An Eastertide gift of new life

Anyi Vanesa Garrido Santana, Luz Maria's eighth grandchild, was born April 13, 2010, weighing in at 3.65 kilograms. Anyi is her mother, Sarai's first daughter. Her two brothers, Edwar José (two years old) and José Ignacio (about one year), at first referred to her simply as "la niña" (the girl). After a time, they absorbed that idea that she has a name, although sometimes when they say "Anyi Vanesa", it sounds like "Angi Belleza" (Angi the Beauty). I am not sure whether that is what they intend to say or not.

That Wednesday afterward, I talked with the preschool children about Anyi's birth and also about the birth of Moses (Exodus 2:6). Once upon a time, I said, the people of Israel, the nation to whom God had promised the birth of a Savior, were slaves in Egypt. But their God was them and blessed them in that the women of Israel were strong and easily gave birth to many children, "not like the women of Egypt." So the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, became alarmed at how the Israelite population was growing in comparison to that of the Egyptians, and ordered the baby boys of Israel to be killed.

Likewise, I said, there are people today who say there are too many people in the world, not enough natural resources to provide for everyone, and so maybe some children should not even be born. But this is contrary to the will of God, who is the true Giver of all life, to Whom every new life is precious and has a place in His design.

So we see in the story of Moses how God foiled the evil plan of Pharaoh to keep the Israelites under Egyptian domination. The baby destined to liberate Israel from slavery was placed in a basket to float hidden in the reeds of the Nile while his sister kept watch over him. And the sister's name was Maria, just like the mother of the Child destined to liberate all people from sin, death and the devil! (Maria, or Mary, of course, is derived from the Hebrew name rendered "Miriam" in English translations of the Old Testament, but the Reina-Valera Bible has it as Maria.)

When the Pharaoh's daughter came down to the banks of the Nile to bathe, she found the baby Moses and wanted him for her own son. So the man who one day would defeat the king of Egypt grew up in the Egyptian court, although his sister made sure that he had his true mother as a nursemaid.

A later chapter in the story of Moses was the theme of a presentation by the youth after the Palm Sunday service. We had a good crowd (between 20 and 30) composed of children, youth and adults for Palm Sunday. The youth communicated through drama, dance and art what they had learned about the Ten Plagues, the first Passover and the Exodus, and how these events prefigured the events of Holy Week.

There were about 10 in attendance for the Good Friday service, which consisted of our order of evening prayer with a meditation on the seven last words of Jesus from the Cross. For Easter Sunday we had between 10 and 15 in attendance. I was pleased with this, because most of the homes in our community were padlocked during Holy Week as the families went on vacation during the week-long holiday.

Pray for rain

After months of drought, we have entered Venezuela's rainy season. The arrival of tropical rains has raised hopes that water levels in the Orinoco River will rise enough to sustain normal levels of electrical power generation by the Guri Dam facility, which provides about 80 percent of the electricity for the country. However, it appears the government's electricity rationing plan will remain in place for another two months. In other words, we still are experiencing daily power blackouts of at least three hours in duration. We pray that the rains will continue and that by the end of this period, the blackouts will have ceased.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Compassionate Action (chasingthewind.net)
• The Holy Innocents (bpdt.wordpress.com)

Two weeks of vacation Bible school

We just completed two weeks of vacation Bible school.

According to information gleaned from the Web, the first vacation Bible school was held in 1894 at the Methodist Church in Hopewell, Illinois (30 minutes from Peoria) under the supervision of Mattie Miles. A former public school teacher who had married the Methodist minister, she also taught Sunday school, but was frustrated by the time constraints of teaching one morning per week. Forty children enrolled for her first summer event, which ran for four weeks.

Two weeks were enough for us.

We presented the same five-day program in La Caramuca from August 5 to 9 and at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas from August 12 to 16. Closing ceremonies in la Caramuca were held Sunday, August 10, in la Caramuca, and Sunday, August 17, in Barinas.

In la Caramuca, 62 children attended our first day of vacation Bible school. The Scripture lesson was Genesis 1:37 and the theme was how God instituted marriage and family.

Second-day attendance was 63. The lesson was the story of Noah and the Ark from Genesis, chapters 6-9, with the theme being that God preserves families in difficult situations.

We saw our record attendance on Thursday with 69 children. That day we focused on an explanation of the Fourth Commandment ("Honor you father and mother").

Attendance was down a little on the fourth day with 54 children present. The Scripture text was 2 Timothy 3:15 and the theme was the family circle as a place to read and study the Bible.

Finally we had 55 children in attendance. The Scripture text was St.Luke's account of the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem. The theme was the church as God's family and the sacraments (baptism and Holy Communion) as the means by which we become part of this family. The Scripture text was chosen because it represents Jesus' coming of age in the faith and because the children we expect will be ready for confirmation this fall are all about 12 years old.

These older children were involved as assistants in organizing activities for the younger ones. Eduardo and I were responsible for leading opening and closing devotions, while Luz María's daughter, Yepci, was in charge of crafts. Charli, another one of Luz María's daughters was in charge of physical recreation, while Luz María related the Bible stories. In addition, we
also had help from several members of the Corpus Christi congregation.

Our older children from la Caramuca also helped facilitate vacation Bible school in Barinas the following. Attendance at Corpus Christi was not as high, ranging from about 15 children up to 28. Luz María, Yepci, Eduardo and myself also were involved in VBS at Corpus Christi.

The curriculum used in both locations with an overarching theme of "In Jesus Christ we are children of God", was developed at a national church meeting at La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay. Luz María played a leading role at this event because she is the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's national coordinator of Christian education.

The VBS curriculum focused on Biblical teachings on marriage and family because of a concern over the high level of family instability in Venezuela. Part of the problem is a cultural legacy: Unlike European settlers in North America, the Spanish conquistadores seldom brought their wives and children to the New World with them. Rather they sired children with a series of native women. Thus began the tradition of "machismo", which means a really strong, virile man does not let
himself get tied down to one woman and her children. Added to this is the problem of rapid urbanization, which has affected Venezuela as well as other developing countries. People (usually men) leave their families behind supposedly to seek higher-paying jobs in the cities.This weakens existing social ties and leads to a great deal of infidelity.

Also, the civil law in Venezuela does little to strengthen marriage as an institution. A man and a woman may move in together and have children with all the legal benefits of marriage for as long as they want to play house. But if one or the other wants to move out, there are no legal penalties. If they go through the civil marriage ceremony, then one or the other may sue for divorce, alimony and child support. So naturally many people (usually men) try to avoid a legally binding commitment if at all possible.

The result is that many Venezuelan children grow up in an environment characterized by adultery, jealousy, heavy drug and alcohol consumption, physical and verbal abuse, and lack of any solid values and relationships.

This year's VBS program is aimed at teaching the children that their families are a blessing from God, even if the families that they have often are highly fractured.

We also were blessed Sunday, August 17, with a visit from newlyweds Pastor Ted Krey and his
wife, Rebecca. She had been a research scientist in their native Canada, but now has committed herself to living in Venezuela for as long as Pastor Krey serves here. They brought a Venezuelan flag for everyone at Corpus Christi to sign.

The day before, Saturday, August 16, Lusveidis Pinzón de Orellana, a longtime member of Corpus Christi, gave birth to her first child, Luís Gabriel.

Birth of seventh grandchild

José Ignacio Garrida Santana, the second son of Luz María's youngest daughter, Sarai, was born June 19, 2008. He weighed 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds). His older brother, Edwar José,weighed a little more than 3 kilos, or about 7 pounds, at birth. This is Luz María's seventh grandchild.

José Ignacio's parents were expecting a girl and even had a feminine name chosen. I, too, was supposed to have been a girl. There was no ultrasound in Kadoka, South Dakota, in 1958, but we did have Doc Sundet and his years of experience with childbirth. He returned early from a pheasant-hunting trip to attend to my delivery. I am told that he was rather vexed, after cutting short his vacation, to find that he
had erred in his professional judgment. Perhaps it would have been some consolation for him to know that in this higher-tech era, even ultrasound scans can be misinterpreted.

Sarai cooks for the children in our preschool. She and her husband, José, live more than a mile away. Normally Sarai rides her bike to the preschool early in the morning, with Edwar José on
her back. As she entered the final stage of her pregnancy, however, her sister Charli took over her chores in the kitchen.

Charli will soon graduate from AgustinCodazzi Technical University in Barinas with a degree in preschool education. She then will be qualified to work as a teacher in our preschool.

The preschool children continue to learn the Lord's Prayer. For the peticion, "Thy kingdom come," we had them make crowns with a cross above their names. Luz María's oldest daughter, Yepci, used a Burger King crown as a template.

She brought the crown back from a trip to Caracas. Although Barinas is the state capital and a regional trade center with a population of over 200,000 people, there are only two McDonald's here. There are no Burger King or Wendy's Hamburgers outlets in Barinas, although both
companies have a presence in Venezuela. Other restaurant chains that North Americans would recognize include KFC, Church's Fried Chicken, TGI Friday's and Pizza Hut. But we do not have any of those in Barinas, either.

McDonald's recently has done heavy promotion of its new breakfast menu in Venezuela. The centerpiece is a local staple, the arepa. To make an arepa, you roll corn meal into a patty, slap it on a grill to fry, then slice it open and stuff it with ham, cheese, fried eggs or whatever you
want. I don't particularly care for corn-meal arepas, but up in the Andes Mountains they make arepas from wheat flour which I like much better.

In Venezuela people think of McDonald's or Burger King not so much as places to get cheap food fast, but rather as a treat for the kids (maybe a once-a-year treat). This is because of the freebies these franchises hand out.

Anyway, Eduardo and his brother, Francisco Rafael Flores, were on hand to sing "Padre Nuestro" with the children and help with the crafts. Francisco Rafael returned to Caracas last week after visiting his brother for three weeks, but now he wants to come back to Barinas.

When I first met Francisco Rafael, he was 14 years old, about half Eduardo's height, and known as Rafael. Now he is 18, a little taller than Eduardo, and prefers to be called Francisco. I first encountered the brothers Flores in Maracay when I was living with Pastor Ted Krey and preparing to serve as a volunteer in the eastern Venezuelan state of Monagas. Little did I imagine we all would be working together in a
mission project on the far western edge of Venezuela.



On Saturday, June 14, Eduardo, Francisco and Charli led an activity for the youth in La
Caramuca. There were about 15 in attendance. The theme was learning to value people for what they are like on the inside, as God does, rather than paying attention to external things such as fashionable clothes.

Birth of sixth grandchild

Luz Maria's sixth grandchild, Edwar José Garrido Santana, was born at 3:30 a.m., April 26, 2007, to Sarai Santana de Garrida, my wife's youngest daughter. He weighed 3.55 kilograms.

Sarai's husband, José, is a construction worker. He has been steadily employed in Barinas, thanks to the Copa America construction boom. That's the upside for us; the downside is there is still a shortage of cement and workers to build the wall around our property as well.

The same week that Edwar José (no "d" on the end of Edwar) was born, there was a parade in honor of Primary Education Week in La Caramuca's town square. The children of our preschool marched in the parade behind a big banner with the name of the preschool, "Rayitos de Luz", on it. We thank God that our preschool is acquiring a reputation as one of the best private preschools around.

Meanwhile, back in Caracas, my fellow students and I completed our first semester of intensive training with the Juan de Frias Theological Institute. We now have a "break" between now and the beginning of the second semester in September. Of course, during our "break", we will be required to attend a series of five seminars, each lasting a week to two weeks. The topics include an introduction to the koine Greek of the New Testament. It's a good thing that I have here all my Dad's books on Greek vocabulary, grammar and syntax.

When I was a boy, I liked to look at the Greek, Hebrew and German books in my Dad's study and piece together the texts as if they were some sort of code. I don't imagine Dad ever thought I would borrow any of his books and take them to South America.

That's enough for now, I think.