And now for something completely different.
Or, such was my impression coming into the country of Argentina. Even from the air I could tell that something was different upon coming into Buenos Aires. It appeared as if I were flying into London, Indianapolis, or a city like that, but not into a Latin American city. This sensation of bewilderment would come to be quite familiar as I became more acquainted with my surroundings.
I was met at the airport by the Rev. Daniel Genovesi, the rector of the parish at which I would be working and my neighbor by the church, and we began making plans for the work in the weeks to come almost immediately as we headed from the airport to the little hamlet which would be my home for the next two months. Arriving at the church, I met Daniel’s lovely wife and children, whom I would get to know quickly through our constant overlap in activities and contexts. We have become fast friends, and I enjoy being with them here very much. My own living accommodations include a little a little cottage by the side of the church with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom, and it is quite comfortable!
The past week has been a whirlwind of activities: in addition to meetings with persons like the Dean of the cathedral, or time spent with the Archbishop and his family and friends, I have been getting acquainted with the weekly routine of the parish of San Marcos (St. Mark’s), things like the Bible studies, prayer groups, outreach projects, worship schedule, and getting to know the faithful of the parish (which has meant my consuming my first Argentine asado, a truly divine experience!).
The community itself presents an interesting challenge in and of itself. The church is situated in the area of Hurlingham, a section of Buenos Aires where the wealthy British immigrants who brought technology, railroads, and the like to Argentina had taken up residence. Walking through the streets, the brick cottages, trimmed hedges, autumn leaves, and stone walkways bring back memories of Oxford and Cheltenham, and this British sensation is not brought about not only by the architecture but also by the denizens. Hurlingham, more than any other place in Buenos Aires, is inhabited by a large number of the descendents of the British immigrants who still speak English as their mother tongue. Coming here, they built houses, schools, clubs, and churches. While those who have retained the English culture (significantly preserved and unchanged from about 80 years ago!) are at this point elderly and not a significance force within the community, they have still retained many of their customs, language, and way of thinking (as well as tea … it has been a long time since I’ve drunk so much British tea, not that I’m complaining). The parish of San Marcos has a remnant of these believers, and part of its mission is to reach out to them.
However, more significantly, San Marcos realizes that its future lies in Spanish (or rather, Porteño) speaking residents of Hurlingham. This transition has been difficult, and appeared for a while to have been hampered by a church split occasioned by some Neo-Pentecostal elements within the congregation, but for the last few years, many new Spanish-speaking young families have been coming to San Marcos and forming the base for new ministry, while a goodly number of mature believers from prior epochs have stuck around as well, and there exists an atmosphere of peace and growth within the congregation.
So, how is my visit to Buenos Aires fitting in with what our living God is doing here in Hurlingham? Well, my visit here is certainly very different from my trips to other areas of Latin America. The chief difference is not merely in economics or culture (which are certainly different here in Hurlingham), but the sense that I have come to a place where the situation is need, not crisis. I am able to contribute where this gesture will be valuable, but without the desperation that I have observed in other Latin American churches (usually due to lack of laborers in the harvest), and this normalcy will be invaluable for me as I myself learn and prepare myself for future ministry.
My tasks for the coming weeks include regular preaching and leading of worship, leading Bible studies, accompanying Daniel on pastoral visits, helping with a youth retreat, and leading several advanced studies and workshops (on diverse topics such as the question of suffering, the importance of the Reformation, etc.). While there will be much to do, in everything I have the aid of Daniel who has committed to being a mentor for me while I am here.
Our sovereign God is so good and so faithful here, and I am very happy to be here. There is much to do, and much to learn, and (frankly) little time for checking up on internet, so I ask forgiveness for my delinquency in updating this blog, but I hope this has sated in part the desire of some to know what has been happening to the gringo in Buenos Aires. I hope to get some pictures up soon … I just haven’t taken them yet! In addition, I include a few things that I wish that I had realized before getting here:
1. Not only do Argentines eat late, but they eat heavy late. It is not uncommon to have a two course meal with desert and coffee afterwards but begin the whole process around 10:00 at night. I know. I am feeling the effects a bit …
2. Albergue, the word for “orphanage” in Perú (for instance, "Albergue Infantil Hogar de Esperanza" the orphanage at which I volunteered after graduating from college), is the word for a pay-per-hour hotel. If you know what I mean. I found this out about a week and a half too late, after telling practically everyone that I volunteered my services at, well, you know. One of those places. Ay, caramba.
3. To say “hello” and “goodbye”, the grown men of Buenos Aires are accustomed to kiss each other on the cheek. I had to adapt quickly to this, but it is a bit on the weird side. Still.
Well, this is about all for now. I should wrap this up. Please pray for the church of San Marcos, here in Hurlingham, and that this time would be productive for me and beneficial for the congregation. Please pray for good health, both for me and for Daniel (who is recovering from a radiation treatment for hyperthyroidism). And please pray also for our bishop, Gregory Venables, who right now is at an important church council in Jerusalem and later goes to the global Anglican conference at Lambeth which meets every ten years: please pray for wisdom and faithfulness to the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your prayers.
Fare forward, voyagers.
Let’s take a brief side journey to the Anglican mission Santa María Magdalena in Juliaca, high on the Altiplano. On Sunday, June 8th, Fr. Juan Carlos, his youngest son, and I took off from Arequipa in order to celebrate Holy Communion with the brothers and sisters of this mission to which my home church, Anglican Church of the Resurrection, is sending support.
This mission in Juliaca is not new, but has grown extremely slowly, since there has almost never been a long-term, full-time pastor (ordained or unordained) assigned to live in Juliaca. Juliaca itself is a difficult city to begin a mission: the idolatry, witchcraft, and commercial materialism of Juliaca and its larger neighbour Puno is legendary and even prompted the choice of name for the mission: St. Mary Magdalene, from whom our Lord cast seven demons.
The trip up took about 5 hours, and was quite eventful, as we not only passed 14,000 feet of elevation, had a lunch consisting of cow tongue and native herbal tea, and were able to see flocks of alpaca and vicuña (an endangered relative of the llama and alpaca), but we also were graced with the continual presence of unheard music from the 1980s throughout our ascent. A bit tired, we were able to get some rest once we arrived before the service began.
Despite lower than average attendance, the service began well at 5:45. Fr. Juan Carlos allowed me to preach the sermon, taken from Romans 4, and God was clearly at work despite the cold, the altitude, and the language. There is a growing group of young people in their early 20s who have been working on the music, and were able to provide instrumentation for our singing, which was an added blessing.
Afterward, over hot chocolate and bread, I was able to get to know the congregation better. Together we sang Psalms and praise songs, shared stories and experiences, and I listened as they told me the trials and difficulties of raising up a mission in Juliaca, especially in the absence of a permanent pastor.
We began the return journey to Arequipa late, about 9:30, and our gracious Father gave us a swift and safe journey, tired but content with our trip and full with hope for the mission.
Please pray with us that God would grow this mission, not only in numbers but also in maturity, knowledge, and love; that he would provide shepherds to watch this flock, not only once a week, but full-time throughout the week; and that he would be glorified by this tiny point of light in the midst of such darkness in the difficult city of Juliaca.
Unweave, unwind, unravel, and piece together.
Well, it’s been a while, but here we go.
Let’s begin with my trip to Arequipa. My visit to the White City went way too quickly. There was much to do, many people to see, and little time in which to accomplish it all. Here is some of what stuck out!
I had a wonderful time with Fr. Juan Carlos, his wife María, and his sons who put me up for the week that I was with them. Through them I was able to visit the schools, children’s homes, and activities like the small groups, and they were very gracious to accommodate me in the various tasks that I had hoped to accomplish. May the Lord bless them for their giving hearts.
The diocesan schools, Colegio San Lucas, are much as I left them, with the exception of a budding construction project. With the new classrooms built, they will be able to move the primary school students to permanent classrooms and move the secondary school students to the same facilities as the primary school. Despite frustrations with delays, everyone is confident that the new structure will serve the needs of the school and community even better!
The children’s homes, San José (for younger children) and Sagrada Familia (for adolescents), continue as well as ever. The children are a year older, and it feels odd not to have been there to experience it with them, but it was a joy to pass time with them again.
It was wonderful to spend time with Ron and Vicki Robertson, missionaries from the United States who are working with the Anglican seminary in Arequipa and with the children’s homes, discussing the opportunities and difficulties extant in ministry in Perú right now, and with the many seminarians who are preparing for future ministry in the church, either as lay leaders or as ordained clergy.
There were difficulties during my visit to Arequipa. It was painful to see that many of the people that I had gotten to know last year while I was down here, some of them very dear friends, have drifted away from the church and from the Lord. In addition, I noted among all of the leaders of the church with whom I spoke a deep strain, each for different reasons, that was dominantly absent a year ago. Still, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is faithful to his church, and his Son continues as King of his People and Shepherd of his Flock, and my prayer is that through these difficulties that he would be at work strengthening, purifying, and increasing his Church in Arequipa for his praise and glory.
Well, there was much to tell, and I fear I have not done the week justice, but there was much to tell and little space. Brothers, sisters, and friends, please be in prayer for the church of Perú, and particularly for the those in Arequipa, that our God would be faithful to his promise and that he would raise up laborers for the harvest, for the fields are white with grain! Thank you.
The dawn wind wrinkles and slides.
The Adventure continues ...
The journey that began so early Monday morning has come to a momentary pause, giving me time on this Tuesday to stop, contemplate, and electronically scribble a few thoughts for those who are interested and for web posterity. I hope to get some pictures up soon to compliment my ever-so-inadequate descriptions.
I awoke as the plane prepared to land in San Salvador with waves crashing on the beach and what appeared to be perpetually immanent rain, and prepared to spend the next six hours in the airport, which is a dinky little excuse for an international airport: it appeared that TACA and American Airlines was keeping the place up for the most part. I was able to get a decent breakfast of coffee (oh the glory of it!) and pupusas (Wee Sister, you have to try to fix these up sometime) and prepared for my next flight.
Even in this small Central American airport, I began to feel the apparent contradictions of Latin culture bombarding my senses. Though there were a million bottles of rum, cigarettes, eua de cologne, and cheap Salvadorian trinkets all for sale duty-free, yet not a bottle of toothpaste to be bought anywhere (a señorita, a bit bewildered when I asked her, said I would need to find a druggist and of course there would not be a druggist in an airport!). The bookstores sold pulp fiction right next to major works of Liberation Theology (Sobrino, Romero, Segundo, Gutiérrez, and others) right next to lavish cookbooks bought more for the airbrushed pictures of the finished meal rather than for their instructions. So, chuckling a bit, I sat down and enjoyed my reading lackadaisically, ruminating on the infinitely aesthetic rhetoric of historically enacted peace inherent in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, on how much my stupid pride had been hurt by the abysmal state of my Spanish, and how much I desperately needed a shower. And so the rain fell in torrents, accompanied by the soundtrack of glitzy renditions of 1990s praise songs sung in English coming over the loudspeakers, and I proceeded to board my flight to Lima at long last.
Coming into to Lima went smoothly (I have to idea why everyone around started throwing up their arms and shouting "¡Gloria a Dios! ¡Aleluia!" when we landed safely), and I arrived at my quite adequate hostel where I rejoiced in sweet slumber, hot showers, and complementary breakfast. Today, walking the streets of Lima, I am reminded of sights and smells that once again bombard my senses and bring me back into my former Peruvian life.
Lima is a city of stark contrasts which consistently make me pause and cock my head. On the one hand the wealthy live in campy opulence. I am confronted by the usual Spanish name like Juan, but also with the occasional Indian name like Xuxa (the señorita who sold me my bus ticket today, pronounced "Shooshah"), or an attempted creation of an English-sounding name like Waldir. This morning I walked into Wong's, a grocery store which in attempting to imitate a North American supermarket goes far beyond with an internal courtyard with a fountain, a grand piano with its paid ivory tickler (something akin to Nordstrom’s in the US) and a mosaic of the "Virgin with Child" complete with votive candles. Just a few miles over, however, the poor struggle to buy rice of such poor quality that they have to pick out by hand the grains of white and gray sand mixed with the rice. The street book vendors regularly carry Umberto Eco's latest novel or philosophical work, Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, C. S. Lewis's An Experiment in Criticism, or Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (just a sample of what I found this morning), yet at prices that few can buy (Perú has an unemployment rate of 60%) or even read (given its horrendous rate of illiteracy). This is just a smattering of what I have found just today, and reflects my experience in times previous.
And indeed, many limeños are living testimonies to these extremes. Coming from the airport, my taxi driver himself used to be a Human Resources manager but, as he says, "times are difficult," and he is now among the growing number of professionals and laborers competing for the few jobs out there. Lima's gloomy cloud cover, cold humidity, and dingy industrial architecture reflect the desperation sometimes expressed and often felt here in this expansive and burgeoning metropolis.
It is for sinners like these that the Son of God became a man like us and was named Jesus. It is for sinners like these that our Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood. It is for offenders like these that he rose again and ascended to his Father. He came to those in spiritual darkness, those in the shadow of death, those under not only the oppression of the strong and wealthy but those oppressed by sin, Satan, and the wrath of the living God. And it is by his coming that we, whether Peruvian, Argentinean, or American, have been granted in him his Life, his Light, and his Righteousness through faith in him.
It is in the name of this Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior that I continue in the Adventure to which he has called me. The details are indeed hazy at this point and my Type A personality grates against this. But having come by his call and glorying only in his death and resurrection, I pray that he may glorify his Father in, through, and even despite me here during my short week here in Perú and afterwards in Argentina. May he with his Father and the Holy Spirit be praised and honored forever and ever!