Pioneering publisher and bookseller Beatriz Buono honours outgoing SparkLit president.

I served with John and Gayelene Harrower in the shadow of the military dictatorship; a time of great fear and pain in Argentina. Without their example and encouragement, my family and I would not be who we are today.

John was Nehemiah among us. He thought and acted as an engineer, economist, pastor and theologian. Before the ruins of our student and literature ministries, he wept, cried out, devised a strategy, established a plan, gathered resources and raised up a team. Despite the attacks he faced from inside and outside our ministry, he counted on God’s favour, kept his faith firm, and little by little achieved the results we hoped for.

Guided by the Spirit of God, John was able to see beyond my youth and inexperience and persuade me to join the team that would rescue the Certeza publishing house from bankruptcy. He equipped me with English courses, mentors, and links with publishers and Christian literature ministries in the United States and Australia.

With wisdom and faith

What is it about John that I most value? His childlike but unshakable faith? His passion, discipline or sense of humour? His multilayered reading of reality? His judicious reforms that reached the very roots of our organisation?

Before he left Argentina in 1988, John gathered together the ABUA and Certeza teams and painted a scenario of the challenges we would face in the coming years. “Crisis or no crisis, the church of Jesus Christ in Argentina will grow and it will need good books.” He encouraged us to become jugglers and keep as many balls in the air as possible, so that if one falls, the others remain aloft. Thanks to this wise strategy, our bookshops, publisher, importer and distributor survived and flourished for many years until, for various reasons, the time came to focus only on publishing and distributing our own books.

In gladness and in grief

John and his son David visited us in February 2018. When we organised the itinerary for their trip many months earlier, none of us could have imagined what was going to happen during their stay in Buenos Aires. I don’t think it was a coincidence. God enabled John to accompany me when the sale of the Certeza bookshop was settled. Again John challenged me. “Let’s pray in the shop.” This was a dark and sad time and I was reluctant to return to the empty premises. Later, I appreciated the healing I received as John prayed, giving thanks for the years of service we had provided in that place. We had been together at the opening celebrations and we were together in the grief of closure.

I thank God that he brought this precious family to serve with the Asociación Bíblica Universitaria Argentina (ABUA) and the Certeza publishing house. They came as prophets of hope in times of desolation. Thank you John and Gayelene. You were our comfort and family. You influenced and impacted many people. I am one of them.

Beatriz Buono is the director of Christian publisher Certeza Argentina.

SparkLit nurtures Christian literature ministries in difficult places.

Last year John Harrower concluded 31 years service on the boards of the Australian Christian Literature Society and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Australia; now known as SparkLit. He was president from 2005 to 2021.

John Harrower arrived in Argentina with his wife Gayelene, and two young boys in 1979 to work with university students. This was during the notorious Dirty War, in which the military junta “disappeared” thousands of people suspected of left-wing sympathies. While John was travelling, Gayelene often wondered whether she would ever see him again.

In 1981, the Argentine fellowship of evangelical students (ABUA) asked John to rescue Christian publisher Certeza, which had gone broke. John assembled a team of students and graduates and asked SparkLit for help. He saw firsthand the difference a little money, advice, training and encouragement can make to an indigenous Christian publisher.

“Under local leadership, Certeza thrived. They did things I could never have dreamed of doing. It warms my heart. It’s so exciting to see other people fly higher than I could ever fly.”

Returning to Australia in 1988, John became the vicar of St Paul’s Anglican Church Glen Waverley, where he worked to combine three parishes into one, now GWAC. In 2000 he was appointed Bishop of Tasmania, a role he held until 2015. He then worked as bishop assisting the Primate, Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier.

“When I was asked to join the SparkLit board, I said, ‘Of course!’ I was grateful for the support I had received in Latin America and I knew how valuable the work of SparkLit is for grassroots publishers. SparkLit makes a significant contribution to God’s work in the world. I wanted to be part of it.”

Elspeth Kernebone is editor of The Melbourne Anglican and a SparkLit Board member.

SparkLit nurtures Christian literature ministries in difficult places.