Peru's national congress recently paid tribute to Adventist education and its founders who first arrived in the Peruvian highlands in 1909.
Peru’s national congress recently paid tribute to Adventist education and its founders who first arrived in the Peruvian highlands in 1909.
Adventist missionaries Fernando and Ana Stahl from the midwest region of the United States arrived in the Andes of Peru in 1909 to find an oppressed indigenous population. Siding with the 95 percent native population, they founded chapels, clinics, markets and the first co-educational school. The education system grew to become 200 schools surrounding Lake Titicaca and, within one generation, the highlands people were able to elect a graduate of the schools to represent them in Peru’s National Congress.
Charles Teel, professor of religion and society at La Sierra, and organizer of the trip, continues the missionaries’ outreach with the Stahl Center at La Sierra University. He established the center in 1988 with the theme of “passing a vision of world service to a new generation.”
Teel said Rosa Yanarico Huanca, congressional representative from the Peruvian city of Puno, and coordinator of the March 29 event, mentioned two important considerations that were not lost on the audience.
“First,” Teel told ANN in a telephone interview, “she recalled the fact that some three quarters of a century ago this very hall echoed with boos and hisses from the galleries and some senate seats alike as Peru’s senate debated—and eventually passed—the inclusion of a religious toleration clause in Peru’s National Constitution, a clause introduced in part by arrests, forced marches, and loss of life by followers of the Stahls during the second decade of the twentieth century.”
A second clear implication of this event referenced by Yanarico was the sustained nature of the church’s development presence in Peru. Until recently Anthony Stahl, grandson of the missionaries, served as the country director for ADRA Peru, which is regarded as one of the four most prominent non-governmental organizations in that nation.
The presence and participation of Peruvian educators, congressional delegates, and students, Teel quoted Yanarico as saying, “Further underscored that the event was not only celebrating history, but a dynamic presence as well.”
Peruvian Congress president Henry Pease lauded the fact that a forum was held in Parliament to recognize and strengthen rural education in Peru and above all to recall the educational efforts that the Adventist Church developed through Stahl and his children, who lived alongside the people.
“It is an admirable action that we Peruvians must recognize because the only way to change the country, is to join with the poor, the excluded, with those who were left on the margins hundreds of years ago,” he said, according to a report from the ALC news service.
Every spring a group of students from La Sierra University, in southern California, and other Adventist colleges travel to Peru to march in the footsteps of Fernando and Ana Stahl. The congressional event was planned to coincide with La Sierra University’s 20th annual educational tour.
“I was amazed at what a positive reputation the Adventist Church has in Peru,” said Raewyn Hankins, a fourth-year student from La Sierra who attended the educational tour. “[The church] is most often linked with education.”
At the ceremony, David Jimenez Sareon, governor of the state of Puno, expressed “appreciation and love for the church you represent and its work for education.”
