There has been a growing trend for the past decade. Members of various Seventh Day Adventist churches from Midwest United States have chosen to escape their wintery surroundings in exchange for tropical temps. However, these sojourners are not looking for beaches, sunbathing, or a relaxing holiday. Instead, they choose to trade their post winter break for an opportunity in service to others.
Historically this group of “Spring Breakers” have comprised of church members from primarily five SDA churches in the Midwest: Cicero SDA Church (Cicero, IN), Village SDA Church (Berrien Springs, MI), Stevensville SDA Church (Stevensville, MI), Gobles SDA Church, (Gobles, MI) and the Mt. Pleasant SDA Church (Mt. Pleasant, MI). Over the years, participants have included individuals from all parts of the North America including Oregon, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and British Columbia. During the recent March 2024 trip, the group was accompanied by congregational members from the Niles Westside SDA Church (Niles, MI).
Though mission efforts over spring break is nothing new for SDA organizations and institutions, what is unique about the SDA ministry in El Salvador is the storied history of lay people moving in faith to bring the Gospel to El Salvador. This is a history that began over 80 years ago by two missionaries, Orley & Lilian Ford. At the time of their arrival in the early 1940’s the SDA faith did not have a presence in El Salvador. Fast forward to 2024, and the country now has over 200,000 SDA members in a land mass ¼ the size of Indiana.
One of the Ford’s dreams was to establish an SDA primary and secondary boarding school within El Salvador. However, at the time of Orley Ford’s passing in 1972, that vision had not become a reality, and yet, the idea had taken root. With the aid of the Ford’s son Robert (Eldon) and wife Venessa, the vision continued to be cultivated until in 1981 (40 years after the Ford’s arrival to El Salvador), 400 acres were purchased to start the Adventist Training School of El Salvador, also known in El Salvador as ECAS.
In 1982 construction began, and by 1983 an SDA primary and secondary boarding school opened to 50 enrolled students. Over the next decade the campus grew to accommodate nearly 300 boarding students. 20 years later, by 2014, ECAS had experienced growth in enrollment, with over 700 daily students. However, in time, infrastructure began to deteriorate, and the dorms had become nearly uninhabitable.
It was in that same year, 2014, that our group of five Midwestern churches, informally collaborated to build churches in El Salvador. The group would eventually call themselves Reach Out Ministries, a name that would become synonymous for the grass roots mission efforts in El Salvador. Their initial efforts were to conduct annual visits to El Salvador and build a couple churches per trip. It was during the logistics planning for their annual trip that Reach Out Ministries learned of ECAS and found it could serve as a base of operations for their annual mission trip.
This began a decades long relationship between Reach Out Ministries (ROM) and the Adventist Training School of El Salvador (ECAS). By 2017, ROM sponsored the renovations of the ECAS girls’ dormitory. And within a year, discussions began about expanding ECAS into higher education to provide the desperately needed training for local pastors.
The successful growth of the SDA faith in El Salvador had amounted to over 200,000 members, constituting over 1,000 SDA church congregations served by a national pastoral team of under 100 pastors.
The strain on the church growth is from lack of available pastors. The nearest theological training is in Costa Rica at a cost of $18,000/year. That’s nearly 5 years wages for a typical El Salvadorian. In 2019, after a lot of prayer and faith in God’s will for an El Salvadorian SDA pastoral training facility, Reach Out Ministries moved forward with plans to develop what would be called Orley Ford Adventist University.
In January of 2020, groundbreaking was held for the University, and plans were laid for a mission trip of 200 volunteers to occur during spring-break, later that March. The day the mission trip was to have begun, El Salvador shut its doors due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, and the project had to be postponed.
By the summer of 2021 the project was greenlighted to move forward, and construction workers began installing the foundations for the college. The postponed 2020 mission trip was now back on for the March 2022 spring-break.
Over the 3 years (post Covid) since ROM was able to resume operations, six mission trips have been conducted to advance construction on the university project and other structures. The boys’ and girls’ dorm, along with the Medical Clinic have been renovated. The Cafeteria Kitchen has grown with completion of phase one of a three phase expansion. A new outdoor dining and meeting pavilion was constructed.
And during the March 2024 mission trip, 220 volunteers descended onto the ECAS campus to not only begin construction on a new Bunk & Bath House, to accommodate the numerous SDA groups that use ECAS for their various gatherings and retreats, but also to participate in the dedication of the 30,000 square foot, Orley Ford University.
The dedication of Orley Ford University was attended by over 3,000 visitors, and was further blessed with the participation from various US conference leaders. Elder Ken Denslow, Lake Union President, Elder Vic Van Schaik, Indiana Conference president, and Elder Bob Cundiff, Ohio Conference president.
During the 10-day trip, volunteers visited supermax prisons (with permission to distribute The Great Controversy, Steps to Christ, and Bibles with Bible Studies), served over 100 medical patients, over 100 dental patients and over 50 physical therapy patients, rolled and brushed over 115 gallons of paint on the boys dorm and the new university, conducted five Vacation Bible School sessions to over 150 children at neighboring SDA primary schools, cleaned the grounds of the ECAS campus, served over 11,000 meals, and laid over 3,000 concrete blocks towards construction of the new Bath & Bunk House.
This decade long grass roots effort in El Salvador, by church congregations led by pastors seeking to first serve others before addressing their own local needs, has resulted for the SDA Church in El Salvador, the construction of nearly 150 churches, the renovation and expansion of the ECAS campus buildings and the construction of a new 30,000 ft² University facility, that will soon serve as the only boarding school of higher education in El Salvador.
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Mat. 9:37-38
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Daniel Bacchiocchi is an architect and builder. Today he operates an architectural and construction business in Michigan as well as a non-profit building mission organization, Master’s Builders, Inc., supporting SDA efforts in financially depressed communities around the world.
