Thirty SAGE Senior volunteers traveled to Zambia, Africa, in October 2011 to build the Jan Griffone Memorial School in Livingstone.
God had other plans.
Mission-trip plans changed with two travel delays and with school building supplies stuck in Malawi.
"We've been on a dozen mission trips in the past 15 years and never run into these types of problems before," says Bob Grady, SAGE Seniors president. "Instead of building a school, we built four One-Day churches and painted a large, 900-member Adventist church. The congregations were thrilled that we had come to help them!"
Construction began in early morning hours to beat the heat. A medical team provided free clinics. The Vacation Bible School team rotated through villages for after-school programs.
The evangelism team alternated between Mukuni (where 21 people were baptized) and Kazungula (where 40 people were baptized). Wes Paul, from Mount Vernon, Wash., provided evangelism coaching for Ethan Peterson and Natalie Dorland, two Puget Sound Adventist Academy students.
"It's exciting to see how God worked through these tough circumstances," says Dorland. "Faith is important, as is prayer, in the mission field."
"Despite the challenges we faced each day, God continued to work," says Anita Dorland, a Renton, Wash., volunteer. "My faith has been tried, but increased."
And the school campus? SAGE Senior volunteers plan to try again elsewhere in 2012.
