Momentous move for AMARE
Local leadership for Latin American women’s network takes a major step forward
Photo: AMARE women gather on Zoom, here presenting the diocesan team for Northern Argentina. (All photos Catherine Le Tissier/Church Mission Society)
Mission partner Catherine Le Tissier shares exciting news from AMARE, an Anglican women’s network in Latin America (affiliated with Mothers’ Union) gathering women and helping them experience and understand God’s love for them so that they can love and serve others. The network has now moved to have fully local leadership for the first time since it was founded in 2016.
On 11 June, AMARE held their third General Assembly, at which I handed over to a capable team from the dioceses of Argentina, Northern Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay. It’s an ongoing process but nevertheless an exciting and positive step towards self-governance – and it will be exciting to see how they help develop AMARE.
The assembly was held on Zoom, and attended by over 200 members and non-members crowding around their laptops, in craft workshops, our home and churches. Some places projected the assembly while others taking part used their mobile phones, and reports were shared through pre-prepared videos.
It didn’t have the atmosphere of other years but it was effective, so encouraging and we could all attend!
Please pray for this time of change and transition and that AMARE will continue to thrive and grow, encouraging women to share God’s love in practical ways, knowing that they are loved unconditionally by their Heavenly Father. (Find out more about AMARE.)
Love in action
AMARE’s main aim is that women should know just how loved they are, that they are precious in God’s sight and of much worth in a society that does not always value them or their children. As they know more of God’s love so they can and do reach out to others.
As I reflect over some very busy weeks, the most exciting thing for me has been seeing local AMARE Wichí friends take little (but very big) steps to love others by taking initiatives to raise money to enable children’s ministry, hiring a vehicle to visit and to listen to and encourage the women and families in far flung communities.
As we evaluated the visit to one church (which had been particularly heavy going), one of the women surprised me by saying “we must repeat Lectio Divina – it is the first time that I really felt God speaking to me so clearly.” I am sure that God will continue to speak to her – she is listening!
The local Toba AMARE group has also been busy and were invited by school teachers to visit, to listen and to teach, alongside visiting psychologists, as they cope with increasing violence in the local school.
Amanda Garcia, who visits the school, shared how it was a privilege to be able to visit the school but heartrending as so many children are suffering from some sort of domestic abuse – physical, psychological, and emotional – as parents who have inadequate tools, it seems, struggle to bring up their children in an increasingly fragmented society.
Pray for the Toba group as they reach out both to teachers and children, but also for Amanda and her husband, that they will know how to use their skills as parents and as parenting facilitators to encourage others.
