We are Sasha and Maria Silvia Rasmussen, or Los Rasmussen. God has written an amazing story in our lives, as He does with everyone, and continues to write daily. It has been our joy to observe, to look back and read His story in us, and to watch Him unfold new stories of his Grace and redemption in the lives of Argentina’s Youth. He has called us to form part of His story in Argentina, and has through his unimaginable love decided to include us in other’s stories, even to use us as an integral part in the drama of His grace in others.
Sasha:
Where he calls home: Now, Cordoba Argentina; when in the states, Boise Idaho.
School: He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from Liberty University.
Book he is currently reading: Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.
Places he loves: The Bighorn Mountains, The Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Fort Desoto and Desoto Beach near St. Petersburg Florida.
Maria Silvia:
Where she calls home: Cordoba Argentina
School: She graduated from the University of Cordoba with a clinical surgery degree.
Book she is currently reading: Anthropological Insights for Missionaries by Paul G. Hiebert.
Places she loves: Any beach!
Our Values in Ministry:
Youth ministry – Our efforts in ministry are focused toward the adolescent demographic. Beginning as early as age 10 and ending as late as age 25, adolescence represents the trasition from childhood to adulthood and contains the most crucial developmental period in ones spiritual life. Youth ministry has been a much neglected field of missions work (90% of the worlds youth ministers minister to 4% of worlds youth population in North America). We plan to make it our focus!
Local Church – The context of our ministry is realized in an established local church. Parachurch organizations have a valuable place in missions, but the long term effects of their ministry are often limited by the absence of a strong local church. We desire to see the whole cycle of an adolescent’s Christian growth, salvation to ministry, take place within the nuturing environment of a church family.
Collaboration – Our ministry will be an example, and friend to others. We desire that our ministry be a standard setter, one that shares strengths, and shoulders burdens with other you ministries scattered across the country. The ultimate goal is to create a culture of youth ministry which will fill the empty fields with equiped and passionate Argentine youth ministry laborers.
Indigenous – Our ministry strives to be authentic and contextual. We seek to raise the banner of the Kingdom of God and not that of any particular earthly kingdom. We will thus focus on culturally alive ways to lift the person of Christ up, visible for discovery, as the sole Healer and Hope of their land.
Our Goals in Ministry:
Three Year: Learning and Building
- Establish a strong youth minsitry: In order for the house to stand proud through time, the foundations must be carefully planned and firmly placed. Our priority is for the youth of Argentina to accept Christ as their Savior and friend. Our focus for the first term will be to implement appropriate programs, and to care for and fully train our youth leaders so that God would be glorified and pleased to use us and grow us.
- Develop as a missionary: Our eyes are open and ears attuned to what God desires to teach us as missionaries. Sasha will further devote himself to perfecting Spanish, and increasing his cultrual awareness. Maria Silvia will be extending her studies by taking a Masters in Missions. We will both be observing and learning missions work in depth under verteran missionaries Sam and Carita Masters.
Six Year: Ministry Training, and Youth Center
- Begin a training center for youth ministry: By the end of our first term we hope to have established a voice within the evangelical community of Argentina. It is in this stage that we wish to organize and execute a plan to begin training youth workers and ministers to take the gospel further into the heart of Argentina.
- Build a youth center: By our second term we hope to have built the beginnings of an urban youth center through our youth ministry and church. It is in our second term that we hope to build a facility which we could use to put on soccer or basketball clinics and form age specific leagues, hold English classes or Enlgish tutoring, use as a center for community service, all with the goal of serving the community with the love of Christ, and presenting the gospel to them in small devotions by which we would begin each class or session.
Nine Year:
- Help send out missionaries that began in our youth minsitry: We hope that by the end of our third to have trained and emboldened a new movement of Argentine missionaries to go and reach their own country. We are exited about the potential of what a culture of youth ministry could produce in the lives of today’s Argentina. If ministry training in Argentina began in youth ministry as it does so often in the States, imagine the cumulative power that would amount to in the life of Argentina’s next generation of missionaries.
- Begin networking youth ministries throughout the Latin World: We want to see the value of youth ministry brought to every culture and country in Latin America, and we see on the horizon a day when the adolescents of every culture have a person in their community that seeks to bring Jesus to them, where they are as an adolescent. One who loves them, and one they can call Pastor.
For more information on how we can team together to reach Argentina’s youth, or to schedule a presentation please contact me.
Bendiciones,
Sasha and Maria Silvia Rasmussen
(208) – 631-6467
2530 Broadway Ave.
Boise, Id 83706
