Read letters from Katie Griffin
March 2013
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
July 2012
June 2012
April 2012
February 2012
May 2, 2011
March 23, 2011
June 2010
March 6, 2010
July 2, 2009
June 1, 2009
February 18, 2009
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Rev. Kathleen M. Griffin
Mission co-worker in Argentina
Serving at ISEDET (Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos)
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Katie will next be in the USA January – October 2015. Email the Mission Connections office (Rachel.Anderson@pcusa.org) to extend an invitation to Katie to visit your congregation or organization.
About Katie Griffin's ministry
Katie Griffin was appointed to serve as a mission co-worker in 1998 in the area of theological education in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She teaches at ISEDET (Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos—Instituto Universitario), a university-level Protestant institute.
ISEDET is one of the top Protestant institutes for theological education in Latin America. It serves nine of the so-called “mainline” Protestant churches in Argentina, including the Methodist Church, two Lutheran denominations, the Waldensian Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Disciples of Christ, the Evangelical Reformed Church and the Anglican Church. Most of these are ethnic churches—Danish, British, German, French, Italian, Scottish—established by European immigrants a hundred years ago. Most of ISEDET’s financial support comes from European churches with which the Argentine churches are affiliated as “mission projects,” past or present.
Katie teaches church history at ISEDET and is involved in a program of theological education among the aboriginal peoples (PPO) of northern Argentina, especially in the provinces of Chaco and Formosa. This program involves work with Pentecostal churches among the Toba, the Mocovies, and the Matacos or Wichí (two different names for the same tribe). It is sponsored by the Waldensian Church in Italy and by the French Reformed Church.
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Katie has taught classes at a Pentecostal seminary (Seminario Emanuel of ALIDD, the Asociación La Iglesia de Dios) and continues to collaborate with ALIDD though not at this time as a professor. ALIDD has no formal economic relations with churches in other countries. Such independence frees it to determine its own direction, interests, and ways of doing ministry, but it also constrains the seminary’s development, since many of the congregations the seminary serves are in neighborhoods whose residents are too poor to support the work of the seminary. Most professors teach part-time and without pay.
Nevertheless, ALIDD churches are active centers in their communities, with soup kitchens, clothing closets, sewing workshops and other outreach activities. In times of natural disasters such as floods and drought, ALIDD churches are often the focal points through which ecumenical agencies distribute food, clothing, bedding and other necessary items to disaster victims. ALIDD is unique among Pentecostal seminaries in that it offers a critical (rather than literal) theological education to students at a popular level. Students at the seminary struggle to try to understand and minister the biblical message of salvation and liberation within contexts of poverty, abuse and delinquency.
About Katie Griffin
Most of Katie’s teaching takes place in Buenos Aires, but she also travels to extension sites to give intensive workshops. “I enjoy the traveling,” writes Katie, “because it helps me to understand the reality of the living situations for the great majority of the poor in Argentina.”
Katie graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a B.A. in French studies. After college she spent two years at Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, as a French instructor and swim coach. She then enrolled in Fuller Theological Seminary, from which she received an M.Div. degree. While at Fuller she was a substitute teacher for the Alhambra Unified School District in Alhambra and a faculty secretary at Fuller. After Fuller, Katie attended Princeton Theological Seminary and received a Th.M. degree in church history with an emphasis on the Reformation era. While at Princeton Katie was a teaching fellow and a research assistant.
Katie is a clergy member of Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery. She is married to Rev. Daniel A. Fratea, an ALIDD pastor. They have a daughter, Noelia Nicole Fratea Griffin, and a son, Brian Daniel Fratea Griffin.
Birthdays:
Katie - September 18
Daniel - November 17
Noelia - December 12
Brian - September 1
