: Argentina

Departing 26^th June – 10^th July

Pray for us, the people we will serve, and for also for the people who will serve us.

The ‘Beyond the Norm’ programme aims to give participants the opportunity to encounter South America within a supportive environment. It creates new experiences, new opportunities and new challenges. It provides the setting in which volunteers experience mission and cultural diversity first-hand. This year Geoff Hamilton will lead a team of 13 skilled men from Annaghmore Parish in Armagh diocese. This is a developing story as Annaghmore has been a supporting church for many years, and the link has evolved and become more relational. Pamela Gomez from Salta in Argentina was placed within the parish as part of the SAMS fusion programme. Pamela was deeply enriched through her placement and she will be one of the people overseeing the team’s summer placement. The local rector Dorothy McVeigh will be part of the ‘Beyond the Norm’ team which will participate in various projects.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Catherine and Nick both have vast experience of work among both Latinos and indigenous people after service during four decades in Argentina and Spain. Nick is Suffragan Bishop with special responsibility for the indigenous churches, which make up the majority of the diocese of Northern Argentina.

Read their blog on www.ampey.wordpress.com

Yesterday (26 March) the Court ordered the provincial government to suspend permits granted for the removal of around a million hectares of native forest in the departments of Orán, San Martín, Rivadavia and Santa Victoria until a study can be made of the effect of deforestation on the environment.

The Court understood that while the granting of each permit had taken into consideration its environmental impact, no study had been made concerning the cumulative effect of all the permits.

It added that “the effect of the removal of around a million hectares is something that cannot be ignored and, in the words of the representative of the national Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainable Development at the public hearing of 18 February, it will certainly be negative”.

This decision extended the cautionary measure given on 29 December and ordered the suspension of all permits, not only those granted in the last quarter of 2007.

In addition, “it warned of the clear danger of serious damage with the possibility of significant climate change in the region, affecting not only the present occupants of the land but future generations as well. Such damage would be irreversible, as there would be no way to return things to how they were before. Care of the environment is not the enemy of development and progress; rather, the two are complementary as environmental care brings lasting enjoyment for future generations.”

The Court stated that the study should be carried out by the Province of Salta together with the national Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainable Development, “with extensive participation from the communities living in the area affected”.

Click here to read Dany and Flavia’s Prayer Letter from Argentina.

Prayer Requests from Charles and Lynn Barr Johnston in Northern Argentina.

Thank you again very much for praying for us. Thank you also very much for sending us Christmas cards and letters or emails. We are very grateful for them all, and thank the Lord for you all, even though we have not been able to answer many of them.

Please continue to pray for our son Nick and his wife Nicky, with their children Sadie and Cally. They visited the UK and Nicky’s parents Ken and Gail over Christmas and the New Year. Pray for Nick and his work in Japan, at what must be a very difficult time for all who work in banks. Pray also for our daughter Susan and her husband Emmanuel. They went to Liberia for Christmas and the New Year to visit Emmanuel’s mother, who he had not seen for many years. Emmanuel gave up his job to be able to stay with his mother into February. Pray that he may be able to get another job when he comes back to Switzerland. Susan returned early in January, to continue teaching Biology in her school.

On the last Monday of 2008 at about 9pm while walking fast I tripped over a bike rack I did not see, and was thrown into the street landing on my left hip. As I could not stand, a passerby took me in his truck to the hospital near our house. 3 X-rays showed that no bones were broken. I was there until Tuesday after lunch when, with Ester’s help, I was able to leave the hospital with crutches which Alec hired for me. I managed to get up the stairs to our flat, where I stayed till last Friday (16^th January). I have a huge bruise around my hip, with a thick line going down the leg, but now it is much smaller and purple rather than black. Now I am able to walk slowly without crutches, but Lynn walks much faster and further than I can. Please pray for healing for us both.

Pray also for the 2 families who have been looking after us, who we also try to help pastorally from the Bible. One of them is our home help Ester. She usually comes 3 afternoons a week, but when I could not get about, she came far more often. We were in her house for their Christmas Eve celebrations. The other family is that of Blas, Liliana the Bishop’s secretary, and their teenage son Facu. A car ran into Blas’s taxi at high speed at a road junction. They are now blaming Blas. Pray that justice may be done. Blas, Liliana and Facu came to our house for their New Year Celebration.

Please pray for 2 young people’s camps which will soon start in January and for their follow up. One is in Yema. It is led by Vicar Tuqui, and Ricardo with Saturnino helping. The other is in La Caldera near to Salta. It is led by Deacon Miguel from the Principe de Paz church and Rene Pereira from Juarez. Saturnino had an accident in his farming work a few months ago. He has just recovered enough to be made a watchman for the property of the farm. Please pray for him and his wife Elisa and their 3 young children. He seemed a very promising active new believer and leader. Suddenly in the accident he got a physical disability which has laid him off work for several months.

It seems that finally a vehicle will soon be bought for the ministry of Vicar Tuqui with the project money of 2004. Please pray for guidance that the right vehicle may be bought.

Please also pray for Vicar Narciso, who is teaching and discipling 30 young believers using the SEAN Abundant Life Course.

Hugo Vergara has had many varied journeys of late. “My last and very complicated trip was to a church 120 kilometers from Juárez, deep in the Chaco, in the community of El Quemado. It took 3 hours on a very dusty road and at three o’clock in the afternoon it was 45°C. We arrived at 7am when the sun was already burning in a very blue sky. It is a town of roughly 300 people where no one knows about a global crisis. The service started two hours later and the small room was crowded with about 30 people; we sang for about half an hour and Pastor Juan from Juárez introduced me, saying Hugo is ready to preach and share about the Bible – just when I was about to faint through the terrible temperature inside the room! Pray for us this Christmas in Northern Argentina as we travel and resource the Church in various places.