“It’s no vacation. You’re working 12-hour days–getting up early in the morning,” remarked Stonehill Seventh-day Adventist Church Pastor John Mutchler, of his Austin congregation’s recent service trip with Maranatha Volunteers International to Peru. In November they laid the block walls of a new building for the Arequipa Adventist Church in the jungle city of Iquitos. “I came back physically tired, but spiritually, everyone is just connected and just gelled together,” said Mutchler. “And most of them [volunteers] have already signed up for the next trip!”
Stonehill’s project was a part of Maranatha’s larger effort to bring much-needed religious infrastructure to Peru. “There were, to my understanding, a lot of Christians but not enough churches,” explained Mutchler. Without a suitable structure, the Arequipa Church met in the home of a member named Merici Bela Cobos, who later donated an empty lot on which to build their church. “She has very little. And really she’s giving much–if not half–of what she has,” said Mutchler. “That’s one of the reasons we went there, to build her vision of a church.”
“I thanked God that He had provided me with this land,” said Cobos. “And I said, ‘By grace I have it. By grace. So what is mine will belong to the church here.'”
In addition to construction work, Stonehill volunteers undertook health education and children’s programming initiatives for Arequipa community members. “The vacation bible school was near the corner where we built the church,” said Mutchler. “We had over 100 kids the last night we were there.” To volunteers’ delight, several of these children came to church with them on the last Sabbath of the project in the brand new structure the team built.
“At times I think we forget how much the world needs,” mused Mutchler. And while helping to meet this need, Stonehill volunteers answered a sacred call. Mutchler added of the project, “It gives them a taste of being a part of fulfilling the great commission.”
From 2004-2006, more than 3,000 Maranatha volunteers landed in Peru, constructing nearly 100 churches and schools. In 2019, Maranatha returned at the request of the Adventist Church in South America. After a brief pause in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Maranatha’s in-country crews and volunteer groups have resumed work in Peru.