Our Story
New England Wellness and
Educational Center (NEWEC) was formed in 2007 by a group of
Adventist laymen who had seen God work in miraculous ways.
In 2007 it was the intention of the MMI board to sell the
Harrisville NH property. MMI had struggled for many years.
There had been good times, happy times and sad times but it
seemed that in later years, they could not get a foothold.
Many of the individuals that presently lived on the property
felt in their hearts, that there was still a work to be done
in New Hampshire and New England. However, progress was
hampered by long distance administration and they thought it
might be more effective if the whole process was local.
So in 2007 this group of individuals addressed the MMI board
with the proposition of buying the property. The MMI board
was willing, but doubtful, that NEWEC could make this
transition or come up with the funding. Indeed, they were
correct because it was way beyond the capabilities of the
laymen that came forward to the MMI board and those laymen
knew it. However, it was that persistent probing of the
heart that they felt was the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Just to be sure that it was the Holy Spirit and not some
other spirit trying to work against God they put a fleece
out to the Lord. These laymen asked the Lord, "if it was
indeed He, that was spurring them forward that He would
provide the needed 501C-3 or non-profit status, and if it
was not He then to just make the non-profit status
inaccessible" and then they could let go in good faith and
consciousness.
After being told that the government had cracked down on
non-profits, and it was unlikely that they would receive
non-profit status, and if they did, it would take up to two
to three years. On a beautiful day in April 2008 a number of
board members were urgently pressed by the Holy Spirit to
pray because NEWEC's application was being brought before
the government. About 3 weeks later we received our
non-profit tax ID number.
We knew then that the Holy Spirit was indeed the one
pressing our hearts. We immediately began working to
renovate the Wellspring House and put a sprinkler system in.
The money for the sprinkler system came from a gift that had
been willed to NEWEC even before we considered buying the
place. We had been praying for how to best spend this money.
Miracle #1 was that even before we began to pray or
be impressed to buy MMI, the Lord had already gone to work.
Without this money we could not have sprinkled the
Wellspring House. Not being sprinkled, we could not have
rented it out to "The Mission", or in any other capacity.
Without the income from this building we could not have
survived through the purchase nor could we have done any of
the other work.
We then sought counsel to find the correct lawyer for our
situation. After obtaining our lawyer and counseling with
him he told us frankly he thought we were barking up a tree.
Miracle #2; He said, "how is it that you think these
people are going to sell you a piece of property worth over
one and a half million dollars in a depressed market for
only $406,000.00?" We expressed our confidence in God to
follow through with what He had shown us. To this our lawyer
could only shake his head. Miracle #3 happened at the
closing when our lawyer reduced his $30,000 bill of 4 years
(the time it took to finalize the purchase) to $3,500.
After obtaining our lawyer we went to our bank to seek
financing. Our bank took one look at our financial status
and and said, "There is no way that you would qualify for
$400,000 dollars in financing. Further more we want to know
how you plan to make payments on this size loan?" It took
almost a year for our bank to be satisfied with our ability
to pay for this loan. During this time several miracles
happened. Miracle #4; our loan officer was the
daughter-in-law of an old and present customer of Country
Life Restaurant that has been to many of our programs. She
convinced her daughter-in-law that this was a worthwhile
project. Our loan officer took our loan personally and
worked for us as I have never seen a loan officer work
before. She was our advocate fighting for us every step of
the way, not willing that we should be turned down
permanently. I say permanently because we were turned down
six or seven times but always our loan officer came back to
us and said she needed more paper work. In the end she had a
file on us five inches thick.
Miracle #5 happened during the bank investigation.
Two years earlier MMI had asked us to pay the payment we had
been paying them of $1,000 so we could get the bank paid off
quicker. During the purchase when the bank kept insisting we
did not have the money to make the payments on such a big
loan our loan officer pointed them to the fact that for two
years we had been making an extra $1,000 payment and had
never been late. Without this extra $1,000 the bank would
never have approved our loan.
Miracle #6 was also associated with the bank because
they said that if we had not been an official non-profit for
at least two years they would not consider our loan. That is
when we discovered that the government had made our non
profit approval retroactive of the filing, Nov of 2007.
Because of this, the bank was satisfied once again and
without this we would not have qualified.
Miracle #7 happened when the MMI board agreed to defer
$100,000 to an undetermined date, which made the bank
payment only $200 more than we were presently paying.
Miracle #8 happened the week of closing when we
realized we were $10,000 short for closing cost. A phone
call to our friend who led us to our lawyer and had
counseled us and supported us through the whole process
produced a check for $10,000 the next day.
Miracle #9 happened during the process of trying to
get all the paperwork transitioned before the sale. An
individual of ASI and OCI stepped in to help in the
communication of working out the details, of which, we were
bogged down in and unable to move forward to meet the
purchase dead line.
We at NEWEC are aware that there were not only 9 miracles.
In fact, there were so many miracle that happened and
continue to happen that we cannot even began to relate them
all to you. There are some some I assure we are not even
aware of. Of this we know God is alive and well and in
control of this world.
As it stands now, NEWEC has a loan of $330,000.00 and
another $100,000.00 due when the bank has been paid off. We
are inviting one and all to support the Lord's work before
it is too late. All we are asking is $25/monthly or $250
yearly. All of this money will go to pay off the loan unless
you earmark it for one of the other ministries.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our story.
God Bless
Peter B. Schauffler
