-country construction crews. This year they were aided by 2,300 volunteers who served on 63 mission trips around the world, including North America.
“I think God wants to change the people who are participating as much as the people we’re helping,” said Maranatha President Don Noble. “What’s really important and impactful is what happens to the spirit, the life, your spiritual commitment, and the chance that you have to live with the creator God of the universe. He offers us a life that measures with the life of God–an eternity. And when I see that that is happening in the lives of people, volunteers, the buildings that we build … there’s nothing better.”
A high point for Maranatha in 2025 was the completion of the Ciudad del Cielo school campus in the Dominican Republic’s capital city of Santo Domingo. After nearly three years of work, this campus was dedicated during a Sabbath ceremony on July 26, in loving memory of Maranatha’s late vice president of construction, Darrell Hardy. The school has filled a significant deficit for Seventh-day Adventist education in its neighborhood and currently serves 231 students.
“Since we opened that campus here a few months ago, it seems like every week or so I get a video from down there of how they’re using the church or how they’re using the school,” remarked Noble. “The school is full. The church gets used constantly. And that’s the point. People are using this. It’s changing lives.”
This year also involved ongoing construction at the Kimogoro Adventist Boarding Primary School in Kenya. Since breaking ground on the campus renovation and expansion project in February 2023, Maranatha’s local construction crews and volunteer groups have replaced dilapidated infrastructure with new buildings, like classrooms, dormitories, and a kitchen and dining hall. In 2026, Maranatha will continue work on more classrooms, an administrative block, and landscaping for the school.
In addition to large-scale efforts, Maranatha crews completed an array of smaller projects for communities in need. One-Day Church construction teams assembled 102 of these structures in rural areas, where the sturdy and easily-transportable frames are best suited. Water well crews drilled 280 new sources of clean water, in addition to maintenance and repairs on existing wells. Whether a shelter to worship in or source of hydration, these projects are a huge boost where resources are scarce.
“It has been an honor for me to watch God’s incredible work this year,” remarked Noble. “I’ve seen it in the churches that are built, the water wells that are drilled, the lives that are changed. And the fact that He lets us play a small part in His work is the greatest gift of all.”
Maranatha Volunteers International, a supporting ministry of the Adventist Church, mobilizes volunteers to build churches, schools, water wells, and other urgently needed structures around the world, including North America. Since 1969, Maranatha has constructed more than 17,000 structures and more than 3,600 water wells in nearly 90 countries.