by John Bothwell

In the summer of 2004, I set out with a team  under the direction of St. Luke's Reformed Episcoal Church , Santa Ana, CA, to work with the Anglican Church in Northern Argentina.  As a result of the encouragement of Fr. Paul Howden, Rector of St. Luke's, I returned to Argentina in 2005 for further missions work.  

The Anglican churches of the Southern Cone of America are among those in the Anglican Communion which are remaining faithful to the Gospel of Christ through the preaching and teaching of God's Word.  These Christians, under the leadership of respected Anglican Primate, ++Gregory Venables, stand steadfastly opposed to the ongoing moral crisis in many parts of the Anglican Communion.  As a result of this and because of the large number of Anglican parishes in Argentina, the Anglican Church is one of the region's greatest Christian voices.

Through the gracious support of family, friends, St. Luke's REC, and St. John's chapel of Monterey CA, I was able to raise ample financial support to afford the 2005 trip.  I left Los Angeles, CA on February 1, 2005, and was in the northern Argentine province of Salta a couple days later.  I was met by Alec Deane, a Christian resident of Salta, who took me in and helped me find my way around for much of the trip.  Among other things, Alec is the founder and president of the Siwok Foundation , a non-profit organization formed to preserve indigenous culture.  Bishop Humberto Axt asked Alec if he would help me find suitable projects for my visit.  I was vaguely familiar with Salta, but having been there only a few weeks the summer before, I was in need of the assistance Alec gladly offered.

After being in Salta only a day, Alec said he thought I should go straight to Mision Chaquena for a month.  Mision Chaquena is an indigenous village about 100 km south of the border to Bolivia.  I spent a week there during the 2004 trip, and was excited to go back.  This mission was begun by English missionaries in the early 1900's, and is currently the largest indigenous mission in the diocese, being home to roughly 3000 Wichi people.  At one time, several missionary families lived and worked there, but all that remains of them now is their empty homes.  It was in one of these empty missionary houses that I lived for the four weeks I was at Mision Chaquena.

On one of the first days there, I went fishing with a local man, Aurelio.  We rode a bike a couple kilometers to the nearby Rio Bermejo.  As soon as we got there, we had to take cover under some trees because a big thunderstorm rolled in.  The seasons in Argentina are on an opposite timetable of those in the northern hemisphere.  Consequently, although it was February, Argentina was going through the peak of its summer.  Summer in Argentina is also the rain season, and in the tropical northern province of Salta the storms are quite spectacular.  As Aurelio and I waited for the storm to clear while on the bank of the river, it was a wonderful experience to witness the earth-shaking thunder and extravagant lightning.  The rain was also a welcome compliment to our tiring journey of riding bicycles through mud in the one hundred degree heat.  The storm cleared and I watched Aurelio get ready for fishing.  I was fascinated as I realised that he was actually endeavoring to go spear fishing on the river.  This is a style of fishing which dates back many centuries in the Wichi culture, and is one of many traits of the hunter-gatherer way of life which remains intact today in this community.  Aurelio stood perfectly still on the bank of the river for more than four hours, as he monitored the shallow waters, waiting for one of the giant Surubi fish to swim by.  He didn't catch anything, but it was very interesting to watch the whole experience.  I saw a Surubi back in the village that another man had caught and was very impressed by its size.  It had to have been over four feet long, and was so heavy that one man could not carry it.  I leanred that these fish are the largest in the Bermejo and are the prize catch of any fisherman, since they can feed a family for such a long period of time.

I was not at the mission long before I got to know the local pastors well.  There are six pastors for the church in Mision Chaquena, but the two who I got to know very well were Marcelino and Rufino.  Marcelino is in charge of overseeing several indigenous churches and Rufino is the Rector of the church of St. Michael and all Angels at the mission.  When we prayed together, the pastors began in Wichi and I closed in English.  We had no idea what the other was saying, but there was no question we were united in Spirit.

One of the first projects I had was that of distributing the books I had brought from the U.S.  Thanks to the ministry of Matt Williams of Biola University, I was able to take several great books printed in Spanish down to Argentina.  One of them was Dallas Willard's, Renovation of the Heart.  I was greatly encouraged when one of the pastors, Marcelino, confronted me several weeks after I distrubuted the books, with a copy of Willard's book in hand.  He was very excited as he explained how much he was enjoying reading it, and even pointed out some passges which had been especially meaningful to him.  Along with the books, I gave the pastors a number of pamphlets on Mormonism, alcoholism, and sexual purity. 

I decided early on that I should learn as much about this culture and the needs facing it as I could.  I set up meetings with the vilage's doctor, the nurse at the clinic and all of the pastors just so I could understand what they really need there.  The conlusion I came to was that they need people more than anything.  The village showed evidence of once being a center of thriving Christian ministry.  The missionaries started the medical clinic, the school and, of course, the Church.  The first doctors and dentists along with the school teachers were all clergy or at least affiliated with the church.  With the sort of impact the early missionaries had, it is no wonder that they succeeded in converting a culture of shamanism to Christianity.  While much of the village remains Christian today, it is no longer the case that the kind of man power exists which once breathed life into this culture.  The clinic is now run by the government as are the schools. 

In meeting with both the docor, Blanca, and head nurse, I learned that AIDS is the biggest current health threat.  Permiscuity coupled with general igornace about good hygiene has resulted in a potentially devastating situation with the indigenous.  There is currently work underway to stop this problem before it gets any worse.  One of the projects I worked on while in the village was putting together an educational brochure on the prevention of AIDS.  A similar brochure had been made by the Siwok Foundation to help prevent Dengue fever and had the appearance of working.  I sought the counsel of a missionary in the nearby village of Santa Maria concerning anthropological matters and got the medical data from Blanca.  I then convinced some people from my home church to donate some money to get the brochures printed.  Printing the brochure along with giving the pastors some materials on sexual ethics will hopefully help prevent the further spread of AIDS with these people.

Another project I worked on was putting together a family tree for the village.  I did this for the Siwok Foundation and jumped into the project mid-stream.  I took first draft geneologies to families and asked them if they were correct.  I also left each family a short questionnaire asking them what they thought their greatest needs were, and what they thought of the village's church.  A friend I made in the village, Cesar, helped me greatly in this, as he took me around to the homes of all the families I visited and spoke to them in Wichi for me.  Without his help, I doubt I would have been able to find all the right houses.

Doing the geneology project helped me understand a few things about the Wichi culture. For instance, when asking a question to a Wichi, it must always be phrased neutrally.  If someone asks, "Is the Anglican church bad?", a Wichi will most likely answer, "yes"; not because they believe the church is bad, but because they are naturally adverse to confrontation of any kind, especially with people they don't know very well.  Instead the question must be phrased, "What do you think of the Anglican church?".  I was amazed that people actually took the time to give a great deal of feedback when asked a question in a fashion which didn't scare them.

Another project I had with the Siwok Foundation was working in the museum being built at the mission.  The museum is being built because the traditional indigneous way of life in N. Argentina is quickly fading.  The first project I did was planting a garden of all the plants which the Wichi have traditionally used for food, medicine, and artesan work.  I used a man named Telmo as a guide in collecting the plants, and planted a total of twenty-five.  A related project was installing an irrigation system for the garden.  There was existing gravity feed water pressure from a tank situated about fifteen feet above the ground.  I ran plastic tubing from the tank to each plant, where it connected to a tubular ring circling the base of the plant.  I poked small holes in the ring using a red hot wire.  The whole system can be monitired by one valve and will water all the plants at once.

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