The children’s festival held on 1st September lured 800 children and their parents into Diospi Suyana’s Amphitheatre. The children’s clubs are our organisation’s oldest sector of work. Currently they are being run by the Peruvian Gladys Hurtado. Since 2005 countless Curahuasi children have experienced love, recognition and encouragement.
The 10 year-old Ittai Schwieger, living in El Paso Texas read the youth book about Diospi Suyana “Hope in the Andes.” The contents gripped him so acutely that he felt that he just must help and asked his church for support. This resulted in him being given all sorts of things which he sold at a jumble sale, raising $675 for our missionary hospital.
At a guess private persons have organised over 1,000 events in order to raise funds for Diospi Suyana. Birthdays and wedding anniversaries,
stalls at Christmas markets, charity concerts, gala-dinners and wastepaper collections have all supported our work financially and raised public awareness.
On 20th September a memorable meeting took place in the Company Streifeneder in Emmering near Munich. Our Orthopaedic Workshop was the object of negotiation. The company’s offer was €46,000. Dr Klaus John and Daniel Müller presented Diospi Suyana’s vision to Michael Leitmair, Streifeneder’s CEO. The result was more than just satisfactory: Streifeneder reduced the amount by €20,000; €10,000 were paid by both by the Bauder-Stiftung from Stuttgart and by the company Flörke from Obertshausen. After exporting the equipment to Peru we got VAT back; this meant that we only had to pay €2,000 – absolutely fantastic!
In Peru the left-liberal newspaper Caretas filled one of its October editions with six pages about the topic Diospi Suyana. Chief Editor, Marco Zileri, himself an atheist, gave his report, written end of September, the following headline: “Here they believe that God is visible.” Zileri had attended our 10th anniversary celebrations and writes this interesting sentence in his article: “In Curahuasi the State is invisible, but God is visible!”
The first Diospi-Suyana-Missionary-Festival took place in Wiesbaden from 6th to 8th October. On Sunday morning the Christuskirche, with a capacity of 500, had standing room only. Ulrich Parzany held the celebratory sermon. Many participants expressed their wish: “Please do not wait another ten for the next Festival!”
From 21st October to 5th November John Lentink and Dr John were on presentation tour through the Netherlands and gave 14 talks in front of Christians and Non-Christians.
On 29th October the NDR TV broadcast a programme about Family Rosenkranz and Diospi Suyana. A camera-team had spent a couple of days with the two paedagogues, Jonathan and Mandy Rosenkranz.
TV Channel ATV broadcast an 11 minute documentary about Diospi Suyana on 27th November following which thousands visited our website and we were receiving several email from all across the country for the next couple of days.
On 6th December Serco presented Olaf Böttger with the “Serco Pulse Award” in recognition of his social commitment for the Peruvian people. The award ceremony took place at Farnham Castle near London. Kevin Craven, CEO of UK & Europe, personally presented the award.
Serco that specialises in innovative technologies (also in IT-networks) has over 30,000 employees in 11 European countries. Olaf Böttger was the only German employee to receive this prestigious distinction. For 15 years now Olaf – born in Frankfurt – has been the honorary chairman of the Diospi Suyana Organisation.
“Management & Krankenhaus” (Management & Hospital) lands on the desks of hospital directors and nursing staff. The cover-page of its last edition before Christmas dealt with Diospi Suyana.
The report concludes with the words: “Diospi Suyana has attracted worldwide interest through more than 500 media reports. How this hospital came into being and how it functions on a day to day basis are exceptional. Great Britain’s BBC once called it a combination of “Medicine, Money and Miracles”. A TV coverage from Germany’s Deutsche Welle that was broadcast in four languages across the world, called it “A Hospital of Faith”. But irrespective of what one might think of its story, Diospi Suyana has stood the test of time. And all the collected evidence points to the conclusion that at the end of our days faith, hope and love will count more than elbows and quick profits.”
On 29th December three babies were born at the Hospital Diospi Suyana. One of the three was Finn Elia. The son of Matthias Besold (Head of Administration) and his wife Catharina weighed 2,780g and measured 47cm.
Diospi Suyana thanks all our friends scattered across the world for all your help and support over the past year. Your prayers and financial gifts have made it possible for us to continue living the dream of Diospi Suyana in 2017. We wish all of you a good start to 2018 and pray for God’s blessing upon us all./KDJ