I’ve started a series to highlight the different cities around Lanús, where we are starting Faith Baptist Church. We have posts on Lanús and Avellaneda. This post is dedicated to Gerli. Gerli is pronounced as “hair-lee”. Gerli is settled in between Lanús and Avellaneda and is smaller in comparison to the two neighboring cities. The town is home to some 64,000 people (according to a 2001 census, the latest census I could find). It straddles the Avellaneda/Lanús county (or partido) line with almost half of it’s inhabitants in each of the two counties. The outskirts of Gerli are just 4 kilometers from the building where Faith Baptist Church in Lanús will be started. The small city has over 30 neighborhoods. Like Lanús, Gerli is divided by two things, the large avenue Yrigoyen and the train tracks.

While there is not much to say about this town, for how small it is, it is full of people! It is also centrally located, and has people commuting through daily to and from Buenos Aires, whether by train, bus, or car. This is the story for many of the cities around Buenos Aires. They are all full of people and have even more people passing through each day.

Of the surrounding cities around Lanús, Gerli is certainly of the smallest of them. It’s proximity to where we will start Faith Baptist Church in just a few weeks makes it more interesting. Even so, the city is in need of at least two Baptist churches, one on the east side and one on the west side. This would make reaching Gerli much more realistic. Yet another reminder that the need is far greater than we sometimes even realize! Pray for laborers.

In the next posts, we will look at Banfield, Lomas de Zamora, and Temperley as well as a special post about some of the surrounding neighborhoods and villas (pronounced, “veeshas”) of Lanús.

Avellaneda (pronounced “Aveshanetha”) is a city (and county) just north of Lanús, where we will be starting Faith Baptist Church. I was talking to a man who has lived in the area for years. His father and grandfather grew up there as well. At one time in the past, all of Lanús and Gerli were just parts of Avellaneda. Avellaneda is a port city just south of Buenos Aires. According to the 2001 census (the latest one I could find), the population is just under 330,000 people.

Avellaneda is the home of two soccer teams, “Racing” and “Independiente”. The stadiums of each team are located very close to one another. Many people think of one of these two teams when they think of Avellaneda. Avellaneda also has two malls. It is also known to be a city of manufacturing. I looked at several different buildings to rent to start Faith Baptist Church. At least one of them (maybe a few more) were in Avellaneda. The realtor I spoke with told me that parts of Avellaneda are more dedicated to manufacturing where as other parts are more residential. When I think of Avellaneda, I really don’t think about Racing, Independiente, the malls, or the manufacturing.

You can see Avellaneda from the highway. I take this highway often. I go from La Plata to Lanús (about an 1 hour 10 minute drive). I pass through Avellaneda every time I go to Lanús. I see the need as I pass through. The truth is, in this part of Argentina, I don’t know if there is a “bad” or “wrong” place to start a church. I don’t know of any church with sound doctrine in Avellaneda, Lanús, Gerli, or Banfield. There may be some, but I don’t know of any and when I ask about it, others tell me there are not any churches that would preach salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. There are many churches and the name of Jesus is known, but the Gospel of Jesus is sadly not proclaimed, at least that we can find.

When I think of Avellaneda, I think of the need. I think of the amount of people there and the lack of Gospel preaching churches. I think of the opportunity to see God work in such a place. I hope to see churches planted in Avellaneda. Maybe one day we will send men God allows us to train to start churches in the area. Until then, Avellaneda will remain in the dark. Will you pray with me for the people of Avellaneda?

My wife and I will go out tonight for a romantic dinner. We look forward to the time we will get to spend together. My wife is my best friend. She is an incredible woman, an example to my children as well as to others. She has a humble spirit. I am loud and at times boisterous and she is calm and reserved. She doesn’t want to be in the “lime-light”, she would rather serve in “the shadows”. Before I ever met her she was serving in our church. I have watched her over the years serve in many different capacities from teaching Sunday School, discipling others, assisting with special Sundays that included church-wide dinners, working with kids, teens, and adults, and in many other ministries. Having kids never stopped her. She would just take them along with us. Nothing has really changed. The woman really amazes me!

Tomorrow I will sign a rental contract for the building where we will start Faith Baptist Church. I have been working toward this day! It is an exciting day, a day that truthfully brings along with it a lot more work! I am living the dream! But the truth is I have been living the dream for some time now. I serve along the greatest woman in the world. Win or lose, we do it together. In good days and in bad, we press on as a team. God has given me a “teammate”, a “partner” to do ministry with. We press on together.

In just a few minutes we leave for our dinner together, just her and I. I must be the most blessed man in the world. Leslie is a beauty and I am thankful to say she is my beauty!

We will be starting Faith Baptist Church in Lanús in just a few weeks. I wrote a blog about Lanús on June 25, 2014 (click here). It was a part of a series that I was doing on some of the largest cities in Argentina. I had no idea that is where we would be starting a church, although I have had a burden for that general area after visiting Argentina in March 2014. Lanús is pronounced “la” (as in “lot”)-“nus” (as in noose) with the emphasis on the “nus” portion.

A Few Interesting Statistics

• Lanús is located on the southern boarder of Buenos Aires. While it is it’s own city, it is also a part of the conglomeration of cities that make up greater Buenos Aires.
• The population density of Lanús partido (county) is among the highest of the counties in Gran Buenos Aires. On top of that, the city is growing.
• The city is divided by the major avenue, Hipólito Yrigoyen, into Lanús East and Lanús West.
• The latest population I can find is from a 2001 census which has the population at just over 212,000.

My Observations

In Lanús, you are in a heavily populated area. The surrounding cities, Avellaneda, Gerli, Remedios de Escalada, Banfield, Lomas de Zamora are stacked on top of each other and you are not totally sure where one ends and the other begins. Lanús (as well as the other surrounding cities) is heavily travelled daily to and from Buenos Aires. All of the cities are wide open for church planting.

Our goal is not to build the biggest church in Lanús but to start churches and train men who can start churches in all of these cities and in the cities surrounding the cities as well as in Buenos Aires proper. In a 10 km radius of Lanús there is just under 2.5 million people*! This area is wide open and Lanús is where it will all start for us.

*population found on freemaptools.com