This year, many families observed the holiday season with long held traditions. And others, like those on Maranatha Volunteers International’s latest Family Project in India, celebrated with a bit more originality. On this trip, 53 volunteers, including seven family groups, visited the Irvine Adventist English School from December 19 to January 1, where they laid the block walls of a new dormitory. Irvine is the only Seventh-day Adventist School in its region, and a new dormitory will help house students from greater distances.
“Maranatha agreed to help Irvine because the school is vital to this area, but its buildings are just not large enough or structurally sound enough to serve the student body well,” said Maranatha’s vice president of advancement and the project’s coordinator, Karen Godfrey. “The need was obvious as soon as volunteers stepped on campus, and I think that really motivated the group to give it our all.”
With an age range of 11-90, this volunteer group embodied a theme that’s common among Maranatha’s family projects: service has no age restrictions. In some cases, three generations worked side-by-side, layering mortar and bricks for Irvine’s new dorm. “They seemed to catch on to brick laying pretty quickly,” recalled Godfrey. “They finished nearly all of the walls assigned to them, and then our in-country construction crew helped us add the remaining brick and worked with volunteers to install the roof.”
Building a dormitory was a large task; however, it was not the only project that volunteers undertook. They also repainted 12 Irvine classrooms, which Maranatha built in 2016 and needed a facelift. Volunteer medical professionals teamed up with local healthcare providers to operate a medical and dental clinic for local residents, seeing 369 patients before projects’ close.
The team also fostered the spirit of the holidays by assembling gift bags for Irvine students and assisting the school with outreach to families in need. Volunteers helped distribute food and essential supplies to 50 households. “It was an opportunity for volunteers to keep the common Christmas tradition of gift giving, but in a new place and for people outside of their family unit,” remarked Godfrey. “I think it was a great way to celebrate the holiday. The act of giving in this way brought this sense of joy to the group that was really special.”
Maranatha’s first project in India was in 1988. But the big push for mission trips to India began in 1998, when we opened offices in the country. Since then, Maranatha has steadily worked with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in India to complete more than 3,000 projects.