Mission: Urban

Well, this was our last full day here in Argentina.  By this time tomorrow we will be in the air and on our way home.  It really hit home that we were leaving tomorrow as we were doing our online check-in to prepare for departure. I for one have mixed emotions as we prepare to depart…looking forward to home (and a good night’s sleep) and really going to miss being here with team La Plata. If I had to guess I would say I am not alone there, and would bet that there are seven of us all feeling that way.  I pray we were a blessing to the team and that I will have an opportunity to return.

This morning we did part one of our tour of Brian and Tara’s neighborhood.    Brian led us through the neighborhood, pointing out several shrines that have been erected in the area.  Interestingly, these shrines have a christian (small c intentional) overtone.  Many of these shrines are set to worship the virgin Mary, who is exalted in this culture.  Brian explained that the view of Jesus here is either as a baby, dead on the cross, or dead in Mary’s arms. In short, it is Mary who gives Jesus life, and who supports and carries Jesus, even in death. Visiting the cathedral both here in La Plata and in Buenos Aries reinforced this view, as both places surely do depict Jesus as either small and weak (a baby) still on the cross or dead and in Mary’s arms.  As a matter of fact (we did not get to see this, but Nate told us about it, the stations of the cross in the cathedral in BA stop at the tomb; it is as though Jesus were still in there!

While it is somewhat sickening to see how Mary is idolized over Jesus, at least Mary is a biblical figure of some importance, and one can at least understand the mistake. There is, however, an even worse example of Satan perverting Christianity here.  A very popular spiritual figure here is known as Gauchito Gil.  The pictures of the red items below are examples of shrines to this person.

Gauchito Gil is a possible historical, possible mythical figure on Argentina’s history.  Supposedly he is a “Robin hood” type figure who it is said had fallen in love with the girlfriend or wife of a local political figure (a mayor or sheriff).  Knowing he could not be with his love, he went off to war and became a hero, only upon returning the local political figure captured him and took him out to hang him.  Just before hanging him, Gauchito told him that his son was deathly ill and if he would spare Guachito, he would heal his son.  The mayor (we’ll call him) hung him anyway, only to find upon his return home that his sone was in fact deathly ill.

Pagan Shrine to Gauchito Gil

He quickly returned to the site of the hanging to give Gauchito a decent burial and honor him.  Lo and behold, his son was healed and the legend is no that if you pray to Gauchito he will “bless: you, the only catch is if he does bless you, you must have a celebration to tell everyone how Gauchito gave you what you wanted, and then erect and maintain a shrine in thanks.  Gaucho, although supposedly hung, is depicted standing before a cross!

It is clear that Satan has done a good job of deceiving the Argentine’s here since this pagan worship is simply whitewashed with Christian symbols.  It is likely, even probable that these shrines and the worship to idols produces some spiritual “rewards”, but that is the way Satan and his demons work. It appears you are being blessed, when in actuality you are being cursed. All the celebration is designed to bring more followers to the demon (idol) and AWAY from Jesus.

There is a lot of background reasoning behind why and how the people here are deceived by this, but there is not enough room in the blog to explain it…if you are interested in more info see the following links:

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN0847553020080108

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauchito_Gil

This is a horrible perversion of spiritual worship, and could use some very focused prayer, particularly since our team is on the front lines of this battle, and it is clear the enemy is fully engaged.

After walking with Brian, we had ANOTHER wonderful lunch of “baked fried chicken”,

Us and our chefs

(our group with our wonderful chef’s seen here) a short siesta and then out on our scavenger hunt!  We began by leaving hte house, with a “shadow” of course to make sure we didn’t end up in Chile somehow, and headed to the bus stop.  We were to take the bus toward the center of La Plata and had several tasks to complete once we debarked.  Of course, the FIRST task was to find the right bus, and after a couple false starts (we were originally on the side of the street headed AWAY from the center of La Plata) we were able to get instructions of where to stand and which bus to catch.  We made it ti Plaza Passo, missing the CORRECT stop by only one block.  Thankfully there is a bus stop on every corner here!

We managed to get a bottle of water, find the ice cream parlor (although ti was closed so we couldn’t buy ice cream), have a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe’ along with a pastry, call Deb on the phone, buy candy and cookies, a newspaper and finally arrive at the cathedral int he square.  The cathedral (see the picture below) is the largest Gothic church constructed in the 20th century.  It is a beautifully ornate structure, which dominates the center of the city.  Directly across from the cathedral is the Mayor’s office which is dwarfed by the size of the cathedral.  It is interesting that the Cathedral is the central building in the city, catolicism is the state recognized religion (you must be catholic to be president of Argentina) yet the worship among the common people is pagan.

La Plata Cathedral

It is a bittersweet day as we are beginning our preparations for leaving,  We still have one more worship session, another prayer walk and lunch together, but it feels lke things are coming to a close today.  Everyone is running around packing and gathering their things to ensure nothing is forgotten and we leave as little a “mark” on the place for our hosts to take care of after we leave as possible.  As much as we missed our homes and families while we were here, we will miss our family here in Argentina when we are gone.

Hopefully we will return soon!