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Argentina

United Evangelical Lutheran Church

Who are the ELCA’s companions in Argentina?

• United Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELU)
• CAREF (Ecumenical Service of Support and Orientation for Migrants and Refugees)
• ISEDET (Higher Education Institute of Evangelical Theological Studies)

Who is the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina and Uruguay and what are its ministries?

The United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina and Uruguay (Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida - IELU), a member of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), has 33 congregations and missions and a total churchwide membership of approximately 11,000 individuals. While there is a concentration of IELU congregations in the Greater Buenos Aires area, the IELU’s presence extends throughout 5 districts with distances of 3,600 kilometers between its northernmost congregations in Misiones and those in Patagonia. The IELU has one congregation in Montevideo, Uruguay. The IELU is served by 30 pastors, 2 consecrated deacons, and a strong lay leadership. The IELU also carries out its ministry in 6 schools, 1 home for the elderly, 1 home for women, 1 home for men living with HIV/AIDS, 4 university student residences and several day care and community centers.

What is CAREF and what are its ministries?

CAREF Ecumenical Service of Support and Orientation for Migrants and Refugees (Servicio Ecumenico de Apoyo y Orientacion a Migrantes y Refugiados) is a non-profit organization, sponsored by four churches: the Evangelical Church of the Rio Plate, the Methodist Church of Argentina, Disciples of Christ, and the Anglican Dioceses of Argentina.

Since 1973 CAREF has worked in defense of the rights of refugees, migrants, and displaced persons, developing different projects that provide assistance and orientation related to accessing social, health, educational, legal and other services, always from the human rights perspective. In recent years, CAREF has become one of the leading advocates and service providers for victims of human trafficking and smuggling.

What is the Higher Education Institute of Evangelical Theological Studies (ISEDET) and what are its ministries?

The Higher Education Institute of Evangelical Theological Studies, (Instituto Superior Evangelico de Estudios Teologicos- ISEDET) is an ecumenical seminary in Buenos Aires formed by 9 protestant churches. ISEDET’s mission is to form church leaders through an ecumenical theological education that is in constant dialogue with the social realities and the religious diversity of our times and context. ISEDET also houses the most important protestant theological library in Latin America, with state-of-the-art technical resources and the annual incorporation of more than 800 volumes of periodicals and books. Having begun in 1882, today ISEDET has over 120,000 volumes including 30,000 dedicated to the social sciences.

How do our companions in Argentina and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America accompany one another in ministry?

Through the churchwide ELCA Global Mission unit, the ELCA relates to and is in bilateral relationship with over 80 companion churches and institutions and stewards relationships with these companions. This relationship is deepened and extended by the IELU’s relationship, through the ELCA Companion Synods program, with the Nebraska Synod and the Northeast Pennsylvania Synod. 

Churchwide funding through the ELCA Global Mission unit supports key priorities identified by our companions. ELCA funding to the IELU supports its five strategic priorities of: 1) Evangelization and Healthy Church Growth, 2) Transformational Leadership, 3) Holistic Diaconia, 4) Stewardship and Sustainability, and 5) Institutional Redesign. The ELCA supports 5 diaconal IELU projects: Regional Church Capacity-Building around HIV/AIDS Epidemic; Health Promoters Program in Resistencia; Pastoral Accompaniment of Bolivian Immigrants in Buenos Aires; Sustainable Development and Human Promotion Project in Misiones; and Capacity-building for Facilitators. ELCA mission personnel include the regional representatives for South America, based in Buenos Aires, and participants in the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program, who serve in congregations or other ministries of the IELU and support such activities as afterschool, child care and Sunday school programs.

The ELCA supports a CAREF project that directly addresses the issue of the trafficking and smuggling of persons on two fronts: 1) Awareness-raising and advocacy with diverse social actors and public policy makers, and 2) Direct assistance to victims of trafficking and smuggling of persons.

ELCA funds also support ISEDET’s overall mission to provide ecumenical theological education, in particular dimensions that strengthen the presence of Lutheran students and faculty.

The ELCA also funds significant work through the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), a global communion of 140 churches (including the ELCA) and 68 million people that is grounded in a common Lutheran faith.  The LWF provides space for Lutherans from around the world to share joys, challenges, and expertise as they seek the healing of the world. ELCA World Hunger funds help support the Department for World Service (DWS), the LWF’s relief and development arm, and the Department for Mission and Development (DMD), which focuses on holistic ministries through which the church participates in God’s mission to all creation.

ELCA World Hunger funds help support the LWF Department for Mission and Development work In Argentina such as:

• Holistic Development in Resistencia

In addition, ELCA funds support Church World Service (CWS), which works in Argentina. Supported by 36 denominations, including the ELCA, CWS is a U.S.-based ecumenical organization that works with partners to eradicate hunger and poverty and to promote peace and justice around the world.

Argentina: the context in which our companions serve

Argentina is a country of contrasts. One expression of this characteristic is Argentina’s tremendous geographic diversity. The country is framed by the Andes Mountains in the west, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and offers landscapes ranging from lush forests and jungles in the north to long stretches of pampas in the mid-section to icebergs and glaciers in the south.

Great contrasts also characterize human life in Argentina. While Argentina is a rich country in agriculture, cattle, minerals, and oil, nearly 40% of its population lives in poverty. While it is a major exporter of food, millions of its citizens are hungry. In the past decade, among Argentina’s population of 40 million, the growth in poverty and inequality--which concentrates wealth in the hands of a few -- has accentuated. The trends that increase the divide between the poor and the rich are affected by a number of factors which are complex and interconnected. During the 1990’s Argentina’s President Menem implemented broad-sweeping neoliberal economic reforms that favored privatization, free trade, and foreign investment while neglecting domestic policies to promote sustainable development, human promotion and social and public infrastructures for decent employment opportunities, housing, health, and education.

The majority of Argentines have not felt the slow improvement of macroeconomic conditions since the currency crisis of 2001. Wages remain stagnant in the sense that they do not keep pace with the steady inflation that Argentina has seen in recent years. Extremes of poverty exist in both urban and rural settings in Argentina. In the “Villages of Misery” (Villas de Miseria) that circle Buenos Aires approximately 3 million people live in extremely precarious housing and sanitary conditions. Many of them make a living by collecting and recycling trash that they pick up in residential and commercial areas of the city. In rural areas of Argentina’s north, millions of people face malnutrition, high unemployment rates, precarious housing, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and minimal to no public infrastructure for education and health care.

Within this panorama, migration is also a pressing human rights issue. Immigrants, particularly from Bolivia and Peru, come to Argentina seeking economic opportunity but often face discrimination and exploitation once they arrive. Argentina is also facing a growing problem of the trafficking and smuggling of people, particularly women and children, for labor and sexual exploitation.