Mennonite Weekly Review

DALLAS — Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary has concluded its first Spanish-language theological program.

Nina Bartelt Lanctot, left, AMBS associate director of Engaging Pastors, and Aurora Parchmont, student in Seminario Bíblico Anabautista, eat tamales and describe how they are made at a morning break in classes at AMBS. — Photo by Mary E. Klassen/AMBS

Seminario Bíblico Anabautista (Anabaptist Biblical Seminary), which began in 2006 and concluded Feb. 6, included courses taught in Dallas.

AMBS, in Elkhart, Ind., established the program to provide ministry training to pastors of Hispanic Mennonite churches; it also helped to bridge gaps between AMBS and the Spanish-speaking pastors.

Over the last three years, the seminary’s Engaging Pastors program — which ended in December — sent several professors to Dallas to sit in on classes, learn to know the students and find out about the congregations in which they minister.

The seminary then brought the Hispanic pastors to Elkhart in October.

“The goal was mutual learning,” said Nina Bartelt Lanctot, assistant director of Engaging Pastors, who planned the visit. “The Seminario students could see resources here and become aware of those that could be useful to them, and the AMBS community could learn to know a slice of Mennonite Church USA that these pastors represent.”

Blanca Vargas, pastor of Iglesia Menonita Comunidad de Vida (Community of Life Mennonite Church) in San Antonio, said she valued “the sharing that we had with all of the administrative and teaching staff, and their interest in getting to know us and to listen to us.”

As part of their class work while they were in Indiana, students joined in a seminary chapel service and participated in a worship service at Iglesia Menonita del Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd Mennonite Church) in Goshen. The experience also included a visit to Menno-Hof, the Mennonite and Amish visitors center in Shipshewana, and to the Mennonite Central Committee facilities in Goshen where AMBS alumni Jorge Vielman and Saulo Padilla explained the work of MCC Great Lakes.

“I became aware that the purpose of the Mennonite Church is very missional and missionary, and that there is also a concern for [providing] education for others,” said Juan Limones, pastor of Iglesia Menonita Luz del Evangelio (Light of the Gospel Mennonite Church) in Dallas. “For me, it was a great blessing.”

Oneida Dueñas of Ferris, Texas, appreciated the welcome from the AMBS community, which “showed me that in the body of Christ there is no distinction of race, color and culture,” she said.

The final course focused on worship and preaching with instructor José Ortiz. Seminario students who participated in this course, in addition to Vargas, Limones and Dueñas, were Alberto and Aurora Parchmont, pastors of Iglesia Menonita Casa del Alfarero (Potter’s House Mennonite Church), Pasadena, Texas; and Samuel Moran, pastor of Ministerios Restauración (Restoration Ministries), Oak Grove, Ore. Several of the students who completed all of the Seminario course work earned credits toward AMBS’s Certificate in Theological Studies.

The Lilly Endowment-funded Engaging Pastors project, the Schowalter Foundation, Western District Conference of Mennonite Church USA and AMBS funded Seminario Bíblico Anabautista.