Join with us in the spiritual battle for souls.
- Learn more about Timothy Institute
- Learn about our involvement in the local assembly.
- A quick look at the whole family
- Learn more about the culture, history, and geography of our area.
Drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
Doug and
Martha Baergen
Rio Del Valle 2367
Villa
Lavalle
A4414BKE Salta, Argentina
Phone:011-54-387-435-0201
e-mail: doug@thebaergens.com
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
For your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now.
Phillippians 1: 3,5
Doug
and Martha Baergen
-
serving the Lord in
Salta, Argentina -
Important: Using the links at the bottom of this page you can read the news about Argentina in Spanish and research the sites of four important Missionary Service Organizations.
Updated
June 13, 2018
See
"Prayer Requests"
Since
first coming to Argentina in 1966, Doug and Martha have been
involved in planting New Testament assemblies in the province of
Salta. In the early years they worked in rural areas and by 1982
the Lord had established one assembly through their efforts.
In
1982 the Lord brought them to the Capital City of the Province of
Salta which is also called Salta. There they began working in a
poor area of the city called the Lavalle area, where some
Christian young people had begun to work with children and a few
adults. Since that time an assembly has begun and has progressed
to a fellowship with 75 believers in fellowship and a full program
of congregational activities.
At
present the challenge in the Lavalle congregation is to be used of
the Lord to establish strong local leadership. Doug and another
man serve as assembly elders. They also seek to see more men take
responsibility in the work of the assembly.
Recently several young men,
college age fellows, have been leading singing in the meetings.
The
Baergens believe that missionary work should produce local
congregations that are capable of continuing and reaching out to
their own local area and beyond without
the aid of missionary personnel or funds from the homeland.
The
spiritual burden that eventually led to the founding of the
Timothy Institute began about 32 years ago when Doug went out to
an area on the south edge of the city to visit a construction site
in order to get some information a brother in Christ needed. He
found an area with 2000 homes, some of which were still being
completed. In the whole area there was no church of any kind. The
Roman Catholics were meeting in a public school on Sundays and the
few people who had been associated with evangelical works had to
take a long bus ride to the congregations in or near the downtown
area. After purchasing land and building a small chapel the
Baergens began to seek to win the people in the area for the Lord.
As
they had done before, Doug and Martha went door to door with the
Gospel. Tracts, Bible portions, Gospel calendars and Bible study
courses were used. But the area proved to be hard to evangelize.
Several young people and one adult professed to receive the Lord
but the goal of establishing a congregation that would go on to
win others in the area seemed very hard to reach with the usual
tools.
Doug had always considered himself a teacher by trade so
in 1993 he opened the Timothy Institute, a Christian kindergarten
and elementary school. At present the school has 370 students
enrolled for the 2018 school year which began on March 5. The
school is the tool the Baergens are using to reach out to the
people on the southern edge of the city of Salta. The school
now has grades K-12 and in December of 2017 had its ninth high
school graduation.
The Timothy Institute is
well known in the area as a school with a high academic standard,
family atmosphere and respectful students.
Important Links:
Local Newspaper in Salta (in Spanish)
Christian Missions in Many Lands (USA)
