It has been a month of seminars about the Augsburg Confession for Venezuelan deaconesses in training. Luz Maria, who has already been formally commissioned as a deaconess by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, has mentored 40 women entirely online for the past two years, under the supervision of Pastor Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and using course content provided by Concordia Seminary El Reformador in the Dominican Republic. The seminars, the first in-person classes since the COVID-19 crisis began in 2020, were held in three locations across Venezuela. Graduation from the current cycle of deaconess formation is scheduled in June.
Pastor Mendoza led the seminars at all locations. The first seminar was held from February 24 to 26 at La Ascensión (Ascension) Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana for women from the southeastern zone of the national church. The second seminar was from March 3 to 5 at Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturín for women from the eastern zone.
Luz Maria traveled with women from the western cities of Barinas and Barquisimeto to attend the third seminar in Caracas from March 10 to 12. There were two other deaconesses in attendance, Ginnatriz de Mendoza (Pastor Eliezer’s wife) from Barquisimeto, and Elsy de Machado from Caracas.
With Elsy and Pastor Abel Garcia, who was then director of the Juan de Frias Institute, Luz Maria attended the first Latin American deaconess conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 30 to May 4, 2009. Together, Luz Maria and I attended another deaconess conference in the Dominican Republic in 2016, along with Elsy, and Pastor Eliezer and Ginnatriz.
The deaconess candidates already have initiated practical service projects. Most have to do with Christian education, such as teaching Sunday school or after-school tutoring. Others are visiting the sick and the elderly confined to rest homes.
From rags to rag dolls
After Luz Maria returned from Caracas, her mother, Carmen, and sister, Rosaura, visited our preschool and presented a seminar on the making of rag dolls for the children and their representatives on March 14.
Using scraps of clothing to make an inexpensive children’s toy is a practice known around the world. Rag dolls, or muñecas de trapo, have a long tradition in Venezuela. Before Spanish colonization, indigenous peoples made dolls not only from corn husks, cattails and other plants, but also used animal skins, such as those of rabbits and alpacas, bird feathers, tree bark and roots. The dolls were not simply gifts; they taught children survival skills through play. The Spaniards brought European fabrics and forms of dress, and dolls began to be made with the hands, legs, chest and face made of papier-mâché or ceramics. Rag dolls today allow the reuse of old shirts and clothes and often are used to decorate the home as well as for children’s play.
Luz Maria’s mother is 92 years old and active for her age. She likes to tell the story of how she made a doll to the exact, and exacting, specifications of an Italian tourist. Luz Maria and I try to visit her once a week, though this was difficult when COVID-19 restrictions on travel were tighter.
Preparing for Holy Week
Although many cities in Venezuela permitted Carnaval parades this year (see my last newsletter), we decided to postpone our Palm Sunday procession in the street one more time. The sanctuary still will be adorned with palms (this is easy when you have palm trees on the patio). Preschool devotions have had a Lenten theme, for this fifth week in Lent we previewed Holy Week for the children and prepared them to celebrate both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus.
We pray: Lord, bring us close to Your cross that we might know how You loved us and gave Yourself for us. As we follow you from Gethsemane to Calvary, do not let us follow afar off, lest we deny You. Help us watch and pray with You that we may not fall into temptation. Lord Jesus, through it all help us hear in Your prayer the single purpose for which You endured pain and death: Father, forgive them, for they know what they do. Amen.
(Lutheran Book of Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, 1970)
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