For the peace of the whole world...

... for the well-being of the church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.

 All activities at our preschool have been suspended until the Tuesday following the national presidential election on October 7. Please pray for us and for the entire nation of Venezuela, that this week may pass without further incident and that the elections may be conducted in a peaceful manner.

Two supporters of the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, were shot to death here in Barinas on Saturday, September 29, 2012, in a confrontation with supporters of President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking reelection. According to the New York Times, the two deaths were the first to be attributed to campaign violence in this election, but there have been injuries in other confrontations involving shootings and rock throwing.

Our reading of Psalm 2 this past Sunday proved very appropriate to the situation here in Venezuela and perhaps to the upcoming election in the United States as well. No matter what happens, ultimately it is God's will that will be done, those who set themselves in opposition to His will will be judged, and it is truly Christ who is sovereign over all the earth and He who will judge the living and the dead. Blessed will be those who walk in the way of the just and let God be God.

 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Related articles

• Two die at Venezuela poll rally
• Venezuela clashes over upcoming election leave 2 dead
• Reports: Two dead as Venezuela opposition rally marred by violence
• Two killed at Presidential election rally in Venezuela
• Two Venezuelan opposition activists shot dead

Orange peels, rain and dengue fever

On April 18, Edwar Garrido and Isela Barrios represented our preschool in a “science experiment” competition. They took first place with their demonstration of why an unpeeled orange floats in water while a peeled orange does not (because the orange rind is full of air pockets). Edwar turned five years of age on April 26 and Isela will turn five on July 7.

Anyi, Edwar s sister, celebrated her second birthday on April 13. They both received birthday cards from the Sunday school children of St. Michael's Lutheran Church, Bloomington, Minnesota, for which we are grateful. Their grandmother, Luz Maria, celebrated her birthday on May 5.

On April 12,  the city of Barinas was struck by the most intense rainstorm in 40 years. A record 162 millimeters (one liter of water per every square meter)  fell in four hours. The roads in and out of town were closed,; electricity, telephone and Internet services went down; and more than 100 families were left homeless. About 800 houses were flooded to some extent., including that of Luz Maria s sister, Rosaura.

Normally, the rainy season does not begin until late May or early June, but we already are in the thick of it. Cumulative rainfall for the first 12 days of April on the average is 123 millimeters, but by the end of the  day April 12 had reached 327 millimeters.

We have not been directly affected by the heavy rains. However, all the moisture has resulted in increased mosquito populations, including the species that carry dengue fever. Anyi and Edwar's three-year-old brother, Jose Ignacio, this week was diagnosed with dengue.

Dengue fever is caused by one of four different but related viruses. It is spread by the bite of mosquitoes, most commonly the mosquito Aedes aegypti, which is found in tropic and subtropic regions. It begins with a sudden high fever, often as high as 104 - 105 degrees Fahrenheit, 4 to 7 days after the infection. A flat, red rash may appear over most of the body 2 to 5 days after the fever starts.

Other symptoms include:

• Fatigue
• Headache
• Joint aches
• Muscle aches
• Nausea
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Vomiting

There is no specific treatment for dengue fever. Fluids are necessary if there are signs of dehydration. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is used to treat a high fever.

Please remember Jose Ignacio in your prayers.

Related articles

• New study finds dengue fever costing nearly $40 million in US territory of Puerto Rico
• Dengue virus increases mosquito's lust for blood
• Dengue Costs Puerto Rico Nearly $40M Annually

• Arbovax Passes Significant Milestone in Development of Vaccine Against Dengue Fever (prweb.com)

Passage to Portuguesa

We took our show on the road Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010, with a journey to the town of Piritu in the neighboring state of Portuguesa. There is another place called Piritu in the eastern Venezuelan state of Anzoategui, also known as Puerto Piritu because it is a Caribbean beach resort town. As such, it could not be more different than Piritu, Portuguesa, a small farming community with the usual array of basic services and agriculture-related businesses.
We visited the home of Dina de Solanillo. When I first met Dina in 2003, she and her husband, Elvis (yes, he is named after the late Mr. Presley) were members of La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay. Dina served for some time as the church secretary. When I last saw them, Dina, Elvis and their newborn child were living in a tiny apartment. It consisted of one room, and not a very large room at that.
About eight months ago, Elvis found a better job in a butcher shop in Piritu, Portuguesa, and the family moved there. Now they have a much larger house, big enough to accommodate them and their two children, Sara and Josue. The problem is that there is no Lutheran church in Piritu, or in all of Portuguesa, for that matter. Piritu is about a two-hour drive from Barinas and approximately the same distance from Barquisimeto. So we are sharing the responsibility of ministering to the Solanillos with El Paraiso Lutheran Church of Barquisimeto.
The most difficult part about this, of course, is that we do not have our means of transportation. Rather we have to rely on public transportation or hire someone to drive us. This time, Luz Maria's brother, Robert, took us to Piritu, even though his son's 15th birthday party was that afternoon (the 15th birthday is a very important event in Venezuela, as in most Latin American countries).

Cost is only part of the difficulty with hiring transportation, there are also the logistics of coordinating your schedule and those of the people you mean to serve with that of a third party. I dream of the day when La Caramuca Lutheran Mission might have a minivan for transporting people and/or equipment and materials.
Our school year begins
The opening of our preschool for another semester was delayed to October 4 due to an important national election the last week in September. We were able to complete the installation of our playground equipment as well as needed maintenance projects.

In this new semester we are introducing a new method of teaching basic reading skills. Yolanda Marquez, the author of the book and accompanying teaching materials, came to our preschool on October 8 to explain the concept to the families of our preschool children. Venezuela has 26 states and territories, roughly corresponding to the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet (from Amazonas to Zulia). Actually, there is some repetition (Amazonas, Anzoategui, Apure, for example), so the name of every state does not correspond exactly to a letter of the alphabet, but if not, the name of the state capital or some landmark does. Also there are some sounds in Venezuelan Spanish that are treated as separate letters, although they do not correspond to the symbols of the common alphabet. But the goal is for the children to learn to associate letters, numbers and colors with geographical locations, using sounds and images of the traditional dress, music, food and natural wonders of each area to reinforce the point.

We had more visitors on October 9. Luz Maria's mother, Carmen, brought her younger sister, Eloena, to visit the preschool. The family organized a big celebration of Carmen's 80th birthday on Oct. 10, so people came to Barinas from across Venezuela for the event. Eloena lives in Ciudad Bolivar in eastern Venezuela.
Finally on Sunday, Oct. 11, Pastor Luis Moya of La Reforma (Reformation) Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana attended and assisted me with our worship service. Pastor Moya is a member of the administrative council of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, which met in Barinas that weekend. It was his first trip to the state of Barinas and he specifically was looking forward to visiting our mission.