| Fishing for salmon and souls in Chile
PUERTO MONTT, Chile – From the southern coastal city of Puerto Montt, the Eastern Mennonite Missions team reaches out to communities in the mountains behind the city and to the off-shore islands that dot the coast for miles in all directions. Here in the center of the world’s second largest salmon operation, a new cluster of Mennonite churches is taking shape.
Birthed out of the wide-ranging ministry of Mike and Nancy Hostetter and their five children, the young fellowship in Puerto Montt is organized into three home cells. “It’s an enthusiastic group of around 30 – vibrant and growing,” said Steve Shank, EMM’s representative to Latin America, after his March visit.
Shank is also excited about other open doors. During the 17 years Hostetters have served in Chile, they have made regular visits to the numerous island communities south of Puerto Montt and to the remote Andean mountain communities to the south and east of the city. Often they have been the only evangelical witness and pastoral care these marginalized communities have known.
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For the church’s New Year’s party, Dustin and Sarah Gingrich’s small group got together at the Gingrich home.
From left to right: Consuelo, Gigi, and Sarah. Gigi and Consuelo are making the traditional potato salad and Sara makes some plum cafouti.
Photo: Sarah Gingrich |
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On this most recent visit, Shank and his traveling companion, Dr. Bill Himmele, head of the English as a Second Language program at Millersville (Pa.) University, met with the governmental heads of education for southern Chile, mayors of Puerto Montt and Quemchi, and a representative to the Chilean congress from southern Chile.
“With the government officials, we visited small rural schools of only five students and large schools with up to a 1,000 students,” Shank said. “On all fronts there is a wide open door for us to send English teachers. We were clear about our Christian faith, and explained that our teachers would work as part of church planting teams in the region. The government officials were open to this approach.”
Shank listed off the open doors – Puerto Montt with the Hostetters and the fledgling church; Chiloe Island and the city of Quemchi where he’s thinking of locating new EMM interns Travis and Bekii Kisamore; a middle class community north of the city and the rural Andean communities east of the city where Dustin and Sara Gingrich, an EMM family, are beginning visits and cell groups; and Alerce, north of Puerto Montt, a planned community of 80,000 low-income people from all over Chile who are being settled by the government.
During the past several years Youth Evangelism Service (YES) teams have lived and taught English in Alerce and in some of the island schools, paving the way for long-term church planting teams.
“We are excited about what is coming together,” Shank said. “We anticipate continual growth and are talking about organizing an Anabaptist Association to facilitate churches in the various regions. We’re also dreaming of witness among the ethnic German Chileans north of Puerto Montt and to the more than three million member Machuche indigenous group.”
-Jewel Showalter
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