By Sidney Needles
Photos taken by Ed Jensen

This June, Milo Adventist Academy was the destination of 75 volunteers from across the country. The trip was organized by Maranatha Volunteers International, a supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Team members spent two weeks completing various maintenance tasks. Their largest project was sprucing up the gymnasium with new paint, windows, and siding.

“Probably the most important thing was the gym. It was an obvious eyesore,” said Jeffrey Birth, a teacher at Milo Academy and coordinator on the project. “We poured a lot of concrete as well and put new lighting and new ceiling tiles in the [administration] building basement classrooms.”

Birth knows firsthand how crucial Maranatha projects are for the campus. “Milo was built in the late fifties and early sixties … so here we are many years later than that. Some of the buildings have upgrades and some have not,” he said. “If you take a large campus–our campus is 475 acres–and of course older facilities, oftentimes there’s no way that those needs can be met because just the labor of the staff is using the funds from tuition,” he explained.

Maranatha has helped maintain Milo’s facilities since 1989, when the very first volunteer team remodeled staff housing. Since then, numerous groups have worked at the school, creating a lasting impact. “What it has allowed is for our campus to actually be brought up to some more modern standards, and repair things that have fallen into disrepair over the years,” said Birth. “The difference from a decade ago until now is just a night and day difference.”

But volunteers’ work is about more than just appearances. “The mission is to have students to reach for Jesus. And so if the facilities are more appealing … students are going to be more interested in coming. Parents are going to be more interested in coming here,” Birth remarked. “I think even though looks aren’t everything, looks are a lot. It speaks to the care we have for the school. Bringing it up to speed is a key role in getting students here.

Maranatha Volunteers International mobilizes volunteers to build churches, schools, water wells, and other urgently needed structures around the world, including North America. Since 1969, Maranatha has constructed more than 16,000 structures and more than 3,500 water wells in nearly 90 countries.