HOPE Expands to Argentina!

HOPE Literacy has officially expanded its international reach with a new site in Cordoba, Argentina!  Director Jorge Piñero, who will be graduating with his doctorate degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary next semester, is pastor at St. Paul Anglican Church in Cordoba, where he started English classes using the study of the book of Mark from NAMB this March.

It’s not everyday that you find a Baptist pastor of an Anglican church.  An older church in the city, it had a beautiful building with a dying population, situated in the Argentine city with the largest university.  Pastor Jorge saw an opportunity to reach the university population and lost sheep who had walked away from the church.  The job has not been easy.  As Pastor Piñero has explained, most pastors in Argentina cannot expect a full-time salary, so he has taken on the task as a bi-vocational minister, working as a full-time educator in addition to his seminary studies.

Pastor Piñero came into contact with HOPE Literacy on a trip to the United States for his Masters degree graduation. He dropped by a conference being held the same day, where HOPE had a table.  He saw that offering English classes could be good match for a church whose denomination originates in the homeland of the language.  A search was made for someone more qualified to teach the classes, but no one was found. 

Pastor Jorge took the initiative and got started with himself as teacher.  Somehow, he managed to do so even with his busy work schedule, seminary class assignments, other responsibilities as a pastor, as well as being a husband and father of three young adult children.  One way he manages it all is that his ministry is often a family project.  In each of his travels to he U.S. and Southwestern, he has been accompanied by one of the members of his family.  His daughter Agostina will also have a graduation of her own this year, completing her Bachelor’s degree in English, and will join him in the English ministry.

He currently has one in-person and one online class.  Already the ministry is bearing fruit.  One student is not only learning English, but has come back to the Lord because of the study of Mark.  Pastor Jorge’s ministry is a shining example of how when we offer our loaves and fishes to the Lord, he multiplies.