And there was a lot of it. In fact, it was the largest house they ever lived in: entrance hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a garage/boiler room downstairs, plus two attic bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, to say nothing of a patio and an immense backyard. It belonged to the Mission and had been unoccupied for some time.
They had had to vacate the house in Adrogué so that the new South Zone area missionaries could move in—Charley and Darlene Westbrook with their three children and German Shepherd—because the Bedfords had a new assignment: although Ben would continue to pastor the church in Solano, he would be leaving his Associational responsibilities for a position at the International Baptist Theological Seminary.
The invitation had been made and accepted several months before. On June 6, President Jack Glaze had written:
Dear Ben:
The Board of Trustees of the Seminary has requested that a Director of Practical Activities be secured to intensify this phase of training the Seminary now offers.
The Director will assume the status of professor on the Faculty after official approval by the Board of Trustees in their called meeting of November 9-10, 1966. In addition, the position will entail an initial teaching assignment as needed while the approach to the area of “Practical Theology” is being undertaken. Eventually, the permanent field of teaching will center in that which is currently known as “Teología Pastoral”,26 or the academic discipline that complements the practical application of “Obra Práctica”.27
After much prayer and consultation with the Faculty and individual members of the Board of Trustees, I would like to offer you this position in a full time capacity, beginning at least by the first of next calendar year. This would enable the preparation of materials and approach for the academic year of 1967.
It is with pleasure that I can report a unanimous desire on the part of the Faculty that you join the staff directing the urgently needed “in-training-program”. Rest assured that our prayers will accompany you as you consider this invitation.
The newly assigned residence was in the West Zone of Greater Buenos Aires, roughly a twenty-minute drive from the Seminary. David would have a shorter commute to Lincoln, while the girls would be within easy walking distance of their new school, where Nancy would begin kindergarten and Nelda high school.
This was Colegio Ward, named after George Ward28 and founded in 1913 with the support of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Episcopal Methodist Church. It opened in March 1914 in the Capital barrio of Flores with three students from Santa Fe Province. In the beginning, it emphasized business disciplines. An English division was established at the same time—the American Grammar and High School (AGHS), which eventually broke off in the mid-1930s and evolved into the Lincoln School or Asociación Escuelas Lincoln, the only school in Argentina accredited in the U.S.
Over time, Colegio Ward achieved official accreditation from the Ministry of Education and grew to offer classes from kindergarten through high school, with college prep and teacher training programs. It developed a school magazine, literary society, music department with a highly regarded band, philosophy club, student center, sports program and boarding facilities. It progressed steadily toward self-support, until the faculty became wholly national (that is, of the country) and the first Argentine director, Dr. Ernesto Bauman, was named in the early 1960s.
In 1926, the school bought a handsome property in the West Zone, with what was probably the oldest building still standing in the area. It had been the country home of Marta Ramos Mejía, whose ancestor Gregorio had immigrated to Argentina from Spain in 1799, raised a large family and, after a short but productive stint in Upper Peru, bought extensive lands in La Matanza, the first district immediately to the west of the Capital. The property was handed down to his descendants, who eventually had the area mapped and plans drawn up for future subdivision into city blocks. The railroad arrived in 1858 and the family donated four square blocks for the station. Seventeen years later Ferrocarril Oeste was electrified and allowed commuters to pass conveniently from train to subway, promoted with the rhyming motto “del subte al tren sin cambiar de andén.”29 Ramos Mejía received city status in 1964.
However, all that mattered to the girls was that they felt very much at home in the school that, like them, was Argentine with an Evangelical background and a love of English. Enrollment was so high that year that a fourth first-year secondary division of the national program had to be created by taking students from the three overcrowded ones, resulting in a class of twenty boys and five girls, including Nelda.
At that time, the twelve years of school in Argentina were divided into seven years of primary and five years of secondary. High schools had one of four orientations: national (college prep for arts and sciences); normal (certified elementary teachers; college prep for secondary teachers); commercial (certified secretaries and bookkeepers, college prep for accountants and administrators); and industrial (certified builders, electricians and mechanics; college prep for engineers or architects). The first three years shared a basic curriculum and it was possible to change tracks.
Nelda’s class remained in the same room while the teachers came and went. The list of subjects was long: Spanish Language, History (Ancient), Geography (General, Asia and Africa), Math (Algebra and Geometry), Botany, Political Science, English, Music, Art, Practical Activity and Physical Education. Core subjects were taught four or five times and the rest once or twice per week. The school year was divided into three quarters and at the end of each there were comprehensive written examinations on three subjects, which the Ministry of Education determined randomly, lottery style, by taking three numbered balls from a sphere that held one ball for each subject, after several brisk turns of the handle.
Kindergarten was in the morning only, so Nelda walked her little sister to and from school, and returned by herself after lunch. She got to know many of the kindergarteners’ mothers and could hardly believe her ears when one of them identified her son as “Félix,” clearly considering her choice of name very clever since their last name was Gato.30 The poor child was actually called “Félix Gato,” like the cartoon. Nancy was thrilled to be going to school, at long last, like the big kids. She was to attend Ward until the middle of the fifth grade. Among other things, her contact with many students from various Christian denominations gave her a broader experience of Argentine Protestantism than her siblings, whose acquaintances were almost all either Baptist or Catholic. Further down the line, this proved to be a source of many fruitful connections for her.
Matchmaker
“Excuse me, Ben,” interrupted Foreign Mission Board Area Secretary Frank Means during a briefing with Mission officers held in the Seminary’s Board Room, “is there something you don’t want me to know about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for starters, you’ve been giving your report in Spanish.”
“Oh!”
The thing was, there were so many committees and so many meetings that sometimes it was hard for Ben to know if he was coming or going. His office in the Seminary was the scene of a daily struggle to keep track of requests and assignments for the Decade of Advance. He could hardly complain because he had been in on the whole thing from its design and launching in 1964. He had scarcely stepped off the ship after the furlough in which he had earned his doctorate when he was elected President of the Mission. As such he became a member of the Convention’s Coordinating Committee, which proposed the creation of the Commission for a Decade of Advance, an ambitious program to double the number of churches and members in Argentina in ten years. Ben worked both in its planning and execution as part of the Commission and pastor of a new church in the South Zone Association, where he was area missionary and promotor of new works.
One of the key components of the Decade of Advance was the training of pastors and lay people for the evangelistic effort. The Seminary was to play a leading role by strengthening existing programs, offering new courses for lay people, and putting students and professors out in the field.