Michigan and Wisconsin—In Nov. 2007, Chrystique Neibauer, an Estey (Mich.) Church member, and Mellisa Hoffman, a Clare (Mich.) church member, felt impressed to raise money for a projector for the Seventh-day Adventist church in Urubamba, Peru. They decided the easiest way to get people to give money was to ask for their pennies, so they passed out 89 containers in the Estey, Clare, Edenville and Gladwin (Mich.) churches, and so began the Pennies for Peru project.
The containers filled with pennies. Other donations from members of those four churches and some non-church members as well as from four members of the Wisconsin Rapids (Wis.) Church and a spaghetti fund-raiser dinner in the Edenville Church raised more than Neibauer and Hoffman ever dreamed of. In two months, they not only had the $1,500 needed for a projector for Ruben Ccari Lampa, pastor of the Urubamba Church, but another $1,168.01! In the past two years Lampa, who has 28 churches, has baptized 400 people and has set his sights on 1,000 this year!
The girls decided the extra money would go to the Huampani (Peru) Church which Hoffman helped build four years ago on a Maranatha trip and where two years ago Neibauer painted a mural of John baptizing Jesus.
In January, these two "missionaries" stuffed their four allotted suitcases full of things for the people of Peru, took a minimum of things for themselves, and just barely made the airline weight restrictions. They packed 15 dress pants donated by an Edenville Church member. Hoffman and Neibauer also purchased vitamins to take. Another blessing was received when some physicians and dentists in Michigan donated things like toothpaste, tooth brushes, soaps, surgical gloves, pain-relievers, etc., to take as "care packages," something the two have done themselves in the past.
On this trip Hoffman and Neibauer saw windows installed in the church where there had been none, and know of many other changes that will come, like concrete rooms for the children's classes instead of the corrugated metal they now have, and a much needed TV and DVD player—all because of the Pennies for Peru project.
Two hundred dollars also went to the Hearts Café, a non-profit organization in Ollyantaytambo, which gives all of its profits to women's and children's projects in the Sacred Valley.
While Neibauer and Hoffman have no idea when they will again return to Peru, they have promised the pastor, and others who are devoted to this last-day work there, that they will send more money as it comes in. More Pennies for Peru containers are still to be turned in, and others are saving again.
If these two church members can do this in two months, think what each of us could do if we set our minds to it.
Rhonda Whetstone Neibauer, communication secretary, Wisconsin Rapids Seventh-day Adventist Church
For additional information about the Pennies for Peru project, visit www.cqgraphicdesign.com/pennies_for_peru_cq.html. To learn more about Hearts Café, visit www.heartscafe.org/index.html.
