ARGENTINA
The ministry CBB has focused on is the Argentine Baptist Theological Seminary where members Cecil and Jean Thompson served for 20 years as professors. The Seminary is located in the city of Buenos Aires. The Seminary began its co-educational and international status in 1950, combining the menīs seminary and two womenīs missionary training schools at that time. The plan at that time was to have an international school with students from Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. At that time the faculty was made up mostly of missionary personnel. The goal was always that as Argentine professors were prepared, they would take the place of the missionary.
That is the case today with all national professors, who follow the pattern of most Latin American seminaries in that the professors are part-time, mostly serving as pastors in nearby churches. The Seminary has night classes with an enrollment of some 300 students. Other students are enrolled in Seminary Extension classes in strategically located areas of the country.
Central Baptist Bearden has helped in two major projects
1. Help with urgent major plumbing repair and reconstruction in the girls' dormitory. Most of these buildings were built in the 1950's and have had major problems and need of repair. With the withdrawal of funds from institutional missions by the International Mission Board in the 1990's institutions such as the Seminary have had their budgets restricted. Most of the conventions in Latin America cannot support the financial burden of the institutions that were begun mostly by the Foreign Mission Board.
2. Help with scholarships for three couples from Cuba who were preparing to serve the Lord in their home country. One couple was preparing to return to Cuba to teach in the Seminary there. Since they were foreigners, they were unable to work in Buenos Aires and thus had need for additional scholarship aid in order to remain at the Seminary. CBB helped them for two years of their study. They were outstanding students during that time.
This was an exceptional cooperative mission action. The Argentine Baptist Theological Seminary opened their doors to these three couples from Cuba;
Central Baptist Church, Bearden, made it possible for them to remain there and complete their education, preparing them to return to Cuba. As they have returned there, they will bless their churches and their country because two Baptist groups from two different countries made their theological and ministerial training possible!
