Trip to Misiones and Iguazu Falls

At the beginning of the month we went on a trip to the city of Eldorado in the province of Misiones (named after the Jesuit missions of indigenous Guaraní of the early 1600’s which functioned with political and economic autonomy until they were expelled by the Spanish crown in 1767 - see the movie “The Mission”), located in the northeast finger of Argentina, which is a beautiful rolling landscape of rich red soil and lush green forests.

With two members from each of our churches we gathered for the Northern District Assembly of the IELU (Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida). On Saturday there was the election for the new district president and reports from the various congregations. It was good to see what was happening in other churches in the district, in the areas of women, youth, Christian Education, and church mission. There is growing work with farmers in the area of sustainable development. On Sunday we heard a presentation on Natural Church Development, which began with an illustration of people struggling to pull a square-wheeled cart, which was carrying a load of round wheels. The idea was to look within the congregation to discover and use the potential that God has put in each congregation.

I also accompanied the pastor there in funeral for a man in his 40’s that committed suicide (Protestant pastors are often asked to do funeral services in cases of suicide, since Catholic priests cannot do them). People said their goodbyes to this man with tears and by tossing the red Misiones dirt onto the casket.

Then there was a pastor’s retreat with pastors from two of the Lutheran churches here in Argentina, and the Lutheran church in Brazil (which is pretty big). Therefore, many of the pastors spoke a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish (some people helped translate for me). There were many themes touched upon, but a big one was the question of “how to do ministry in an increasingly individualistic society?” The pastors of the Lutheran Church in Brazil talked a lot about the rapidly changing religious dynamic. The pope recently visited Brazil because the percentage of Catholics has been cut in half over the past decade or so due to the rapid growth of Evangelical and Pentecostal churches . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051100287.html
Overall, it was interesting to see that there were issues that were similar to issues the Church deals with in the U.S.

As a part of this trip we also went to see the world’s second biggest waterfalls, Iguazú Falls, which is 2km across, and lies on the border of Argentina and Brazil, and close to the Paraguay border as well. It is truly spectacular (see picture) and it’s not just the visual beauty that takes, but you can feel the sheer power of the falls in your chest (it makes Niagara look like a leaky faucet). Here´s some more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/JoshEbener/Argentina

We also saw iguanas, a toucan, and these funny long nosed raccoon type animals, one of which hopped onto my table and stole my sandwich! It was a good sandwich too…oh well.

Thanks for reading, my goal is to update the blog every other week or so.