Outreach to the young in Uruguay

n Children in Montevideo choose Scriptures they have been offered as part of the Bible Society of Uruguay’s O-21 project

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Two projects aimed at bringing the knowledge of Jesus to children and young people in Uruguay have involved large-scale participation by Roman Catholic parishes for the first time, and have resulted in the distribution of more than 100,000 Portions of Scripture.

Agnostic

As a country, Uruguay has traditionally maintained an agnostic position and very few children have any familiarity with the idea of the universal love of God.

In an effort to remedy this, the Bible Society project offered churches a range of pamphlets as resources for their evangelistic work.

Two of those designed for children were called Children are the Smile of God and Now I Believe, and those for young people were entitled Discovering Jesus, I am Someone and Be in Balance. All were in the Dios Habla Hoy (‘God Speaks Today’) version, otherwise known as the Good News version.

The Society began planning the project in 1998 and promoted it by writing to churches and church-based organisations inviting them to take part, by taking advertisements in newspapers, and through publicity on the Christian Trans World Radio over a two-month period.

Roman Catholics

Samples of the resources were also sent to a national commission representing the Roman Catholic churches and to some individual Catholic churches registered on the Bible Society database.

In the words of a Bible Society of Uruguay report on the project, “Strong promotion brought a strong answer on the part of the churches.” More than 250 evangelical churches took part as well as “an indefinite number” of Roman Catholic parishes. It was the first time that the latter had taken part, said the report, adding that that the number was “indefinite” because in some cases requests for material were made by the diocesan office on behalf of a number of parishes and schools.

One single request which the Society received, for example, was made on behalf of 12 parishes, 11 private schools and three pastors responsible for their own evangelical congregations.

The participating churches and organisations held various local events designed to convey to parents the relevance of the Bible message for children, for the entire family and for society as a whole, and altogether some 40,000 children’s pamphlets were given out and 60,000 of the pamphlets for young people.

Among the many expressions of thanks the Bible Society received from the churches taking part was an e-mail from an Assemblies of God Church in the department of Paysandu.

“We write this e-mail showing in this way the thanks of our institution for sending such necessary and useful material,” it said, “through which we have reached children, young people and adults because we have begun in our cities and some nearby villages several evangelistic campaigns – and personal work, too… We want you and your fellow workers and brothers to know that your work and effort are not in vain. There are not words to express the gratitude that is in our hearts.”