Partner Congregations in Argentina and Uruguay

Update: Spring 2009

New Argentina Partnership!

A new congregation to congregation partnership has been launched between Mt. Pleasant Lutheran Church in Racine, Wisconsin, and Cristo Salvador in Florencia Varela, Argentina. Cristo Salvador is part of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELU). Following is an account from Mt. Pleasant’s Pastor Kara Baylor on how this new outreach ministry started:

“A few years ago Mt. Pleasant Lutheran Church (MPLC) had a major shift in ministry focus when the Saturday evening homeless shelter that it had hosted for almost a dozen years left the building for a permanent location in our community. We knew this was a good move for the shelter and for the people whose needs it was meeting. However, we knew it would be hard for us to find a new ministry focus. A special committee formed to look into ministry opportunities. The committee came up with the theme Here, There and Everywhere for outreach ministry from MPLC. We try to do ministry in our community, in our country and overseas. One of the committee members found Lutheran Partners on the internet and the communication started. An LPGM representative visited our congregation and the council approved the idea of a partnership. Now there is a committed task force working on educating the congregation about the partnership and planning to travel to Argentina in February/March 2010.”

Update: Winter 2009

Sandra’s Corner: A Prayer Request

I recently spent time at our lake home. It was like living in a Christmas card. I read several books and would highly recommend The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. She says many things that I have long believed and yet never been able to articulate well. She talks about abandoning a life of scarcity–where one is compelled by continually wanting more–to live a life of sufficiency.

I struggled with applying the sufficiency concept to my life–not just money but all aspects of life. After I finished the book the LPGM office forwarded an email from a pastor in Argentina asking for prayers for a three-year-old girl and her family. Just two days before Christmas she had been brutally beaten by her stepfather. Her teeth were knocked out, she was hit and kicked, cut with a bottle, carried by her hair, thrown into a field and left for dead. The child was found and hospitalized. The stepfather is in jail. The mother, like many beaten women, was minimizing the event. She also has a five-year-old and a five-month-old. We were asked to pray for the child, the family and the congregation.

I marveled at the relationship that we have with these churches–that we share the bad with the good. I prayed for them and I understood far better the sufficiency in my life. Please lift them up in your prayers too.

Partner Congregations in Argentina and Uruguay

Seven churches in the U.S. have used LPGM to partner with a congregation in Argentina or Uruguay. The partnerships start with a trip to visit the partner congregation in Latin America, and the relationship builds from there depending on the needs and goals of both congregations. The seven U.S. churches involved in this program are:

- St. Stephen, Bloomington, MN
- St. Lukes, Bloomington, MN
- Trinity Lutheran Church, Bismarck, ND
- Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN
- United Lutheran Church, Red Wing, MN
- Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Minneapolis, MN
- Mount Pleasant Lutheran Church, Racine, WI

LPGM has formed a consortium of these churches so that they can share ideas for partnership activities, trip details and other common threads that they have through their Latin America connection.

If your church is interested in a partnership with a congregation in Latin America, please contact our office and we would be happy to tell you more about this unique opportunity.

Partnership Website

A volunteer has created and is managing a website for all the partner congregations to use to share information and photos about their partnerships. Please visit this website to see the amazing things that these partnerships are doing: Partners in Faith . . . Companeros en Fe