Pasos Surenos

Project Completed
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Pasos Surenos

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Project Manager: Diane Archibald & Amor Chavez

Pasos Surenos (formerly "Mapuche Quest") is a project to assist the Mapuche Indians of Chile, to enhance the living conditions of Mapuche communities by providing improved health care, skills training and day care.

Pasos Surenos began when a four-hectare piece of land was donated right in the heart of the reservation. The first goal was to gain the natives' trust by understanding and living in the harsh, but beautiful, mountain environment. A traditional Mapuche house, known as a ruca, was built and the Pasos Surenos staff planted trees, as well as put in water, and an electrical system. Devastating storms in 2000 left many of the reservations totally isolated, and Pasos Surenos moved their base of operation to a more centralized town.

Pasos Surenos workshops includes classes allowing young people of Mapuche heritage the ability to secure a working knowledge of the English language, coupled with ways of finding gainful employment. In exchange they ask a minimum or exchange of whatever they can give us, from eggs, chicken or grains, etc. 

Pasos Surenos hopes to provide a Cultural Center where the Mapuche can offer their crafts and maintain the integrity of their cultural heritage.

Villarrica, Chile


MQ team sorting 1600 kgs of used clothing for distribution

Mariella and family receiving donated items from Pasos Surenos and FEDES.

Volunteers preparing to distribute needs in the community

Background on the Mapuche

The Mapuche (which means ''people of the earth'') are the natives indigenous to Chile, who have only been exposed to the 'civilized' world during the last 100 years. There are over one million Mapuche in Chile, over 75% living in the Araucania region. They manage to survive in extreme living conditions, still using horses and oxen as means of transportation, growing and harvesting what they can from the natural resources they have around them.

Meet a Mapuche Family

Mariella and Pedro are a couple who we've known for three years now. Shortly after we met their family, Mariella asked us to pray for her children, as they were plagued by nightmares, and she also was having trouble sleeping. Sometime later, her daughter came running over to our place and asked me to go and pray for her mother, claiming she was dying! It turned out that Mariella had a fallopian tube pregnancy and it had ruptured inside. When I arrived, Mariella a high fever and her face was white. She was surrounded by her family in a small room not much bigger than her bed. After I prayed for Mariella's healing, she immediately opened her eyes and said “I knew you would come, and you brought Jesus with you”. Almost immediately, she regained her color and her fever was down. We took her to the Hospital and the doctor himself said it was a miracle; that by all practical logic she should have died.