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2009-05-05 issue:

Partnership serves octopus fishermen

Argentine “pulperos” fighting to stay on the beach as luxury hotels move in.

by Lynda Hollinger-Janzen of Mennonite Mission Network

Print Article

For one Argentine group, mission involved making a dirty job cleaner, Elizabeth Nachtigall discovered during an apprenticeship with Iglesia Evangélica Menonita Argentina (Evangelical Mennonite Church of Argentina).




Two members of Choele Choel Mennonite Church, Luis Diaz and Rueben Cariman, survey the first day’s work on the bathroom they helped build for the pulperos on Las Grutas beach in Argentina. Photo by Elizabeth Nachtigall.

Las Grutas beach on the Argentine coast was home to pulperos (octopus fishermen) long before it became a vacation spot for the rich. Now, however, the shelters of corrugated tin and other recycled materials are overshadowed by large hotels, and a dispute has arisen over property rights.

In conversation with the pulperos, an eight-member mission team led by Mennonites from Choele Choel Mennonite Church discovered that the construction of a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet would serve the community.

“Not only is this a practical way to show Christ’s love but a way in which the pulperos know we care and want to establish friendships with them,” says Nachtigall. On March 17, Nachtigall, a Mennonite Mission Network intern from Hopedale, Ill., began the study component of the Seminario Intensivo Misionero (Intensive Mission Seminar). Juan Domingo and Toti, two of the pulperos, spoke of their years lived by the sea. They have nowhere else to go if the hotel owners force them to move off the beach.“They see no way out. Or perhaps to get out might be too painful,” Nachtigall says.

The mission seminar prepares church members for ministry through a three-pronged approach: participation in Choele Choel’s congregational life, classes and monthly mission trips. Classes are taught by Juan Sieber, Argentine church leader, and Delbert and Frieda Schellenberg Erb, former Mennonite Board of Missions workers, who have retired in Choele Choel.

Current seminar participants are Nachtigall, six members of the Choele Choel congregation— Ezequiel Diaz, José Luis Rojas, Laura Vaugniaux de Rojas, Oscar Lorenzi, Lucia Trancamilla de Lorenzi, Alicia Rodriguez de Formiga—and Jacob Good of East Bend Mennonite Church in Fisher, Ill., an Arm in Arm congregation.

Nachtigall is part of a two-way mission exchange between Mennonites in Argentina and Illinois Mennonite Conference congregations that dates to the mid-1990s. The Patagonia Mission Project emerged from congregations in Argentina’s Patagonia region desiring co-workers to help them realize their call to mission. A cluster of Illinois congregations and individuals responded through a partnership called Arm in Arm that brought them together with the Patagonia congregations and Mennonite Mission Network. This partnership develops new churches and renews existing churches in Patagonia and Illinois.

The Patagonia Mission Project commissioned 12 mission workers for church planting in their own country and in neighboring Chile. The project also sends Argentine church leaders, like the family of Amaris and Juan Sieber, to help Illinois congregations reach beyond their comfort zones. This has led to the development of the Southern Illinois Mission Partnership that is beginning a new church in Mt. Vernon, Ill. where the Crossroads Christian Center serves as a base for mission to surrounding communities.

Elizabeth’s parents, Karen and Ray Nachtigall, are providing leadership to mission teams making contacts for other potential locations for congregations throughout the southern Illinois region.