Charles Fleming visits members in Argentina

Charles Fleming visits
members in
Argentina, Uruguay

By Charles Fleming
Mission developer
Latin America and Caribbean

ORLANDO, Florida—Following is a report from a visit I made to members in Argentina and Uruguay, in late January and early February.

I met with all four WCG congregations in those countries (three in Argentina and one in Uruguay). Members are doing well, and the growth among our leaders is striking.

Argentina

The Buenos Aires and Ezeiza churches met together in Ezeiza, and we ordained Julio Fernandez to be an elder supporting Carlos Espinosa with the Buenos Aires and Ezeiza congregations.

In Bahia Blanca, we appointed a leadership team of Israel Bravo, Osvaldo Chavez (brother of the late Luis Chavez) and Jose Fernandez. Mr. Espinosa will serve as consulting supervisor to them.

Members in Bahia Blanca lost their pastor of 30 years, Luis Chavez, who died in January, so during the sermon I invited the members to share any of their favorite anecdotes of their relationship with Luis.

I then presented to his widow, Lusby, a table ornament of Jesus washing the feet of one of his disciples as a gift from Pastor General Joseph Tkach, Randal Dick, superintendent of missions, and myself. I told Mrs. Chavez that the ornament represents our memory of Luis—a truly humble servant.

Uruguay

The church in Uruguay is going through a period of significant growth. They had 10 baptisms two weekends before I got there and have six more to do. A year ago Marcos Tonelli (one of the co-pastors) decided it would be better if the other co-pastor, Miguel Machado, should be the sole pastor and Marcos would dedicate himself to two things—the administration of the church and to being Miguel’s prayer support and accountability partner.

Marcos and his wife, Gabby, and Miguel and his wife, Teresita, decided they would have dinner together every Friday night and pray together. They have been doing this for several months.

Miguel and Teresita also attended three cell church conferences in Buenos Aires and began to network with cell-based churches. Three months ago they started their first cell group. They now have five cell groups that have led to the baptisms and to attendance beginning to increase.

I attended two of the cell group meetings while in Montevideo. Miguel is an approachable, gifted communicator. One cell group was at the home of Enrique, a businessman who clearly has leadership gifts. Miguel is training him to be a cell leader.

The other group was at a car wash, where we had 30 people in attendance. Esteban, the owner of the car wash, is a member of our church who is on fire for the Lord.

At present, Miguel and Teresita attend cell group meetings every night of the week. The goal is to do this for a few months until the present crop of leaders in training can take on increased responsibility.

Our services in Montevideo are on Sundays at 10 a.m. in a church owned by a pastor friend of Marcos and Miguel. They are not charged rent, but donate one week’s offerings to the other church. They want to get another place so they can move services to 8 p.m. on Sundays, the time preferred by many churches for services in that part of the world. The owner of the building has his services at 8, so that slot is not available.

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