# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S108
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

. ‘108 Seminaries and Colleges

Concordia Seminary at Buenos Aires, Argentina
(Unprinted Memorial 5)

Your Board of Control at. Buenos Aires. appears before you
to make the first report on a Lutheran Seminary of Theology in
Spanish America. May we express: the hope that this: seminary
will become for the countries of Spanish tongue what the seminary
‘at Porto Alegre is for the large Portuguese country of. Brazil,
which has been: instrumental in giving to that sister republic a
large measure of missionary success through a body. of ministers
rooted in the country, while other churches without the necessary
prevision and long-term planning were left practically frozen in
this period of rampant nationalism, so that a large number of
their congregations have come to us for pastoral service. Since
the majority of South and Central American countries use the
Spanish tongue and the sending of foreign missionaries to them .
from abroad is an almost unsolvable problem indeed, our seminary
‘within the boundaries of the most important of these countries
gives promise of similar success. And that should not only justify
the labor and expense we are putting into this our newest Con-
- cordia, but should encourage us to give it’ very special attention.
The members of Synod will remember that this seminary. was
.. founded through a resolution passed just three years ago at Fort
Wayne. We should like to mention here a special proof of the
Lord’s blessing. While that resolution was being debated, there
were reasons, unknown to Synod, to fear that none of the four
members of the class. to graduate at our college at.Crespo, Argen-
tina, in November, 1941, would be able to enter the new seminary,
and that would have left us without a theological class. for two
whole years. By various means, however, God made it possible °
not only for those four college graduates to enter the opening
class of the Seminary; but moved the hearts of ‘five of our most
promising young teachers to. ask for admission with the intention
to become pastors, while a year later a very sincere lay missionary
from outside our circles could be accepted as a paying. student, so
that instead of the four ‘students we considered a maximum, we
now had 10 'in our last year’s II Class of theology. Of these, four
are serving their Church as vicars in important fields during 1944,
while the remaining six hope to graduate at the end of this year, |
five of thern then becoming available for calls. In the meantime,
in March, 1944; a new class of four graduates (1943) from Crespo
‘College have been registered as our second class (Theology II).
‘This brings the number of registered students up ‘to 14, to which
‘we almost certainly hope to add one more from our college at Porto
‘Alegre, Brazil, contingent on his getting permission to enter the
‘country.