The Brethren Church

Pastor Luis Angel and Zoraida Morillas (pictured here at the 2008 Brethren Church General Conference) are pastors in Lima, Peru.

To learn more about their ministry please read the information at the right of this page.

New for 2007, highlight videos have been made for our mission fields to better relate us with the culture and the life they live everyday. Italo & Rebecca Abuid and Luis Angel & Zoraida de Morillas are our February highlight from the country of Peru. Please be patient as the video loads.

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A diverse team of twenty-four people began the construction of an orphanage outside the town of Puerto Maldonado, Peru last June. Twelve people from the Mount Olive Brethren Church and twelve from the Florida District went to Peru to help our missionaries, Italo and Rebecca Abuid, begin to realize their vision.The twelve team members from the Mt. Olive Brethren Church flew out on Wednesday, June 14 with another team of six church members who planned to stay and work in Lima. They were met in Lima that night by members of the Lima Brethren Church and Pastor Luis Angel Morillas. Their bus broke down and they spent an hour in the middle of the night being transferred to the hostel by van. The young people from the church in Lima stayed with them until they were all settled in that night. The next morning the twelve members who were not staying in Lima returned to the Lima airport to meet the Florida group and fly on to Cuzco.

The group from Florida was diverse itself. Five members came from the First Brethren Church of Sarasota, four came from the Bansok (Korean) Church in Orlando, one came from the Iglesia de los Hermanos (the Sarasota Hispanic Brethren Church) and one came from another, non-Brethren church.

Many members of Team Amazon, as we affectionately called ourselves, had never met each other until they came together in the Lima airport. We boarded another jet there and flew to Cuzco, the capitol of the Incan Empire, high in the Andes Mountains at 12,000 feet. We did some sightseeing there and also traveled by train to see the mountaintop Incan city, Machu Picchu. On Saturday we flew on to Puerto Maldonado.

Lima and Cuzco were cool and dry but in Puerto Maldonado temperatures and humidity were in the nineties. Puerto Maldonado is a small city in the Amazon Jungle between the Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers. It is near the southeast border of Peru near Bolivia. Just upriver is the Tambopata Reserve, which is the most biodiverse area on Earth.

After settling in at the hotel Saturday morning we went to Italo Abuid’s family’s ranch to swim in the Tambopata River and cool off. On Sunday we worshiped at a church in town. After church we climbed into canoes and went to Monkey Island where we fed the monkeys crackers.

On Monday the work began. The team members climbed into the back of a truck that would take them to the construction site each day. It was a forty minute trip down a dirt road through the jungle. After a dedication service, the team members began digging twenty large holes. They were to be filled with concrete to support the rest of the orphanage foundation. We dug fast, hoping to complete the foundation quickly so that we could begin laying the cement block walls. The next day dashed those hopes.

Tuesday we learned that the water needed to mix cement, which we had carried by the bucket load, had leaked out of the lined hole that was supposed to contain it. Far worse, we found that the plans had been changed and half of the holes were in the wrong places. We spent the day working to overcome these setbacks. We were blessed to have an engineer, Eddie Shuff, and an architect, Jennifer Showalter, on our team. They were essential in working out the changes to the plans. By the end of the day we had overcome these setbacks.

Each night, after supper in the hotel restaurant, we would gather for devotions. That night we talked about how the amount of work we accomplished was not the main point of the trip. We could have accomplished more in construction if we had stayed home and used our travel money to hire local workers. We were there to work but we were also there to grow in our passion for God and missions and in our compassion for the Peruvian people. We were also there to encourage the Brethren in Peru. We agreed with the statement from team member Pete Hill: “I gave ten days of my life to God for this project. How He wants me to use it is up to Him.”

On Wednesday we dug the trenches to form the cement beams under the walls. We also continued to cut, straighten, bend and tie steel rods, “rebar,” to reinforce the concrete.

As is common with foreign travel, we had our share of sickness on the trip. Most days we were missing one or two team members who had to stay at the hotel because of illness. We were blessed again to have a nurse practitioner on the team, Pete Hill. Pete would be a great source of information to anyone planning a short-term mission trip. He could suggest some medications that should be packed. Praise the Lord and thanks to Pete, none of the illnesses became too serious.

We thought Thursday would be a total bust when we woke up to a downpour. Now we knew what they meant by the term “rain forest.” But the rain actually turned into good. We rode to the site in the rain and then it stopped, leaving the jungle overcast and cool. We worked longer and harder than ever. We finished the digging and started pouring concrete. This was done largely by hand, one wheelbarrow load at a time. We were grateful for a gas-powered mixer.

On Friday we finished tying rebar and poured concrete all day. We finished our week of work with concrete in all twenty holes, ten of which were completed. The foundation was over half finished.

This trip was more than construction work. Wonderful things happened along the way. Every night, the youth members of our team played soccer or football with the local children. One team member from the Bansok Church, Myung Kuh, found that one of the children knew the gospel story. He asked him to tell it to the other children. The others heard about Jesus for the first time. On Friday, Pastor Fred Miller bought all of the local children ice cream to say goodbye. Another team member from Bansok Church, Briana Park, told the rest of the team that the trip had changed her priorities.

We flew back to Lima, arriving on Saturday evening. We participated in a youth meeting at the Brethren Church. We were also able to worship with the church on Sunday morning. Then we did a little sightseeing and shopping before the Virginia team members had to fly out that night. The Florida members flew out the next morning. There were many tears as the new friends said goodbye that night.

The Abuids hired local workers and have completed the foundation and over half of the walls. Funds have run out so that is where it will stop until more is raised. The W.M.S. and the youth are taking on this project. Please pray about what you could do to support it as well.