“Why Don’t We Meet to Pray for Our Country?”
On December 21, 2001, thousands of Argentineans flooded the streets of Buenos Aires to witness, grieve, and protest the dissolution of their government. Rioting and looting capped months of financial failures, leaving no citizen untouched. Unemployment skyrocketed. Pensions evaporated. Industry crumbled. Days earlier, the economic minister Domingo Cavallo limited the amount of money that could be withdrawn from personal bank accounts. This led to his immediate resignation along with most of the government’s cabinet. Accounts vary, but the day of the riot, police killed between 20 and 27 citizens. The president resigned in the midst of the calamity, and between December 20, 2001, and January 1, 2002, Argentina went through five heads of state.1 As the nation fell apart, Argentina’s pastors prayed.
Months before that fateful day, pastors Pedro Ibarra and Osvaldo Carnival started a pastors’ fellowship to encourage camaraderie among church leaders. However, December 21 changed the focus of their gatherings. According to Ibarra, “Men were dying in uprisings; men were hurt. Blood was in the main square. While everything was going on, the police did not do anything . . . Someone thought, ‘If we meet together to eat and fellowship, why don’t we meet to pray for our country? . . . The result was awesome. Pastors from all over the country came to meet together . . . ‘Argentina We Pray for You’ was born.’”2 (Indeed, “erupted” may be a better word.) And, according to Ibarra, God heard their prayers and brought an end to the revolts.3
After more prayer and fasting, Ibarra decided to encourage even more pastors to pray for the reformation of the nation. He hoped that every hour of the day an Argentinean would be petitioning God on behalf of the country. And the numbers grew. On February 15, 2002, over 25,000 people met outdoors to plead with God “to intervene and bless Argentina.” A few months later, Ibarra and others hosted another prayer meeting, and on this day it rained. Undeterred, over 20,000 people showed up yet again to pray.4
Alarmed, compassionate, and faithful pastors have been the key to this awakening:
The nation bowed their knees before God to cry out for a miraculous manifestation of God’s power. In this center of spiritual operations, hundreds of pastors got together and many spiritual battles started because they saw what we saw: a nation bathed in blood and governed by violence. Anguish was clear. Streets and windows were broken; cars were on fire; and supermarkets were robbed. All these things and much more caused us to raise an altar for Argentina.5
As Jose Maria Silvestre expresses it, God’s people are responding,
. . . filled with love, compassion, and mercy . . . [that] heals the sick, frees the captives, raises the poor, unites the lonely, [and] impacts society. This church is a mature and renewed church. She grows in unity and establishes action like a spiritual army that reaches her goals with the Holy Spirit’s power. The time is coming when the evident numerical growth of believers will produce a society changed morally and spiritually through their testimony.6
Though many Argentineans despair over their recent history, these pastors are filled with hope, confident they will see Argentina “healthy, beautiful, with power and unction and a new heart.”7 The Lord called these ministers to prayer, and then He met them in power. Now they understand more than ever that God-initiated, Spirit-saturated supplication is potent. And surely this is the case beyond the borders of Argentina. If only pastoral counterparts around the world would attune their hearts to hear God’s special calls to prayer in their own settings—and then gather in holy zeal and expectation.
| 1 |
For accounts of the 2001 Argentine crisis see: “The Events that Triggered Argentina’s Crisis,” BBC News Website, December 21, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1721103.stm (accessed August 30, 2007); Leslie Evans, “The Crisis in Argentina,” UCLA International Institute, April 4, 2003, http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=3566 (accessed August 30, 2007); “Timeline: Argentina’s Economic Crisis,” Guardian Unlimited, December 20, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,11439,623073,00.html (accessed August 30, 2007); “Background to the Crisis in Argentina,” Crisis States Research Centre: Crisis in Argentina Website, August 28, 2003, http://www.crisisstates.com/associated/CAW/background.htm (accessed August 30, 2007). |
| 2 |
Pedro Ibarra, “The Challenge of the Ever-Burning Altar,” in Argentina We Pray for You, ed. Pedro Ibarra, trans. Alisson Arruda (Buenos Aires: Roberto Grancharoff and Sons, 2003), 89. |
| 3 |
Comment made by Pastor Ibarra during a Kairos Journal meeting in New York City on January 26, 2007.
I am from Argentina, and we had a crisis in Argentina a few years back, and many pastors got together, and we decided to fast and pray. There was political chaos. We called for a meeting to pray in the government square. The government didn’t want us to do this – because thousands of people would come and it may not be safe. But God is in control and we had the prayer meeting and the revolts ended. |
| 4 |
Osvaldo Carnival, “Introduction,” in Argentina, 9. |
| 5 |
Ibarra, “The Challenge,” in Argentina, 89. |
| 6 |
Ibid., 75-76. |
| 7 |
Pedro Ibarra, “Prologue,” in Argentina, 6. |