After Almost 60 Years, Volunteer Returns to the Country Where She Grew Up

For most of Greeneville Adventist Academy’s 29 volunteers, a mission trip to Paraguay was full of new experiences. Students of the Seventh-day Adventist institution in Greeneville, Tennessee, United States, laid block walls for the Tacuaraty Seventh-day Adventist congregation’s new church building, led children’s ministry programs, and helped treat roughly 900 patients at vision clinics in five locations. But for Cheryl Mathews, an adult sponsor on the trip, it was a homecoming. “I just figured I’d never go back,” she remarked. “But when [my grandsons] said they were going to Paraguay, I said, ‘Well, I have to go.’ ”

Starting in 1953, Mathews lived in Paraguay with her parents from age 2 to 15 while her father started an Adventist hospital there. Mathews places great value on her early mission experience. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she said. “You learn a new culture. I think it makes you much more tolerant of other people and different ways of doing things.”

For this reason Mathews was excited to see Greeneville students, including her two grandsons, tackle challenging church construction with enthusiasm. “They worked really hard in the hot sun, laying blocks and mixing cement,” she said. “By the end of the time we were there, we held church inside. We had our first Sabbath meeting in the church, and I think that was really special.” This sign of church growth in Paraguay was especially touching for Mathews. “It was just really special knowing that when my dad first went down there, there were just a handful of Adventists–to now knowing that there are [growing] churches.”

Mathews put her Spanish knowledge to use, translating for the project’s vision clinics. “There’s not much health care in that area,” she remarked. “We took I don’t know how many extra suitcases of glasses and three to four bins of sunglasses to hand out.” By project’s end the vision team had served roughly 900 patients.

Overall, the project encouraged Christlike selflessness among Greeneville students. “I think that in [the United States] we have a lot of material goods, and we get really involved in ourselves,” Mathews said. “[Service] instills in you the importance of having a connection with Jesus. I think it makes you realize that you can do something to help spread the gospel to others.”

Maranatha renovated a church building in Paraguay from 1988 to 1989 and built more church structures and classrooms from 2001 to 2002. This work helped lay the foundation for Paraguay’s Adventist Church expansion in recent years. The church now has 15,000 baptized members, but will struggle to grow further without reliable places of worship. Maranatha returned to the South American country in 2024 to meet this need.

The original version of this story was posted by Maranatha Volunteers International. Maranatha Volunteers International is a nonprofit supporting ministry and is not operated by the corporate Seventh-day Adventist Church.