Nor Cal District and the Mesoamerica Region Help Making Dream a Reality
After many months of hard work, this new initiative of the Nazarene Seminary of the Americas opened its doors on March 15th of this year.
The goal of this project was two-fold. First, we wanted to renovate the building that houses the library which will still be available. This building was one of the first constructed on our campus 50 years ago and was one of the few that had never been remodeled. Second, we wanted to take advantage of the underutilized space to develop a multiple-use space to benefit SENDAS. Since deciding to focus on decentralized education (mostly virtual in the last ten years), there have been few if any students to use the library as it was. SENDAS digitizes specific categories of books and articles of educational value for specific courses wich are sent to library users.
This is what brought forth the idea of Natura Cowork “The nature of your ideas,” which has adapted and modernized the library building to offer a place that not only provides the SENDAS team with a comfortable meeting space but also offers a source of revenue through its rental to professionals, entrepreneurs, and others.
On the day of the inauguration, Dr. Ruben Fernandez said, “The resources that Natura Cowork generates will be directly applied to the goal of this institution which is equipping with the greatest excellence the greatest number of ministers possible for the extension of the kingdom of God. In one of the offices one can read one of my favorite verses of Scripture from Proverbs 16:3 NIV: ‘Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.’ This is exactly what we did with the SENDAS leadership committee. From the beginning we put this initiative into God’s hands, and although it seemed almost impossible, He opened every door so that today it is a reality.”
This project was possible thanks to funding provided by SENDAS through its local administration of campus funds as well as two other sources of funding who we would like to thank: The Mesoamerica regional director, Dr. L. Carlos Saenz, regional director, and the Northern California District, our strategic partner. Our special thanks to the NorCal District Superintendent, Rev. Albert Hung, for his missional vision and ongoing support.
SENDAS would like to thank Rev. Andres Fernandez as well for the original idea and all his efforts to make this dream a reality. Additionally, we thank our administrative dean, Mary Anais Rojas, our academic dean, Marco Velasco, our librarian, Myrza Alvarado, and our SENDAS graphic designer, Natanael Sojo. We also thank the wife of Nathanael, Katherine, for working with interior design.
We offer additional thanks to Gabriel Rojas Navarro for the building design; pastor and engineer Carlos Zamoran and his team for helping us with the renovation; and engineer David Alfaro for his security supervision, especially during electrical installation.
To all the member of the SENDAS team both academic as well as administrative, our maintenance crew and to all who could not be mentioned here but contributed to much in other ways, thank you!
