# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S388
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

388 MISSIONS

a desperately poor country. Our missionary at Encarnacion works
under considerable handicaps. Progress is slow. Chile suffers from
severe economic distress. Two missionaries are scoring their first
successes. Neither of them has chapel facilities.

VIL. Argentina

Manpower is the number-one problem of the Argentina Dis-
trict. The work suffers from large and scattered parishes which
cannot be adequately served. Villa Ballester cannot meet the
manpower needs. Transportation is another problem. A new
inflationary tendency threatens the salary structure of the District.
In spite of these handicaps the work is making progress. The
congregations are being actively encouraged to achieve self-support.

The Seminary at Villa Ballester sustained a heavy loss in the
death of Professor Lehenbauer early in 1955. This professorship
is still vacant. Three non-Lutheran instructors assist with purely
secular subjects. The Board of Control requests that a new pro-
fessorship be created to replace one of these non-Lutheran in-
structors. The change could be accomplished with little extra
cost to Synod.

In an effort to increase the manpower supply the brethren in
far-northern Argentina have been granted permission to open an
experimental school for boys who desire to study for the holy
ministry. The students will remain in Obera until their sixteenth
or seventeenth year before enrolling at Villa Ballester. An in-
structor has been hired to instruct the classes. An estimated
enrollment of twelve boys will be on hand for the present term.
This school need not be formally approved by Synod until a period
of trial has proved its worth. The school at Crespo is not pro-
ducing students for the Seminary as had been hoped. The officials
of the District have been asked to restudy the ministerial training
system of the District and to suggest a practical program of
reorganization. Modern laundry facilities and refrigeration have
been provided for the Seminary in Villa Ballester.

VII. Brazil

The potentials of Brazil are fabulous. The possibilities for
mission expansion in Brazil are nearly so. The direction of mission
expansion is northward along the seacoast into such cities like
Salvador (384,000); Recife (500,000); Fortaleza (205,700); Belem
(235,500); Manaus (121,400); and westward into the interior states
of Goias and Matto Grosso. These areas are virgin territory for
Lutheranism. Resident missionaries are working in Salvador and

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