Missionary service got two thumbs-up when scores of Seventh-day Adventist volunteers celebrated the opening of two new houses of worship in Peru.

For weeks, volunteers arrived from different parts of the United States to construct a building some 12,500 feet above sea level on the Los Uros Islands of Lake Titicaca. But on the chilly Saturday morning of Nov. 12, those who worked so hard as volunteers gathered to celebrate with residents the completion of this floating church.

Two days earlier, a small Adventist faith community in the Peru’s Sacred
Valley town of Pisac saw their dream come true with an opening and
dedication of their brand-new church.

The Los Uros Seventh-day Adventist Church is a brand new lightweight wooden structure conjoined to a floating island—built, painted, unveiled, dedicated and ready for worship.

The unusual environment of the church’s location has made construction an interesting challenge. Each island is made from thick layers of tortora reeds. The church, as with any other building on Los Uros, must either float or sit atop the buoyant reeds.

“I just think it is wonderful,” remarked Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, who was on his first trip to Lake Titicaca during a five-day tour of Peru, and participated in the dedication of both sanctuaries. He praised the spirit of mission and commitment represented by the scores of volunteers, laity and the leaders of the church in Peru, in completing two examples of the Adventist Church’s commitment to mission.

On the Uros Islands, Paulsen was joined by Pastor Melchor Ferreyra, president of the Adventist Church in Peru, and Don Noble, president of Maranatha Volunteers International, a California-based non-profit organization that constructs urgently needed churches and schools through missionary volunteers.

The Altiplano, or high plain region, stretching westward from Bolivia to the shores of Lake Titicaca in Southern Peru, is where the first Adventist missionaries—Fernando and Ana Stahl—began their work in Peru nearly 100 years ago. They joined Manuel Z. Camacho, an indigenous Aymaran Adventist and pioneered a robust education presence in the region. The Adventist Church in the Lake Titicaca area, of which the Uros Islands are a part, saw remarkable growth in the 1960s and 1970s, with as many as 90 percent of the 2,000 inhabitants becoming Adventist.

So, the dedication ceremony was another important hallmark in Peru’s Adventist history. To accommodate the unprecedented crowd, several floating islands had to be tied together to create more land mass around the church.

“With such a large turnout, let’s hope these reeds will hold us up,” said one visitor as he stepped off a boat. “Look at the color their dresses provide. It’s hardly to be matched in other parts of the world,” another declared.

Referring to the Adventist Church’s resurgence in the region at the dedication ceremony, Pastor Paulsen said “we have now come back—we were always here, but maybe faded a bit for a while—we have come back, reasserted ourselves and reestablished a commitment to be what God wants [the Uros people] to be in reaching the people who live on these 25 islands off the coast of Puno.”

Unique, floating, yet permanent

The request to assist the once-again-growing Adventist community in Los Uros came to the attention of Don Noble in 2003. Since then, the project has been a work of faith in response to faith, Noble commented.

“There is something very unique about the Uros Islands and the people.  On our first visit to the island where the humble church building stood, we were blessed by the simple faith of the members and their desire to share Christ with everyone living on those islands,” he said.

“They told us that if we built them a floating, but permanent house of worship, they would fill it with new believers in Jesus Christ.  With that kind of a commitment, we knew we needed to respond positively.  Although this was a very complicated and expensive project, God worked many miracles and His work will go forward as a result of the new church and the spirit of the small group of believers.”

“We have, in a way, felt abandoned,”  Noe Coila, the congregation’s leader said in reference to the church’s once shrinking membership. “Now, thank God, by building a new church, we can bring back our brothers and sisters. We want to work.” Bible studies are being requested and baptisms are taking place. Following the church’s dedication, 35 new believers joined the Los Uros congregation.

Both church buildings in Pisac and Uros, as well as several others finished or nearing completion, are a part of a large initiative to build 100 houses of worship, including eight school-church centers in Peru, one of Adventism’s fastest growing countries. To date, three-quarters of the churches are complete with more than 3,000 volunteers “getting their hands dirty, but making their hearts sing,” as one of the elderly volunteers put it. That’s only in the last 12 months. Undertaken in response to an invitation from the 700,000-strong Adventist church in Peru, the nationwide church and school building initiative is being coordinated by Maranatha.

These houses of worship are also a part of Maranatha’s larger effort to construct “1,000 Churches in 1,000 Days.” Along with 750 churches in India, Peru is one of the first countries to be reached by this program, which started in January 2004.

The new floating church builders considered the architectural challenges of the project, given its unique environment and location. The designers and constructors decided to make the building from lightweight and waterproof tornillo wood, to be topped with a lightweight roof, all, however, matching the existing architectural style of the island.

The construction effort was a “work of love,” as one of the scores of volunteers involved with the project remarked. The “floating” journey from Puno’s shores, where the church structure was assembled, was a tedious process. The volunteers, some of whom spent four weeks in the Puno area, used small motorboats to push and pull the 40-ton structure. Once ashore, the crew anchored and secured the church to one of the floating tortora reed islands.

The builders needed 20 floats, five rows of four floats each, to hold the construction. A 40-ton structure required 27,000 stainless steel screws, used on the framing and trusses, according to Darrell Hardy, regional project coordinator for Maranatha.

Now, the church sits on a 34 by 66-foot deck, bordered by rails. Underneath, the entire structure will float on 20 aluminum floats. Everything is attached to a “kile,” a mass of decomposed reeds and hardened minerals that serves as an anchoring island for the building. Kile are a precious commodity as they only form where the river flows into the lake, and they take 50 to 80 years to take shape.

The process of creating an efficient and effective design has been a collaborative effort. The Slikkers family, of S2 Yachts, Inc. in Holland, Michigan, contributed to the funding for the project, and shared their knowledge and resources from the boat-building industry.

According to Tom Slikkers, project coordinator, whose family moved to Puno to see this ambitious project accomplished over the past year, nautical engineers from the United States and engineers from the Lake Titicaca region joined with Maranatha to produce a design. Slikkers, who was joined by his father, wife and children, on the makeshift platform next to the newly constructed and painted church, could not hide his emotion as he talked about “perhaps the most challenging project for a boat builder team like ours.”

Earlier, he wrote in his online journal, “upon arrival, the floating church was secured and within 15 to 20 minutes, the church was flooded with Uro children and adults. They were all excited about their new church; it was a dream come true for many of them. Needless to say, it was extremely emotional to be a part of bringing this church to reality. The children sang and sang and sang. It was an awesome experience.”

“The volunteers always receive a greater blessing than they expect and typically return to their home churches with a much broader understanding of the world church and the importance of supporting missions,” Noble explained.

He added, “You can watch or hear hundreds of mission stories ...  but until you are involved personally, it usually does not really make an impact.”

All the challenges were par for the course for Maranatha, its leaders and volunteers. “These ‘centers of influence’ are designed to provide a continual witness to the honor and glory of our creator God and also to be an outreach in each community for the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” Noble stated. 

In the Sacred Valley

Each of the Peru church-building sites contributes differently to a mosaic of diverse challenges, and opportunities Adventists face here. Some regions of this ancient Andean country have only a few believers living in the awe-inspiring, ancient valleys, towns and villages. Noble explained the attraction offered by Peru’s Sacred Valley where the Pisac church is established.

“The Pisac church made an emotional impact on all of us that visited the site over a year ago,” he explained. “The church members were so enthusiastic and loving.  When we dedicated the church last week, it was a special blessing for those who made the first visit and also made the commitment to assist the group with a new memorial to God.  We have no doubt that the group of members will be even more enthusiastic about sharing Christ and will fill their new church,” Noble concluded.

At different stops—in Cuzco, Pisac, Machu Picchu and Puno—Paulsen, often remarked about the spirit of mission as exemplified in “the giving of oneself in the service of others,” and in the example of the Peruvian Adventists to their society. Whether speaking to the thousands of believers who gathered in near freezing evening weather at the Juliaca sports stadium, or at the dedication of the churches, he encouraged Adventist believers to be a “witnessing community for the Lord” wherever the believers live.

After the Uros church dedication, Paulsen told ANN, “I think [this church is] the first and only such one in the Adventist community globally, here on the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. It’s also very interesting that this is where we as a church began our work in Peru.”

He also referred to the work of Adventist missionaries who established an education system that “was of huge national importance, as well as important for our people.  It became a model for the government in how to give good education to our children. It became also a means of emancipation for women in this part of the country.”

The church is the largest building in the Uros and will also serve as a community center. Already, it is generating much buzz among the locals; a tour company has added the church to its list of sights to see while visiting the Uros.

Among the 750 celebrants who packed the floating village for the Uros church dedication was Wellesley Muir. For this retired, yet still active church pioneer, the brand new church dedication was a homecoming. It was in 1958 when as a church missionary Muir took a boat from Puno to the floating islands.

He reminisced that, “the very first time we came out here, they chased us off with long poles.  We came back the next time and we brought a translator and they did let us on the island and, little by little after many visits, the people began to accept us and eventually the young men we brought to translate volunteered to become the teachers.” Muir established the first Uros Islands school.

Muir commented on the Uros celebration: “I’m extremely happy, it’s beyond my highest imagination that this could happen.”

He recalled that in 1958 he came on a different boat than the one he just got off.

“The name of that boat was Maranatha.”

[Kyle Fiess contributed to this report ]