The Field
A nation that set God aside — and is searching for rest.
Understanding Uruguay is the first step toward praying well for it.
Uruguay sits on the Atlantic coast as a buffer nation between giants — Brazil to the north, Argentina across the river to the west. Its people are largely of Spanish and Italian descent; no indigenous population remains. In many ways it feels more European than South American.
That includes its soul. In the early 1900s, Uruguay embraced laicidad — a sweeping secularism that scrubbed faith from public life. Christmas was renamed "Family Week." Holy Week became "Tourism Week" — many simply call it beer week. A century later, soccer functions as the de facto national religion, and church holds no place in the rhythm of ordinary life.
Nominal Catholicism lingers at the edges. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are active, and health-and-wealth charismatic groups have a presence — but biblical Christianity is largely absent, especially in the interior.
52%
of Uruguayans are religiously unaffiliated (2020) — vs. 44% Christian. The only country in the region without a Christian majority.
23.3
suicides per 100,000 people in 2022 — a national record, roughly 2.5× the regional average. About three-quarters are men.
3.44M
people in the nation — with Durazno (~38,000) at its geographic center, in the least-reached interior.
The human need
Behind the statistics are real neighbors. Families are deeply fragmented, and traditional marriage is nearly absent. Men are extraordinarily hard to reach — not from hostility, but exhaustion: punishing work schedules, like truck drivers running 24-hour shifts, leave little room for anything else. This is why so much of the ministry begins with children, teens, and women — and why drawing men out over an asado is such patient, deliberate work.
We share these things not to shame a people the Harmons love, but so you can pray with clear eyes. Uruguayans are warm, thoughtful, and hungry for something they cannot name. The gospel of rest in Christ is precisely the hope this weary nation needs.
Durazno: the heart of the country
Durazno is a city of about 38,000 at the geographic center of Uruguay — a gateway to the interior, where gospel witness is thinnest. From this crossroads town, the Harmons pray a church-planting movement will spread to towns across the interior.
See Durazno on the map