Escaping from Seattle’s gray January skies, a 40-member SAGE team flew south to Lima, Peru, to build a Maranatha church for the Emaus congregation in the poverty-stricken northern section of the city.
Some 11 years earlier, the congregation had purchased a small lot on the sloping side of a rocky hill and spent eight years hacking out a level space with hand tools so they could put up a small building, made of bamboo and thatch. They covered the walls with old cardboard accounting folders.
A few church members were hired to help SAGE, including a 15-year-old boy named Hope, who weighed just over 90 pounds. Thrilled to see the beautiful new church going up, he ran up and down the mountainside, carrying 95-pound bags of cement. When the church was completed, SAGE built a $3,500 retaining wall and bought chairs and pulpit furniture. All this was accomplished in two weeks, in spite of two virulent flu bugs that laid many members low for a few days.
As this church was going up, some of the team members were busy painting four other large churches in that part of the city. They also laid a new tile floor and renovated the bathroom in one church, installed a tile facade and put in sidewalks and planters at another, paid for glass windows at a third, and donated a hundred small plastic chairs for the children’s division at the fourth church. These projects were paid for by the generous offering given at last fall’s SAGE convention.
Five SAGE evangelist/health lecturer teams arrived in Lima a few days ahead of the main group to begin meetings. Each team saw God work miracles on the hearts of those attending. On the last Sabbath, 206 people were baptized. Many more new interests will continue to study, and more baptisms will surely follow.
Plans are already finalized for the next SAGE mission trip in January 2006, to build a church in Kenya. If you would like to know more about SAGE, contact Joan Libby, SAGE secretary, at (253) 681-6008; or joan.libby@wc.npuc.org
Fifteen-year-old Hope was a special help to SAGE members.
