Logo of the South Dakota Synod, ELCA

Companion Synods Program

The Companion Synods Program of the ELCA forges relationships between the 65 synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and companion churches around the world, fellow members of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

Who Are Our Companions?

Cameroon map Église Évangélique Luthérienne du Cameroun (EELC), led by President Rev. Dr. Thomas Nyiwe, began eighty years ago with the arrival in Cameroon of European and American missionaries. For nearly half of those years, the EELC has been an independent church body -- self-governed but with continuing close connections to its founding partners. Today, almost all of its seminary and Bible school professors, doctors and medical staff, and development leaders are African.

This fast-growing church estimated approximately 1000 congregations eight years ago; today, the best guess is about 2000!

The EELC and the South Dakota Synod became companion synods at the formation of the ELCA in 1988.


Nicaragua map
Iglesia Luterana Fe y Esperanza de Nicaragua (ILFE) (Lutheran Church of Nicaragua of Faith and Hope), led by President Rev. Victoria Cortez, was begun in Nicaragua by Lutheran refugees from El Salvador who had fled during that country's civil war. When those refugees returned to El Salvador, Nicaraguans decided to continue the Lutheran witness in their own communities. The ILFE was received as a member church of the Lutheran World Federation in 1994.

This very young church has approximately fifty worshipping communities, served primarily by lay pastors who live and work in the rural communities that they serve, and in the poorest areas of the capital city, Managua.

The ILFE and Lutherans in South Dakota began our walk in faith together in 1999, shortly after Hurricane Mitch had devastated northern Nicaragua, and formally established our companion synod relationship in 2000.

How Can You Help?

In addition to traveling to visit our companion synods and to receiving guests when they travel to South Dakota, our synod through its Companion Synods Task Force is engaged in assisting with projects as they are asked from our companion churches.

Primary projects in Cameroon have included:

  • The Roof Project. Since 1997, more church walls have been built, with worshipping communities hopeful that they, too, will receive a roof! Cost: $5,000.
  • Motorcycles. For pastors who must travel to serve ten, twenty, thirty congregations --but do not have a vehicle--the gift of a motorcycle has been a great boon to aid in the growing of the church. Cost: $1,500.
  • Train Up a Child. For only $10, a child in South Dakota pays for half the cost of a child in Cameroon to attend one of the primary schools of the EELC. The project aims to help girls and disabled children, who otherwise would not be afforded education, to attend school. Because of these gifts, more than a thousand more children now are receiving an education. Cost: $10.

New projects under consideration are:

  • Train Up a Pastor, providing half the living costs for a seminary student ($500 a year for five years) and Leader in Residence, bringing an EELC leader to South Dakota for three-to-six-month residencies (cost undetermined).

Primary projects in Nicaragua are:
  • Volunteer Missionaries. The South Dakota Synod has been sending volunteer missionaries to Nicargua for several years now, working to help build up the ILFE's youth ministry and helping to coordinate travel and projects of South Dakota visitors. South Dakota congregations provide transportation and living expenses. Cost: $7,500 per year.
  • A medical clinic and multi-use building in Chinandega -- built by Gloria Dei, Sioux Falls. The ILFE asks that ongoing expenses for a doctor and staff, medications, fuel, lights, etc. be provided by a consortium of South Dakota congregations. Cost: $15,000 a year.
  • Horses and bicycles. For lay pastors who travel many miles on primitive dirt paths to reach remote rural communities, the gift of a horse or bicycle greatly aids their work. Horse cost: $400. Bicycle cost: $100.
  • An ambulance was provided through a donor gift, so that ILFE physicians might travel to conduct medical clinics in remote rural communities.
  • Medical equipment and medicines are needed for the new Chinandega clinic, and for medical teams from South Dakota that travel to offer health work in Nicaragua.

New projects under consideration are:

  • textbooks for the ILFE's primary schools ($7,250)
  • a night-school classroom ($3,500)
  • white-board markers for the schools ($430)
  • and a project providing a new variety of bean seeds to rural communities ($4,800).

Would you like to join a team to travel to Cameroon or Nicaragua? Do any of these projects appeal to you as something that you or your congregation may wish to participate in? Please contact either Val Parsley, Companion Synods Task Force chair (605/256-4984), or Pastor Bill Tesch at the synod office, 605/274-4011.

View some Companion Synods photos here!
View the report of the synod's first Mission Builders visits to Cameroon (November-December 1998) here!

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South Dakota Synod, ELCA
Augustana College
Sioux Falls SD 57197
605/274-4011
605/274-4028 (fax)
sdsynod@augie.edu

 

 
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