Praying for Politicians in Argentina

Praying for politicians

by Maria Elena Baseler on January 30, 2012

Miguel Angel Parisi takes seriously the biblical mandate to pray for authorities                           (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Parisi, an Argentine Baptist, works in logistics at the Argentine National Congress building in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In that role, he has contact with Argentina’s 72 senators and their staffs as well as the country’s vice president. Parisi also has access to senate offices and the senate chamber, where the senate’s official business is conducted.

When the senate isn’t in session, Parisi sometimes enters the empty senate chamber and sits down to pray at each senator’s desk. He prays specifically for that senator’s needs and his or her future decisions.

“The most important thing a Christian can do is pray,” says Parisi. “By being here in this building, we [who are Christians] can actually put our hands on the walls and pray [for what goes on inside] this building.”

Besides praying for politicians, Parisi participates in a weekly Bible study for senate employees, held in a lounge that opens into the senate chamber. The study is led by Luciano Bongarra, president of “Parlamento y Fe” (“Parliament and Faith”), an evangelical ministry to politicians in Latin America. Manuel Sosa, a soon-to-retire missionary with the International Mission Board, has helped Bongarra teach the study and minister to senators and their staffs.

This ministry “is very important because it makes an impact on the senators and other politicians who come by here all the time,” says Parisi. “We are ‘inside the kitchen’ of the whole political process here.”

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