Mission Argentina: An Overview

I am finally back from a massively blessed and highly productive mission trip to Argentina. We worked mainly in  and around the nations capital, Buenos Aires and also in a town called Lujan, just outside the capital. Our main objective was to encourage and strengthen existing works, already established in the cities and help them gain more influence and be more effective in their very unique ministry environment.

The majority of Argentinians are Catholic, some people may view this as a good thing, but from a perspective of knowing a living and vibrant God, Catholicism can only be placed on the shelf with other religions, who don't encourage relationship with their creator, but rather on rituals and good deeds!I have no doubt in my mind that there are some, who indeed have a personal relationship with Jesus, but on the whole this is unfortunately not true. So, YES, like anyone who is not born again, most Argentinians need Jesus.

The first pastor we worked with was Pastor Jonathan and his wife Rosa. They are natives of Peru, but felt God calling them to Argentina. They have a small church on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. We held three nights of meetings with them consisting of praise and worship, testimonies, teachings and ministry time. There were many salvations (the greatest miracle of all) and great a great many needs were ministered to. Gods compassion on the people was overwhelming and His love was the greatest factor to be administered.

Many testimonies came from the time spent with Jonathan's church, but none as overwhelming as the woman who walked in on one of our skits. This woman had been handed a flier, earlier in the day, to attend the meeting that night, but she had thought nothing further of it. That night, however, she had made up  her mind to kill herself. Her plan was to walk out of her apartment and throw herself in front of the first bus she saw (the buses are an adventure at the best of times, when traveling on them, so she wouldn't have had to look too hard). Her apartment was right above the church, as she made her way down to the street she heard the music from one of our skits (Everything), a very powerful portrayal of Gods love. She then looked into the church and stayed until the skit was done, straight after which we had an altar call. The woman immediately responded and gave her heart to Jesus. She was delivered from the spirit of suicide and immediately her whole countenance changed as she began to experience the joy of Christ!

After six days in Buenos Aires, we took  a bus to a town called Lujan. This town is most famous for it's massive gothic cathedral called The Basilica de Lujan. This cathedral came into existence in the 1800's when a statue of the virgin Mary fell off the cart that was pulling it. The people decided that it was a sign that Mary wanted to stay in that place and so they proceeded to build the Basilica around the statue. It is a major pilgrimage destination for Catholics still today, attracting millions of devotees every year. Here we focused on children's ministry and evening services at a big church led by Pastor Jorge. But, more about this and other amazing stories in my next post tomorrow ... (follow this link for more information on Lujan)

University in Buenos Aires

The Basilica