BY BILL KNOTT

E DRAWS A DEEP BREATH, steadies himself, and gently places the elegantly decorated top layer of the wedding cake atop a pedestal of three overturned long-stemmed goblets. The towering creation on the tabletop is 38 inches high, a testament to nerve and skill and balance.

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He draws a deep breath, steadies himself, and pours the latest batch of concrete into the wooden frame of what will be a mission school dormitory's bathroom floor. His practiced eye scans for tiny imperfections in the gray mass. In moments it will begin to set, and a generation of students will live and walk upon his horizontal masterpiece.

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For most of us, the skills required to whip up a wedding cake and to whip up a batch of concrete do not come in the same package. But for Henry Livergood, longtime food service director at Atlantic Union College (AUC), it's all part of a day's--or at least a year's--work. The man who has created nearly 40,000 meal menus on a Massachusetts campus during the past four decades is now re-creating a Venezuelan mission school campus one cinder block and one rafter at a time.

It is another kind of testament to nerve and skill and balance.

Adventist Review associate editor Bill Knott recently spent an hour with the man known simply by his first name to four decades of AUC students, faculty members, and community residents. To the 160 students and the faculty of Colegio Gran Sabana Indian School in St. Elena, Venezuela, though, Henry is something more: he's the big and bighearted norteamericano who every year puts his money--and his menus--where their needs are.

I discovered a while back that you spend your vacation every year working on some phase of what seems to be a massive project to rebuild this special school for indigenous Adventist believers. With all due respect, Henry, you're not a young man anymore. What drives you to keep doing this?
Well, about six years ago I made a commitment to the leaders of the school and the union mission that I would help them get Colegio Gran Sabana on its feet if they would pledge to keep it open, even if the times got tough. They've kept their part of the bargain, and with God's help, I'm going about keeping mine.

This school is a long, long way from the one you work at. How did you happen to pick Gran Sabana as a place to help?
While I was on a project in 1995 remodeling the cafeteria at Venezuelan Adventist University (Instituto Universitario Adventista de Venezuela) in Nirgua, a delegation from the Gran Sabana school came up to talk with us, and they showed us a video of the school. It was obvious from the video that there was a tremendous need there, but we told them that we couldn't do it because it was too remote--it takes two days of travel from Boston to get there--and the expense would be prohibitive. "I'm just one person from a small Adventist college," I told them. "You want to remodel and rebuild a whole campus." A few years later, however, when I was back in the region for the dedication of a church we had helped to build, church leaders gave us tickets to fly down to St. Elena. The conditions were just as difficult as we had seen in the pictures four years earlier, and the school's financial problems put it right on the brink of closing. But this time the Lord made it clear that it was a project we should do.

Did you have any idea when you began rallying people and collecting materials and raising funds that it might take this long or require the kind of funding it has?
Oh, I had a fairly good idea when I first saw the campus that it wasn't going to be the kind of project you could finish in 10 days and send everybody home happy. The condition of the buildings on the campus meant that we had to develop something like a master plan for redoing it one building at a time.

How much have you finished of your master plan so far?
Our visit in 1999 was just to set up the overall project. Our work crews have been there, usually over the Christmas school vacation, every year since. Thus far we've built or rebuilt two dormitories and a large 32' x 32' bathroom and sewer system, remodeled the kitchen, and made good progress on an industry--a bakery--for the school.

Give me a sense of the size and program of the Gran Sabana school.
The school offers six years of Adventist education, from about grade 7 through what we term high school, for about 160 students. Some of the kids are very young, while others are in their 20s. Almost all of the students are from the Maurak Indian group, which is part of a tribe better known to Adventists as the Davis Indians. Many of them come from homes deep in their interior, 10 to 12 hours' walk from the school. The Davis Indians have a long history with Adventism that goes back to the dreams given to one of their tribal chiefs nearly a hundred years ago, and an Elder Davis who began missionary work among them. [The story of the Davis Indians has been told in Jewels From Green Hell, by Betty Cott, Review and Herald Publishing Association; and Jungle Adventurer, by Eileen Lantry, Pacific Press Publishing Association.]

How many people do you need to make one of these annual projects happen?
Oh, usually a few more than we have! Many of the college students have gone on to serve as student missionaries, and after college, in mission service. Some of our older participants have made really life-changing choices to give more time serving in mission. We've recruited as few as 15 and as many as 60 persons for our construction trips. Usually we've been fortunate to have skilled contractors along. But all the time, we've been blessed with a lot of willing hands.

Since you work on a campus, I'm assuming you draw quite a number of college students to these mission trips.
Yeah, a bunch of college students and young adults, but we've actually had persons in their 80s join us on a trip. My mother--at age 90--went with us one year, and she'd had a hip replacement six months earlier! And though a lot of our participants come from New England, we've attracted people from California, Kansas, Indiana, Maryland--all around the U.S.

I can imagine that the finances for getting participants to the Gran Sabana projects are pretty complex.
To say the least! Each person is asked to raise or bring $1,000 to cover airfare to Caracas, busfare to the site, overnight lodging on the way, insurance, and food. And from that we also pay the food costs for local helpers who join us on the project. For some of our group, that's a modest enough figure. But some who go with us need a lot of help in reaching their $1,000 portion. Every year I make contacts with dozens, even hundreds, of people in this area and around the country to ask for their support. And through the Lord's grace it always comes in just when we need it.

Tell me a story about how the Lord makes it work.
One December several years ago, I made all the appeals I could think of and still came up about $2,600 short--$2,650 to be exact. I still had seven or eight students who very much wanted to join us, but didn't have all their money raised, and couldn't seem to get any more. Just after Christmas I decided to call several people who had promised to support the project but who hadn't come through with the money yet. To a person, they were still eager to help. They said things such as, "Oh, I'll give you $500," or "Stop by my house tomorrow, and I'll give you another $1,000." When I finished remembering all the people who had pledged to help, and contacted each one, I had the exact amount we needed--$2,650! That convinced me once again that the Lord is really in this project.

He doesn't tempt us with more than we can handle, does He?
No, the Lord never gives His money to us just to collect interest on it.

You've described the costs only for getting team members there. Who pays for all the construction materials--the framing, the concrete, the wiring?
That part of each project the Lord is responsible for--and I get to help! Our first project--a dormitory--needed around $24,000. The second dormitory cost about $15,000. The bathroom was close to $30,000, and the bakery cost about $50,000.

So while operating a full-service college cafeteria 48 weeks a year, catering dozens of events in the community, and assisting the Atlantic Union Pathfinder program, you've also raised another $200,000 for building supplies?
The Lord has blessed our work with some very generous people. Most of it comes in through small donations from people who like the idea of seeing one place--one school--worked on year after year until it really represents what an Adventist campus ought to be.

Do you sometimes get donations of materials for your projects?
Do we ever! When we first began, we were given dozens of unneeded beds and nightstands from several nursing homes in New York and Massachusetts. I was on a committee to design a new kitchen here at the youth camp in Southern New England Conference, and I persuaded the conference to donate almost all of their old kitchen equipment. Most recently we were given $20,000 worth of biology and chemistry equipment for the school, a complete woodshop with all the equipment, and a complete dental outfit with X-rays. On our latest trip we took down two dozen used computers and 16 sewing machines. Now, getting the electricity in a remote place like Gran Sabana for computers and sewing machines is no little job. We've essentially had to rewire the whole campus as we have worked on these projects year after year.

Tell me what a typical day on one of your projects is like.
Henry: Well, we're usually up at 6:00, and by 6:45 we're having breakfast, with worship at 7:15. We get to the work site by around 7:45 and work on whatever our task is--pouring concrete, framing, painting, plumbing, wiring, moving dirt, whatever--until about noon. You can be sure that a food service guy like me sees that the food is good and gives everyone a one-hour lunch break! If it's really hot, we'll take an extra hour and then come back and work till as late as 6:00.

You obviously can't be everywhere at once, and I'm guessing that there are probably a few skills that even you don't have. Do you get any professional help on the site?
The Lord has helped me find local contractors from here in Massachusetts who go with us on these projects, and He's also brought an Adventist contractor from Nirgua to help us do many things we couldn't get done otherwise. It takes Carlos Franco nearly 24 hours to drive by car or truck from his home in Nirgua to the school, but he comes down about every six weeks to keep things moving. And he's even paid his construction workers to come down and give us their labor. And he gets nothing for it: he donates all that time and energy.

Oh, I'm pretty sure he gets something for it, Henry. Scripture says there is a crown of righteousness laid up someday for people like Carlos.|
Absolutely. There sure is. And God is blessing his business even now. When you take care of the needs of God's work, He takes care of your needs.

You've said that you expect this project to go on for several more years--that you've got a lot more to do on the Gran Sabana campus. What will the next phase include?
The next stage is to build classrooms. There are two long sections of the campus buildings that are used for academics. One has the library, the administrative offices, and a classroom, and the other side has about four classrooms. We're going to be expanding the classrooms, adding at least six more classrooms, and making the roof strong enough so that sometime in the future if they need to expand still further, they can put on a second level.

You mentioned something about an industry for the school--a bakery, I think. Tell me about that.
Well, you'd expect a chef to want to make sure that food quality is high, and that the school could make some profit. We've actually formed a company, with several of us who go each year on these projects serving as officers. And we've set it up so that the local operation has guidance from those of us who are experienced in such things. The bakery is set up to make money and to reinvest its early profits in fixing machinery, buying needed equipment, getting their product to stores, whatever.

Interested in knowing more about this project? Here's contact information you may find helpful: Henry Livergood Food Service Director Atlantic Union College South Lancaster, MA 01561 (978) 368-2314 Fax: (978) 368-2014 E-mail: dhlivergood@juno.com Gran Sabana School (Colegia Gran Sabana) Aldea de Maurak Gran Sabana, Venezuela 58 (289) 414-5304

Sounds like you're doing some teaching about an effective business model as well.
(Smiling): Well, it's supposed to be a school, after all, isn't it? Actually, we're all in the learning business, even some of us old folks who've been around a while--we're still learning.

What kind of reception have you had from the students and faculty at the school?
I can't begin to tell you how heartwarming it has been to see their gratitude--and their hard work to help us help them. Twenty-two kids stayed during one of our Christmastime trips to help us build the school bathroom. When we discovered that they were a total of US$7,000 short on their school tuition at the end of the semester, the Lord helped us find a way to raise those funds here in Massachusetts to keep those kids in school. Another time we raised money among our crew to buy their soccer team some uniforms--22 in all. The next day, before we left for home, at 5:00 a.m. they were standing outside our windows in their Sabbath best, singing the most beautiful hymns to us.

Moments like that make it all worthwhile, don't they?
More than any of us can say.

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Bill Knott is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.