SEQUIM — Returning to Guatemala for the second time in 14 years, former Dungeness Community Church youth pastor David Piper sees his upcoming mission trip as an opportunity to finish a project his father connected with personally.
“I’m excited; it’s the culmination of my dad’s life and love,” Piper said. “I get to complete my father’s work with my hands.”
On Friday, Piper and a team of eight other men, mostly Sequim residents, will begin the journey to Chimaltenango, Guatemala, to work with a local Bethel Ministries International team building four houses and distributing 50 wheelchairs to families in need. They plan to work through April 29.
One of those houses comes from a donation from Piper’s late father, Mike — a Sequim real estate agent, Costco samples demonstrator and touring comedian who family members say loved being around people.
David Rivers, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel Sequim, said Mike Piper attended the same church and he became a father figure to him.
“He’s one of the most vivacious people, a tour de force of Sequim,” Rivers said.
Mike Piper donated to Bethel Ministries International in December despite never going to Guatemala, in part because he knew what the mission meant to his son, and that it’d help a single mother, similar to how he was raised, David Piper said.
“He thought it was so cool to help a single mom get a house,” he said.
Mike Piper died on Jan. 11, and his son said he felt a need days later to contact the mission team in Chimaltenango to see if he could help build the house. The missionaries agreed.
This house benefits a single mother of three who lost her husband less than a year ago in a construction accident.
David Piper said she works as a housekeeper making $21 a week and lives in a home made of scrap metal and a dirt floor with no water, drainage or electricity.
His team has about $4,000 remaining on a fundraising goal for a fourth home to be built.
One donation site is set up at gofundme.com/f/mike-piper-memorial-home-build and a tax-deductible donation through the missionaries under the “Mike Piper Memorial House Build” is at tinyurl.com/SEQpiper.
All donations go toward construction and equipment and anything over the total will support future efforts, David Piper said.
Continued effort
Last July, David Piper went with Rivers and another friend to the area to build two houses and distribute 25 wheelchairs. It was Piper’s first trip to the country since 2008 when he was on a mission there.
Rivers said he was impressed with the operations and impact the established missionaries living in Chimaltenango have on the people through building housing and repairing and sharing wheelchairs.
“It’s almost indescribable,” he said. “People are really struggling and to see families gain mobility through something so simple as a wheelchair is at the same time heartbreaking and inspiring.”
Missionaries are well received in the area, David Piper said, and politicians see them as a benefit. They were honored in front of the town and given traditional hats, he said.
Rivers said their role is to assist and highlight the ongoing work there, such as the crew who continually refurbish wheelchairs for locals.
The July trip was Piper’s first to Guatemala since 2008 when he finished a three-month mission there.
In 2007, David Piper had just come out of a long term relationship, so he and a few friends went to Central America and partied for 40 days. Afterward, he said felt the need to do something more meaningful and connected with his friend’s parents who were missionaries in Chimaltenango.
One of the pivotal moments for his spiritual journey, David Piper said, came while he fell ill and two girls offered him money to help. Last July, he got the opportunity to see and thank the girls again.
“That changed my life,” he said. “It was just one of those beautiful moments.”
Three months from 2007-2008 as a missionary were when “God captured my heart,” he said.
“Life has not been the same since then.”
Piper’s family has called Sequim home since 1997 after moving from California as a pre-teen. After 13 years as a youth pastor in Dungeness, he and his wife moved to Portland to attend Western Seminary full-time in 2020.
Find David Piper’s mission fundraiser link at gofundme.com/f/mike-piper-memorial-home-build.
________
Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.
