After 35 years in South America with WorldVenture, Nancy and I returned to the U.S. in March 2003. This past March and April we returned to Argentina for the second time since then. Dick Greenman, the field chairman, invited me to travel with him to visit lay leaders who are studying through the new distance seminary program that Dick is developing.
Renato Garcia is General Secretary of the 85 Baptist churches of NW Argentina. He also pastors the church Nancy and I once attended in the city of Salta and is a great friend of ours. I told him I was to accompany Dick Greenman on a trip up to the city of Tartagal where Nancy I had lived and ministered during our first 18 years in Argentina. Renato was delighted to hear I would be in Tartagal and immediately gave me a job to do. “Would you please stay on there for a few days?” he begged me.
For a number of years the large Baptist church in the Guaraní community of Cherenta—which we helped establish in 1970—had been divided over styles of worship. These dear friends of ours had been clashing amongst themselves and finally began meeting as two separate groups. The youth no longer wanted to sing hymns, and instead wanted a strictly contemporary and very loud service. The older people had their own preferences and would not concede. When they split, the youth kept the large brick building that the older folks had built and maintained, while the older group built a simple wooden structure on the edge of the community. Many from the church quit attending altogether.
Therefore, at Renato’s insistence, I stayed in Tartagal for a few days, visiting and preaching in several churches. Nancy came to accompany me. We learned that the church in Cherenta was trying to bring everyone back together again, and they invited me to join them for this event, insisting that I preach. It happened to be Easter Sunday. About 200 adults and many children were present, some of whom had not attended any church for years. There seemed to be a positive spirit among them for the most part, and they are now learning to respect and love one another again as they try to create a blended worship experience.
A few days ago, I talked by phone with Raymundo, a seminary graduate who regularly visits all 10 Baptist churches in Tartagal. Raymundo thinks the Cherenta church will stay united, but there are still a few radical youth with a bad attitude who need to have a heart change or be prayed out of the church. Many people still need to forgive and forget past hurts.
It appears that God took us back to NW Argentina precisely for such a time as this. The years we lived among these people earned us their rapport and confidence and gave us cultural understanding.
Though I did not learn of the Cherenta church’s desire to return to worshipping and working together until we arrived in Argentina, I brought with me 100 or so black and white photos I had found depicting the beginning of that work—from the founding of the evangelical community with the local mayor’s help, to building their lovely brick church building. Nancy is pictured teaching the women to read and write, and I’m seen leading a group of church leaders in a seminary extension class. We left the photos with the interim pastor in Cherenta who will put together an album for all to see. There they are, 35 years ago (when the older folks were the youth), all excited and happily working together. We praise the Lord that now they want to experience that again.
Everywhere we went on this trip, God brought along just the right person for us to meet, whether a former neighbor still needing the Lord, or some Christian needing encouragement. Many of them now want some book or study, or just want to keep in touch via email. God is at work among them. Some of them are plugging into the new distance seminary program.
We have been so blessed through these marginalized people of Tartagal who have taught us so very much. I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, where he talks about not putting any “stumbling block in anyone’s path,” and enduring much hardship and misunderstanding while in God’s will. Like Paul, these people are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” It has been a privilege and joy for Nancy and me to have lived with these people. We praise God many of them are still walking in the truth.
- Bruce MacPherson May 2007