H. Alejandro Alfaro Santiz

The Rev. H. Alejandro Alfaro Santiz is an Global Missionary of The United Methodist Church, serving as pastor, chaplain, and lay pastoral/VIM teams coordinator with the Argentine Evangelical Methodist Church.

An ordained elder of the Iowa Annual Conference, Alejandro earned degrees in Cultural Anthropology (BA) and Development focused on empowering communities (MA) from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He earned a Masters of Divinity with a concentration in United Methodist studies from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

The Argentine Evangelical Methodist Church has nearly 100 congregation throughout the country. The church has a great need for ordained pastors and new vocations. Ministries led by laity are essential. Another urgent need is to reestablish the promotion of VIM group visits and relationships with the annual conferences in the United States. The church, in its XXVII General Assembly, strategically defined working for the integral growth of all faith communities. This effort requires enhancing lay pastoral leadership in an exercise of recognition and providing tools for the exercise of pastoral and other ministries in service of the life and mission of the church. In this regard, having a missionary in the territory is fundamental to accompany the life and mission of the church.

In his missionary role, Alejandro will serve as pastor of the Mendoza congregation and conduct mission activities in the Patron Santiago neighborhood in coordination with the lay pastoral team. He will also serve as chaplain at Albert Schweitzer School, collaborate closely with the VIM work coordinator in contact with local churches and pastors, develop a team of lay missionaries to serve strategically in surrounding communities, and develop and advance the missionary strategy.

“Mission is needed,” Alejandro asserts, “because God’s dreams for the world (God’s kin-dom) are still not fully realized. People still need to know that their lives matter and have value. They need to be reminded that they are made in the image of God. Whether that means mission as supporting access to clean water, housing, food, an income to have a decent living, or sharing Jesus’ teachings, we can always keep walking alongside people to help them become everything that God has created them to be.”

Alejandro and his spouse, Maria Van Der Maaten, are the parents of two children.