Jorgelina Lozada was one of the first women of the Stone-Campbell tradition to serve as an ordained home missionary and pastor in Argentina. 

Born on February 18, 1906 to a Protestant English mother and an Argentinean father, Lozada was baptized into the Belgrano Christian Church at age fifteen. She graduated from the Instituto Modelo de Obreras Christianas (Women’s Training School, founded by the Christian Women’s Board of Missions and the Methodist Church in 1922) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at age nineteen. Her calling to ecumenical work was first nurtured in the Christian Church.

Much of the credit for Lozada’s spiritual awakening goes to her Sunday school teacher, Elena Colmegra de Azzati, the wife of the pastor of the Belgrano Church and an active Disciples churchwoman in Argentina. In 1930, Lozada was ordained as a home missionary. She served as pastor of the Villa Mitre Christian Church in Buenos Aires for twenty-four years. In that role, she established a kindergarten and children’s medical clinic; she also guided the parish in building a new church. 

Lozada also led important ecumenical work in South America. Her accomplishments include establishing two libraries, serving on two college boards, and serving as president of the Argentine League of Evangelical Women and on the editorial board of its journal, Guia del Hogan. Lozada also prepared Christian education materials in Spanish for use in Latin America, worked with United Church Women in the United States, and traveled around the world on preaching and administrative assignments. Lozada’s natural charisma and facility in Spanish and English garnered her numerous invitations to participate in worldwide ecumenical gatherings.

Lozada died in Buenos Aires on February 25, 1995.

Bibliography:

Debra B. Hull, Christian Church Women: Shapers of a Movement (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1994), 58-60.