Evangelical Mennonite Conference missions first took interest in Paraguay in the late 1950s, when Henry Toews, a missionary from Menno Colony in the Chaco region, attended Bible school in Manitoba. In 1962 he won support to purchase land adjacent to Menno Colony in order to settle a group of Sanapaná Indians. The settlement was called La Esperanza (Hope). The mission, supported in part by a Paraguay Missions Auxiliary (Evangelical Mennonite Conference) in Canada, is officially registered as the Misión Evangélica Menonita.

Mission workers from La Esperanza became involved in 1964 in East Paraguay, where members of a renewal movement in the Bergthal Colony had established a new settlement called Buena Vista. Together they established Bible studies, a youth program (Christian Endeavor), schools, a new congregation, a clinic, and evangelization among the neighboring Guarani Indians, 1964-1965.

At the same time the La Esperanza settlement in the Chaco grew. In 1961 the Mennonite mission program in the Chaco was reorganized (Chaco Mission), including the establishment of an Indian Settlement Board to supervise full scale settlement and development work. Nurses were to be supplied by the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, which also retained administration of the spiritual work. By 1973 there were approximately 350 Indians living at La Esperanza. A Bible institute for leadership training began in 1972 under the direction of Dietrich Lepp. It was later moved to Yalve Sanga. Other ministries included Radio ZP30's program of cultural, educational, and religious broadcasts in eight languages.

In 1970 the families and mission workers of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference church at Buena Vista moved to Tobati; in 1973 the community organized as the Tres Palmas Colony. Mission work which expanded to Paraguayan towns in the area around the colony included evangelism, Bible studies, correspondence courses, a film ministry, and a Christian bookstore in Caaguazú. Membership in the Tres Palmas congregation in 1984 was 200.

See also Convención de las Iglesias Evangelicas Unidas, Paraguay; Conservative Mennonites (Dutch­Prussian-Russian); Kleine Gemeinde (Mexico); Reimer, Klaas.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, p. 280. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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