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Foundational missionaries of south american adventism. Daniel Plenc
Читать онлайн.Название Foundational missionaries of south american adventism
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9789877650334
Автор произведения Daniel Plenc
Жанр Документальная литература
Серия Pioneros
Издательство Bookwire
Although at the beginning life’s conditions in the new land were not easy, a hundred years later the loss of certain privileges granted by the Russian crown, with the addition of the lack of land for the new generation,8 provoked a new migration. Encouraged by reports of the first emigrants to the United States and Brazil, in the settlements enthusiasm arose to leave in search of a better future in American land. Heart-rending were the farewell moments between the young emigrants and their elders that stayed behind. Because of scarcity means of communication and transportation, they realized they would not see them again.9 By that time, Jorge Riffel had married María Ziegler and they had a son named David who was three years old by that date. Along with other Germans from the Volga, Riffel decided to leave with his family to Brazil in November of 1876. They set off on a long journey across Russia and then to the port of Bremen to board a ship that would take them to the southern hemisphere. In Brazil, they settled in the state of Río Grande do Sul for three or four years. These were not fortunate because of bad crops. It was apparent that tropical lands were not suitable for growing wheat, staple of this community. Around 1880, Riffel decided to leave for Argentina, where a big number of Germans from the Volga had concentrated in the Diamante department of the Entre Ríos province.10 Again, conditions were unfavorable. Bad crops followed plagues of locusts between 1885-1886 that forced them to choose another emigration, this time to the USA. They settled near the family of Friedrich (Frederick) Riffel, brother of Jorge, in Tampa, Marion County, Kansas State. Thus, after a decade of separation, the Riffel brothers found themselves farming the land together in the United State.
It is then that an incident happens that changed radically the course of their lives. Around 1888, Louis R. Conradi, a young German evangelist from Michigan, carried out meetings in Hillsboro and Lehigh aimed at the community speaking that language. In reports written in the periodical of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Conradi, H. Schultz y S. S. Schrock praised God for the excellent response he and his associates had. Since 1884, work was done among the Germans of the Volga in Tampa with excellent results. In 1888 the combined membership of Hillsboro, Lehigh and Clark churches were about 500 people.11
The families of Jorge and Frederick Riffel attended the meetings of this Adventist preacher. As a result, both families were baptized in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Jorge Riffel embraced the Adventist faith with enthusiasm. He attended Adventist camp meetings and conferences and began a lively correspondence with friends in Argentina sharing with them his new faith. Over time, he received letters from Entre Ríos indicating that his efforts were bearing fruit. A friend, Reinhard Hetze, wrote to him saying he would keep the Sabbath if somebody would do so with him.12 Next year, Riffel decided to return to Argentina as self-supporting missionary, intending to share his new faith with family and acquaintances that were Germans of the Volga. Riffel encouraged his brother Frederick to go with him, but he did not since he had to support a family of ten children and thought he was in no place to start a new uprooting. However, Adán and Eva Zimmermann, Augusto and Cristina Yanke and Osvaldo and Eva Frick and their families joined Riffel.13
The travelers arrived at the port of Buenos Aires in February of 1890. The Riffels continued to the port of Diamante without waiting for the other three families delayed by immigration procedures. Hetze was waiting for them and took them home, 15 kilometers from the port. During the journey, Jorge taught and exhorted Hetze regarding his faith. Then, Hetze decided to accept the Adventist teachings, becoming the first South American Adventist convert, along with his family. It was a Friday, and everybody made plans to celebrate the first Sabbath together.14 At that time, the Hetzes lived near the confluence of Ensenada and Gómez creeks. It was in the property of Hetze that it was held the first meeting of Adventist believers in the Argentine Republic a Sabbath day of February of 1890.
The Riffels obtained lands in the district of Isletas, near Camps, Department of Diamante, Entre Ríos. Soon they were joined by a small core of Adventist families composed by the immigrant families and those of the new converts. Hetze moved to live among them, too. This gathering of believers was known in the place as the “Sabbatarian Colony.”15 There were 20 people that kept the Sabbath. First, they met in the house of Hetze and then in a small chapel by the cemetery of present-day Aldea Jacobi. He would live in this place until his death.
His Work and Method
Jorge Riffel experienced an intense desire of sharing his Adventist faith after his conversion. Reinaldo Hetze pointed out that Riffel wrote him from the USA telling him about his new beliefs and that they would come to share with him the truth about the Sabbath.16 The exchange with Hetze and the reading of an article by Ellen G. White encouraging believers speaking in other languages to volunteer as self-supporting missionaries encouraged them to return to Argentina.17 After arriving to Argentina, he did not stop actively preaching, teaching, baptizing and organizing the church.
Evidently, his method is witnessing through exhortation to relatives, friends and acquaintances, Bible study and testimony through his life example. The memories of his descendants talk about a missionary Jorge Riffel who was persuasive, insistent and convinced that Christ would return soon and whose duty was to warn everyone willing to hear him. And his vision went beyond his place and the community surrounding him. He combined farm work to support his family with mission work near and far from his home. One descendant states that Riffel used to periodically hitch up his horse to his Russian carriage, loading some hay bundles to feed the animal and serve as a makeshift bed, and thus leave for several days to visit German settlements in distant places of the Entre Ríos province.18
He complemented this task with supporting the work of the local church, as lay leader and preacher. Finally, when the church organization was established, he supported it with his own funds and got involved in affirming the work of evangelist pastors. The church repaid this calling by granting him missionary credentials and licenses and appointing him member of different administrative boards.
By 1891 arrived the first Adventist missionaries sent by the organization of the church. When the leadership of the church knew of the existence of this group of German-speaking believers and other immigrants, they saw the need of strengthening them and building a solid Adventist presence. It was decided to send colporteurs Edwin W. Snyder, Albert B. Stauffer and Clair A. Nowlin.19 Their task was to distribute Adventist publications as a means of evangelization. They worked with publications in English, French and German, but they communicated poorly in Spanish and had no literature to sell in that language. Stauffer, who was German, worked quite a lot among German settlers.
In 1892, the Foreign Missions Board of the General Conference sent L. C. Chadwick to Argentina to visit the colporteurs. He also met with Adventist German of the Volga families of Entre Ríos.20 He advised the leaders of the group, trained and preached to the converts that until then had not heard the exhortation of an Adventist pastor. In his own words, he states:
I think I never enjoyed so much freedom to preach the Word. The meetings were held in a mud house of one of the brethren and the attendance of the neighbors was good. There are eight families of Sabbath keepers in the settlement and since their houses are a stone’s throw away from each other’s, they are well placed for the meetings. The last Sunday we were there with them, two of the brethren were chosen as leaders of the group and a third as treasurer. A Sabbath School director was also chosen and since they had just received the first copies of a subscription for Hausfreund they will be able to obtain their Sabbath School lessons from it.21
The appointed leaders where, undoubtedly, Riffel and Hetze, that had naturally been established as leaders of the small Adventist community. Chadwick stated that he did not see that the group was ready to be organized as church because it needed more instruction than what he could offer them, but the members would wait patiently for a German-speaking worker to be sent to them, who would find many doors open among the settlers thanks to the work of Riffel and the first Adventist families of Germans of the Volga.