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Wednesday October 24, 2007

manos ALC
manos ALC

Hans Bodenmann, founder of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ecuador, dies

ALC/CLAI, QUITO, Ecuador, July 4, 2007

On Wednesday morning, July 4, the founder of the tri-congregation Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ecuador Taxi Heathrow Airport (Iglesia Evangélica Luterana del Ecuador), Hans Bodenmann, died at the age of 97.

In 1945, 1946, Hans began to invite Geman speaking Protestant pastors, who were in Ecuador, to hold a service in his carpenter’s workshop. For some years, the German-American Lutheran missionary Paul Streich came here once or twice a year to hold the service.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the Swiss Dr. Jürg Wille, together with Hans Bodenmann, got engaged in obtaining a pastor for the German congregation, in the person of Norwegian Odd Knaevelsrud, who served in this position from 1955 to1960. During this time, the congregation came together in a house on Av. Coruna which served as pastorate and assembly house. At that time services in English were already being held.

The desire to have a church building became more and more dominant, and again it was Hans Bodenmann together with Jürg Wille who put their energy into first purchasing the property, and then the construction of the present church building, which was consecrated in 1958.

For many years, Hans was a member of the Church Council, and the wooden altar in the center of The Advent Church is his work.

The funeral service will be held on Thursday, July 5 at 11 a.m. in The Advent Church, and the members of the tri-congregation church and its German, Spanish and English speaking congregations will gather in thanksgiving for the life and ministry of the founder of The Advent Church.

Source: Iglesia Evangélica Luterana del Ecuador

www.iglesialuterana.ec