ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Mission Network) – After seven years of offering classes in churches, the Instituto Bíblico Toba-Qom (Toba-Qom Bible Institute) in Castelli, Argentina, will soon have their own space.
Supported by Mennonite Mission Network, the institute offers leadership development training and deeper biblical understanding for Toba-Qom people in and around the towns of Castelli and Miraflores located in the Chaco region of Argentina.
The new building for the group in Castelli will have a room for the institute’s classes and community-led workshops, a radio station, and a recording studio for musicians from Toba-Qom churches.
“This project will open new opportunities for our people,” said Francisco Marcial, a musician and student who helped construct the building. “We’ve never had a recording studio or our own FM radio station. This place will be a gathering place for lots of people: making radio programs, recording their music, studying the word of God. It gives our community strength and energy.”
Construction started in 2012 and has proceeded with funds from local donors, from the provincial government, and from Sonnenberg and Pike Mennonite churches in Ohio.
The institute paid community members who had construction experience to build the structure up to the roof. At that point, community volunteers added the roof.
“The idea [to build the classroom] came from conversations with Toba-Qom people about getting an independent space for our vision,” said José Oyanguren, an international partnership associate with Mennonite Mission Network whose family is sent by Bragado Mennonite Church to serve in the region. “Our faith alone inspired us, because we didn’t have anything else.”
For many years, the group of Mennonite Mission Network workers and associates in the Argentine Chaco, called the Mennonite team, sought culturally appropriate and structured ways to respond to a need for leadership development.
In 2007, Oyanguren and Toba-Qom leaders developed the Bible institute that focused on keeping students within their communities, used indigenous teachers, and operated mostly from student contributions.
Now that the institute is well established and has 50 students enrolled, the leaders want it to have its own building that could also function as a community space to support education and cultural expression.
The radio station and recording studio included in the new building will give the Toba-Qom people access to communication media that weren’t easily available before.
Oyanguren said that the institute also hopes to host in the building an accelerated high-school program for adults aged 18 and older. Already, 80 people have signed up for the program. Since the new building currently has only one classroom, Oyanguren will send a proposal to the government to fund more classrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen to make the space more comfortable.
Continued church and local donations of funds and raw materials move the building closer to completion. Now that the walls and roof are built, the institute will work on construction as funds are available.
Energy from this construction project spurred the formation of the community-led Centro Educativo Qom Saỹaten (Qom Knowledge Educational Center) that has the motto “Ca ỹaỹaten ỹañoxot” (Knowledge empowers).
The center will share the space with the institute and will offer cultural strengthening, language preservation, and Christian ethical formation.
“I hope [the center] is a blessing for many,” said Marcial. “It gives us power and strength as we move forward.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net.
