Portable church kits to meet needs of growing congregations July 1, 2008 Valle Hermoso, Ecuador ANN Staff

Adventists in Ecuador celebrate the opening of their new church, which took less than a day to build. The first One-Day Church constructed, it provides a do-it-yourself but durable permanent house of worship for the region's growing Adventist community. [photo: Kenneth Weiss/Maranatha Volunteers International]

Seventh-day Adventists in Valle Hermoso, Ecuador last month were the first recipients of a One-Day Church, a new Adventist Church and lay sponsored ready-to-assemble church that can be built within a day.

Maranatha Volunteers began construction on June 19 at 7:30 a.m. and finished by 4 p.m. Providing a framework and roof, the One-Day Church program leaves local members to finish the walls with readily available materials. By the end of the day, members had finished bamboo walls and had even brought in a platform, keyboard and 135 chairs.

"This is a community of believers who have waited for many years for a permanent house of worship, said Kyle Feiss, Maranatha's vice president for Marketing. "They saw the answers to their prayers realized in a few short hours."

Feiss said church members in Valle Hermoso seemed surprised with the pace of construction. "They did not believe that a church could be built in one day," he said.

The Valle Hermoso Adventist Church is a new church plant with relatively few members. But Bible workers have been studying with more than 75 people in the region, and 12 people were baptized at the church dedication the following Saturday morning.

The easily assembled, low-cost church kit is an effort to meet the needs of 200,000 Adventist congregations around the world that do not have a permanent church home.

In the coming months, Maranatha plans to construct and additional 66 One-Day Church projects in Ecuador and several One-Day School projects in rural parts of the country.

The structures are built with cost, quality, durability and portability in mind, said Maranatha supporter and businessman Garwin McNeilus, who helped launch the One-Day Church program. The basic building is easily adjusted to suit a variety of cultures and geographic areas, and the galvanized steel frame withstands termites, rust, heat and hurricanes.

A joint venture of Adventist-Laymen's Services and Industries and Maranatha with support from the Adventist Church, the One-Day Church is meant to meet the needs of some 200,000 congregations around the world that do not have a permanent church home.

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