Family Project Peru

La Selva Nueva Era Church
Pucallpa is a port city on the Amazon with lots of trade. It also has a large university with a separate campus for training teachers in 13 different dialects among tribes in the Amazon Rainforest. University students became the start of this congregation in 2007. They are now adults with children of their own, but they continue to minister to university students who come for several years and then return to their villages. Some of the current students live with church members. Their wooden church building was falling apart, and they pulled it down when they heard Maranatha would build them a new structure. They are meeting in the head elder’s house until our group arrives in June to construct a longer-lasting block church. The Adventist Review wrote about this church last February. You can read about it at this link.

Construction: Volunteers will lay block walls for the new La Selva Church. The lot flooded in the past because it’s at the low point of a slope. Maranatha recently constructed a nine-foot retaining wall at the low end and filled the lot to bring it just above the level of the dirt road. It will be ready for us to lay block in June, and we’ll worship at the new church on Sabbath.
Outreach: The group will reach out through after-school children’s ministry programming (since this is during their school year in the southern hemisphere). We’ll also engage with students at a nearby elementary school during the mornings. Our medical/dental outreach will also spend the first half of the project working out of a university campus near the church.

Villa Jesus Sabbath School Building
This church began in 2011, following an evangelistic series at a nearby Adventist Church. This new congregation met in a house for several years and purchased land for a new church building. But when the pandemic hit, the congregation could no longer meet to worship, and it seemed like the church dissolved. But now that the pandemic has ended, the church re-opened in 2021. Excitement has grown, and 50-60 people are now attending.

Construction: Another Maranatha group will construct the church walls in March, and Family Project volunteers will construct a Sabbath School room as a separate building on the large lot. It’s possible our group might also paint the newly constructed church, if the plaster is completed by the time we get there. If not, our painting crew will paint another Adventist Church in Pucallpa.
Outreach: We have the option of carrying out a second VBS-type afternoon program in this neighborhood, as well as a morning program with another public school on certain days. We can also engage with the local Adventist school on a few days as well.

Mission Office Boundary Fence/Wall
The mission office in Pucallpa covers a large amount of land. Behind the office lies a Maranatha-constructed school, an Adventist Church, and the shop where Maranatha makes the steel pieces for current church construction in the Amazon region.

Construction: Because this piece of land is so large, it isn’t fully fenced with a wall yet—only in parts. Some people come and live on the property as squatters, even though the land doesn’t belong to them. The conference is willing to provide the bricks and mortar but needs help extending the existing wall to enclose more of the property. We’ll add to the length of the wall, but won’t complete the full 570 meters.

Children’s Activities:
Maranatha’s Family Projects are designed to be family-friendly and accommodate volunteers of any age. One unique feature of a Family Project is a “Day Camp” for children ages 12 and under. Children under five must have a parent with them at all times.

Parents with kids ages 5-12 have three options and can vary their decision, day by day.

• Drop your child off at the day camp for the day while you join other areas of the project.
• Have your child join the day camp and you stay with them and help with the day camp activities that day.
• Keep your child with you throughout the day.

The Day Camp activities will include a variety of components, different for each day.

Construction | We’ll plan appropriate tasks so children can help with the construction.

Outreach | Children are probably the best people to reach out to others, when it comes to children’s ministry programs and other service activities.

Play | We’ll schedule time for kids to let loose and have fun, because playtime is an important part of being a kid. If your child doesn’t know how to swim, we highly recommend bringing a life jacket or pool floaties for use at the pool at the hotel or other swimming venues.

Cultural Experiences | We’ll introduce kids to some of the cultural opportunities in the Pucallpa area. While this isn’t a tourist destination, we have several unique options for kids of all ages.