A
Brief History of Business Chaplaincy in Paraguay…
One of the pioneers of spiritual work in the commercial
business field in Paraguay was Heinrich Friesen. He
says the idea was born in 1984 when he assumed the
presidency of RECORD ELECTRIC. The company leadership
wanted to give the workers more than a salary –
they wanted to offer them spiritual help at the workplace.
With this goal in mind, they began a weekly time of
spiritual reflection at the beginning of the work
day. This was pretty uncomfortable at first, according
to Friesen, and was very difficult the very first
time. He showed up in the machine shop with a Bible
in his hand, which was quite unexpected by the workers.
But this was the beginning of what is now (Anabaptist)
Business Chaplaincy.
Between 1988 and 1990 other businesses joined
them in offering Bible Studies to employees and strive
to improve the level of trust between Christian employees.
The owners of Record Electric, Comagro, Chacomer,
and Atlantic met to plan and dream together, and sought
the support of their respective church communities.
Some church members did not understand the proposal
clearly, Friesen commented, because they couldn’t
imagine preaching the gospel without planting churches.
Nevertheless, the pastors of the Concordia Mennonite
Churches in Asunción, Vickor Wall and Werner
Franz, welcomed and supported the initiative. The
owners of the above named businesses and the KfK (Church
Issues Committee) of the local church community wrote
up a document which gave form to what was called at
that time “Association of Christian Businessmen”,
in order to carry the vision forward.
From this group came the idea of contracting a person
to present the Biblical teachings in the businesses.
They wrote to Paul Amstutz, a Mennonite missionary
from the US, to offer him the challenge. On October
1st, 1991 the Business Chaplaincy began officially
with Chaplain Amstutz hired 75% time for the work.
From its inception until 1996 the chaplaincy work
was called “Business Mission of the Concordia
Mennonite Church”. Later it took the name “Business
Chaplaincy”, and the work Anabaptist was later
added to give theology identity to the project without
limiting it to the name Mennonite.
Until 1995 the program had one full time chaplain;
a second part time chaplain was added in 1996. By
the end of 2001 three full time and two part time
chaplains were on staff. By December 2005 there had
been a considerable increment both in businesses tended
to and number of chaplains, and 2006 ended with fourteen
chaplains, most of them full time, and a total of
35 businesses, plus their branch offices all around
the country, reaching 2.300 employees.
Source: “A Pastoral Ministry in Business and
Commerce” by Rogelio Duarte Núñez
(available only in Spanish).
Anabaptist Business Chaplaincy currently serves 34
businesses with 130 branch locations, using 15 full
time chaplains, 8 part time chaplains, plus the collaboration
of several pastors.
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