Come to Macedonia and help us

Our focus for Sunday Bible study since Trinity Sunday has been the missionary journeys of St. Paul. What could be more fitting for summer vacation? We even had a sort of campfire song based on Acts 16:10. These are the lyrics in English:

"Come to Macedonia and help us pray, that the kingdom of God may be revealed to the lost souls in this world. Oh, come to Macedonia and help us pray!"

Our goal is not only to help the youth visualize the distant lands described in the Acts of the Apostles, but also the people whom Paul met there and his companions in his travels. Many of these people are mentioned in the Pauline epistles, which comprise a great part of the New Testament. We passed out prizes for those who could memorize the most names and places. 

COVID/dengue: A one-two punch

Venezuelans expect most of their annual rainfall from May through December. But this season has brought the heaviest rains and most turbulent storms in decades. Rivers have overflowed their banks, dams have burst, landslides have destroyed homes and highways. The most affected areas are located in the western part of the country, including our state of Barinas. According to official estimates, 8,000 families have been affected, nearly 400 homes have been damaged, and at least 25 bridges have collapsed. Agricultural losses have been reported, with more than 150 hectares in Mérida state and over 6,000 hectares of crops lost in the states of Bolívar and Portuguesa. The Orinoco River's rising levels have forced evacuations in Amazonas and Bolívar, with hundreds of families taking refuge in temporary shelters. The Venezuelan government activated emergency response plan. Medical teams have attended to hundreds of affected individuals.

Although the property damage is costly, there has been relatively little loss of life. These are not flash floods, as in Texas. People have time to run away. Here in La Caramuca, we have remained relatively high and dry.

But the heavy rains and humidity create an ideal environment for Aedes aegypti, the species of mosquito which is the primary carrier of dengue fever. Dengue is endemic in over 100 tropical and subtropical countries, primarily in Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and the Caribbean.

But here is a new wrinkle: Co-infection of dengue and COVID-19. Individuals with a history of dengue have been found to be at an increased risk of developing COVID-19. Moreover, co-infection of dengue and COVID-19 results in worse outcomes, including a high mortality rate, more frequent admissions to intensive care units (ICUs), and prolonged hospital stays. Although the viruses enter the human body in different ways, COVID-19 and dengue share clinical symptoms, making differentiation difficult, especially in dengue-endemic regions, which increases the risk of misdiagnosis. There have been a number of people in our surrounding community diagnosed and hospitalized with this co-infection.

Blessed Lord, defend us from fire and floods, earthquakes and landslides, Let not any plague come near the dwelling of those who have made the Most High their refuge. Give your angels charge over us to keep us in all our ways. Amen.

I preached and administered the Lord's Supper at our sister church in Barinas, Corpus Christi, on July 6 and July 27. Please pray that the Corpus Christi congregation might call a full-time pastor.

Close of school year

Sandro Dionel Perez.

For the first time in 22 years, a school year ended without our preschool in operation. But Luz Maria continued with afterschool tutoring of children with learning challenges. In addition to remedial exercises in grammar and mathematics, tutoring sessions include prayer and Bible. One boy, Mateo, was pleased to discover that he was named after one of the four evangelists (Matthew). Now we are renovating the former preschool space for an expanded tutoring program for the school year which begins in September. One of our former preschool students, Sandro Dionel Perez, who was baptized December 15, 2019, graduated from the community preschool and will begin first grade next school year.

The fiesta before the fast

For most of the past month, all schools have been closed in and around La Caramuca, including our preschool. This was because of concern about the effects of the omicron variant on children. However, by the final days of February, COVID-19 fears had faded enough that cities across Venezuela had announced plans for traditional Carnaval celebrations and we were able to open our preschool for a Carnaval party for our children and their families.

Carnaval, or Carnival as it is spelled in English, is derived from either Latin or Italian phrases meaning “goodbye to meat” (“carne” means red meat in Spanish as well). The Carnaval tradition came to Venezuela from Spain. Northern European, predominantly Lutheran, countries have an equivalent of Carnaval known as Fastelavn in Denmark and similar names elsewhere. People in the United States perhaps are most familiar with the French term, “Mardi Gras” (“Fat Tuesday”), which is quite the tourist attraction in New Orleans. English speakers also might recognize “Shrove Tuesday”, like Mardi Gras referring to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Customs associated with Shrove Tuesday include the eating of pancakes and other sweets, as well as the ritual burning of palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday to use for the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. Around the world, Shrove Tuesday is observed by Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists as well as Roman Catholics.

By the way, for several hundred years, Roman Catholics in Venezuela have had papal permission to hunt and eat the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), the world’s largest rodent species, during Lent on the theory that its semi-aquatic lifestyle makes it more like a fish than a mammal.

It was in 18th Century Italy, France and Spain that Carnaval festivities took on what may be their most well-known characteristics, namely masquerade balls and parades. And that is how we celebrate with the preschool children. These days, the girls like to dress up as Disney princesses, while the boys favor Batman, Superman or Spider Man, a tribute to the worldwide influence of the U.S. entertainment industry.

Before our festivities began, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer, the children sang a song based on Romans 8:39, and I read from Luke 5:33-35.

“And they said to him, The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them, Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

This, along with its parallel verses in Matthew 9:14-15 and Mark 2:18-20, is one of only two passages where Jesus speaks of fasting. The other is the appointed Ash Wednesday text, Matthew 6:16-21.

I explained that there are times when the Christian can be festive, as well as times for somber, solemn reflection. We may rejoice with those who rejoice, without falling into drunkenness and debauchery, while those given to drunkenness and debauchery will find any excuse to do so, even the Christmas holidays. We should never forget that the point of our feast days is to enjoy and give thanks for the material blessings that God has given us, even as He has commanded us to pray for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. Nor should we cease to pray and cast our cares on Him in times of scarcity, whether doing without is a voluntary choice or not.

Then came Ash Wednesday, when I did read the lesson from Matthew 6.

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus talks about almsgiving, prayer and fasting, and makes the same point each time. These things should not be done to gain the admiration of men, but with an attitude of humility and selflessness, the fruits of the Holy Spirit working in us (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). And as Psalm 51, the psalm appointed for Ash Wednesday says, the acceptable sacrifice of thanksgiving to God is a repentant and contrite heart.

For dust you are, and to dust you shall return

One goal of Ash Wednesday and the subsequent days of Lent is the meditation on our own mortality. Through baptism we have the promise of sharing in Christ’s resurrection (Romans 6:3-4), yet as sinners we cannot escape the sentence of physical death in Genesis 3:19. This was brought home to me just before Ash Wednesday, March 2, as Bruce Keseman, pastor of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Freeburg, Illinois, conducted a wonderful memorial service for my sister, Deborah Ann Ernst, on Saturday, February 26. My sister, Deborah Ann Ernst, received in full the peace which the world cannot give on Sunday, February 13. This is the second time that Pastor Keseman has presided at a funeral for a member of my family, the first being at the death of my father in 2000.

The saddest part was not the loss of my sister, because we know that she is with Jesus, but knowing that 10 to 15 years ago, it would not have been that hard for Luz Maria and I to journey to the United States to be with my mother at this time. Of course, many Venezuelans have had the same experience from a mirror-image perspective. Having emigrated from Venezuela, they have found it impossible to return for the death of a family member.

Pray for safe passage to Caracas

Travel inside and outside Venezuela was becoming more expensive and uncertain even before the COVID-19 crisis. For two years we have traveled only as far as the city of Barinas, and we can only pray that soon the travel bans, COVID-19 testing and quarantine requirements will be lifted. How the ripple effects from the current war in Ukraine will affect us is anyone’s guess.

For more than a year, Luz Maria has been mentoring online women enrolled in a deaconess training program sponsored by Concordia El Reformador Lutheran Seminary in the Dominican Republic. This past month, Pastor Eliezer Mendoza, direct of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela’s Juan de Frias Theological Institute began a series of three in-person seminars for the deaconess students. The first one was last week at Ascension Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana (in eastern Venezuela on the banks of the Orinoco River). The second will take place this week at Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin (also in eastern Venezuela, but to the north). Next week Luz Maria hopes to travel to a seminar in Caracas (central Venezuela) with a group of other women from the west. (We are living in Venezuela’s wild western frontier, as a matter of fact.) I will pray for her safe passage and I hope that you will, too.

Churches and mission agencies should pray and reflect on how to continue cross-cultural mission work in a world of closed borders, open war and increasing hostility to the proclamation of both Law and Gospel.

An everlasting Gospel to all nations

Reformation Sunday 2021 was the day of first communion for Diana Carolina Torres. Diana was baptized on January 8, 2017, which was Epiphany Sunday and the day that our chapel was consecrated.

Diana attended our preschool from age 2 to age 6, during which time she received scholarships from LeadaChild, an Olathe, Kansas- based Lutheran mission agency dedicated to sharing the Good News of Jesus’ love to children through Christian education. LeadaChild gathers gifts and donations from supporters and use the funds to provide scholarships, school registration, and supplies for children so that they can attend Lutheran schools and afterschool programs. The scholarships allowed Diana’s parents to purchase school uniforms, backpacks, crayons, notebooks and other supplies. Since 2006, LeadaChild has provided scholarships to our preschool students as well as older students in our afterschool tutoring program.

On this past Reformation Sunday, we also announced the availability of LeadaChild scholarships for 2021/2022 school-year students. Instead of distributing cash, this year we gathered the information for electronic transfers into the parents’ bank accounts. Electronic transfers by credit/debit card or cellphone app have become the norm as Venezuela continues to be plagued by hyperinflation. Recently the government took action to bring the hyperinflation under control by issuing new currency. The rate of exchange had been more than 4 million bolivares to one U.S. dollar (our basic monthly expenses totalled more than 2 billion bolivares). In essence, they just erased six zeroes, so that now 4.18 bolivares equal to one U.S. dollar. But really the hyperinflation continues, so that’s only the rate of exchange for now. At least online banking has spared Venezuelans the need to push around wheelbarrows full of currency as was the case in Germany in the 1930s.

Preschool opens October 25

We had hoped to open the preschool on October 11, but the opening of all schools was delayed until October 25. Biosecurity measures, such as facemasks (even for the youngest children) and mandatory handwashing remain in place. The number of students is limited to five at one time, so we have two shifts of five students every day, one group of 10 students on Monday and Tuesday, and another group of 10 on Wednesday and Thursday, with Friday as a free day.

Luz Maria and I both have been vaccinated against COVID-19, as have many other people in La Caramuca. I have received the booster shot, and Luz Maria soon will, too. She received the Russian Sputnik V vaccine at one location, because it was made available first and as a Venezuelan citizen, she had priority. Then the Chinese Sinovac vaccine was made available, and I received that. But I was able to get the second shot before Luz Maria, and now she has to go to a different place for her booster, because they do not want to mix and match the vaccines.

A host arrayed in white

November 1 is All Saints Day according to the historic calendar of the church. We will observe All Saints Sunday on November 7, and for the first time we will follow the practice of reading the names of those who passed from among us to eternity in faith during the previous year: Ramon Estorcha, Carmen Bendicia Garrido, Xiomara del Carmen Torrealba and Marisol Torrealba.

On October 29, 2021, Marisol Torrealba died after a long struggle with cancer. She was the sister of one of our members, Yudrica Torrealba, and the aunt of another, Karla Frias Torrealba. Luz Maria and I visited her during her illness, praying with her and studying the Bible and the Small Catechism. She confessed to us her faith and her desire to attend our church, but never recovered in time. At her burial on October 30, I read John 11:25-26.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

I reminded all those at the burial site that for Marisol, as for Martha, the new life in Christ was not simply the promise of a future resurrection, although that is our hope, but that Jesus was with her in the midst of her trial, too. This new life is God’s gracious gift to all who believe.

The sermon text for Reformation Sunday was Revelation 14:6-7, the vision of an angel in mid-heaven proclaiming the everlasting Gospel to all nations, tribes, tongues and peoples. I will follow up on All Saints Sunday with Revelation 7:2-17. Chapter seven is one of the most important sections in the book of Revelation. After the sealing of “144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel”, the apostle John sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

The innumerable multitude is the same as the numbered tribes of Israel, seen from another point of view. It is clear from the context that the writer is speaking about the total number of the elect. From the standpoint of the divine this sealing is a marking of all the members of church, past and present, as belonging to God. The sealing has been done on earth in baptism; that it is followed by the vision of the great multitude surrounding the throne of God in heaven. It is a crowd so large that no one is able to number it from a human point of view. But the number 144,000 in verse four tells us that God has counted every one.

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. Oh, how glorious is that kingdom wherein all the saints do rejoice with Christ! They are clothed with white robes and follow the Lamb wherever He goes. Oh, almighty God, who has knit together the elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that we may come to those unspeakable joys which you have prepared for those who sincerely love you. Through Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son, who lives and and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, now and forever. Amen.

Those who are with us

 

He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 2 Kings 6:16

That’s a key verse from the Old Testament lesson for the Day of St. Michael’s and All Angels (September 29 on the historic church calendar, but we will observe it Sunday, October 3). The entire lesson (2 Kings 6:8-17), the Syrian army surrounds the city of Dothan with the intention of capturing Elisha the prophet. Elisha’s servant is terrified until the Lord opens his eyes to the even greater army of angels protecting them.

We as missionaries at times feel that we are surrounded by forces beyond our control and that could completely overwhelm us. And that is an accurate evaluation of the situation. But God sends His holy angels to protect us (as Psalm 91, properly understood, assures us). And the casting of Satan and his rebellious angels out of heaven (referenced in Luke 10:17-20 and Revelation 12:7-12) assure us that we share is Christ’s victory over Satan now and forever. Because the entire life of Jesus, from His birth to His death on the cross, was a victory over Satan, the 70 disciples find that they are able to cast out devils in His name.

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:10-11).

Although Michael and the heavenly host of angels played their part in Satan’s defeat, the victory belongs to Christ and through Him, to the church triumphant. We remember that, even in the midst of the persecution of which the rest of Revelation 12 warns.

Everlasting God, You have ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order. Mercifully grant that, as Your holy angels always serve and worship You in heaven, so by Your appointment they may also help and defend us here on earth; through Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Ninth shipment of medicines

On September 19, 2021, Epiphany Lutheran Mission distributed the ninth shipment of medicines from the Venezuela Relief Project begun by Global Lutheran Outreach and the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile. The Venezuela Relief Project began in 2017. Two people on our list died, but we distributed the medicines requested for them to three other persons. One particularly grateful recipient is Luz Marina Medina, a 45-year-old widow who lives with her elderly father. She has suffered from epilepsy since childhood and, due to the scarcity of medication, was experiencing more and more frequent seizures. However, now she has the medication that she needs.

As is our custom, the bulk of the medicines were distributed after the Sunday service, along with our homegrown fruits and vegetable. Thanks to abundant rain this years, we have bumper crops of avocados, passion fruit, tomatoes, cassava, bananas and plantains, papaya and eggplant. We also have a bountiful harvest of berries from our coffee tree. Coffee is a social necessity, here, if not a biological necessity, and it keeps getting more and more expensive.

Reopening the preschool

We began the new school year on Tuesday, September 28, by meeting with families who have enrolled their children in our preschool. After an opening devotion and distribution of medications sent to us by the Lutheran Women's Missionary League of Canada by way of the Dominican Republic (the LWML Canada sent the funds and the medications were purchased in the Dominican Republic under the supervision of Rebecca Pollex Krey, wife of the Rev. Theodore Krey, regional director for Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod World Missions in Latin America and the Caribbean).

The meeting was conducted according to strict biosecurity measures required by the Ministry of Education. Everyone wore masks and maintained a distance of at least six feet. Classes begin October 11, with two shifts of children per day, no more than five in each shift. Some of the parents were concerned about small children being required to wear facemasks, but a representative of Ministry of Education emphasized that this is the rule for now.

More generally, some parents question the Venezuelan government’s decision to require the vaccination of all children between the ages of three and 17. The argument is that as long as Covid-19 vaccinations are not ruled to be completely safe for children the government should prioritize making further strides in immunizing the at-risk population and personnel in the health care and education sectors.

Venezuela received 693,600 vaccines against COVID-19, September 7, as part of the first shipment made to the country by the World Health Organization’s COVAX Mechanism, of the total of 12,068,000 vaccine doses acquired. This first delivery of doses consists of vaccines against COVID-19 produced by the laboratory Sinovac Biotech and included in the emergency use list of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Sinovac vaccine, known as CoronaVac, was the one that I received on September 13. The two-dose vaccine is recommended for individuals aged 18 years and above. It has an efficacy rate of 50.4% for preventing symptomatic infection, according to data from a Brazilian trial, and an effectiveness of 67%, according to a real-world study in Chile. Some people we know experienced adverse reactions to CoronaVac, similar to those reported elsewhere, but I have had no problems.

Luz Maria earlier received the Sputnik V vaccine. On September 27, Venezuela’s Minister of Health, affirmed that “more than 8.8 million first doses” had been given, while 5.25 million received the second Sputnik V dose. Luz Maria and I are both waiting for second doses.

Let us remember that Psalm 91 not only promises that “He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways”, but also under His protection we need not fear “the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday”, nor any physical or spiritual danger, for whether we live or die, He will show us His salvation. Amen.

A milestone in distance learning

On Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2021, Omar Martinez and I represented the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in a graduation ceremony via Zoom videoconferencing with six other seminary students from Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru and Spain.

The other seminarians had completed their coursework while in residence at Concordia Seminary El Reformador in Palmar Arriba, the Dominican Republic, in preparation for ordination. Because the ceremony was postponed from last year, some of them were ordained and installed as pastors before the “virtual” graduation. For example, Elvis Carrera has been serving as the pastor of the congregation in Lima, Peru, where Luz Maria’s daughter, Yepci, and her family attend.

Omar, who is pastor of Cordero de Dios (Lamb of God) and I were both ordained years ago. We pursued our continuing education an on-line program, Formación Pastoral Hispanoamérica (FPH), offered by the Dominican seminary in cooperation with Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was a milestone for Omar and me, and also for the concept of distance learning.

FPH is an international extension of the Fort Wayne seminary’s Specific Ministry Pastor–Español/English program. This program follows the basic structure, guidelines and restrictions of the regular SMP program as a means to provide ordained men to serve in mission situations where a candidate with traditional residential seminary training is not available or cannot be supported, but it is focused on preparing Spanish speakers for Word and Sacrament ministry.

By divine order, there is one office of the public ministry and, according to Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession, “no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called (rite vocatus)”. But the Scriptures do not specify any particular mode, pattern, or length of pastoral preparation. What makes someone a pastor is examination and certification, then call and ordination, in an orderly process.

“For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 3:13. In the New Testament church, pastors were recruited from the ranks of deacons, who were laymen entrusted with the work of the church apart from preaching and administration of the sacraments. As we read in Acts, Philip, one of the original deacons (Acts 6:5) was later sent to preach and baptize in Samaria (Acts 8).

“This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” Titus 1:5

The word translated “elder” is πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros), which is the root of the English word, “priest”. It is used interchangeably in the New Testament with ποιμήν (poimén or pastor) and ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos or bishop), all referring to the one office of the public ministry. As Luther writes in his “Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope”: “60. The Gospel assigns to those who preside over churches the command to teach the Gospel to remit sins, to administer the Sacraments and besides jurisdiction, namely, the command to excommunicate those whose crimes are known, and again to absolve those who repent. 61 And by the confession of all, even of the adversaries, it is clear that this power by divine right is common to all who preside over churches, whether they are called pastors, or elders, or bishops.”

Paul had visited the island of Crete after his first Roman imprisonment, and, together with Titus, extended the preaching of the Gospel throughout its length and breadth. When Paul’s presence was demanded elsewhere, he left Titus behind as his representative, to see that a decent order of worship and of conducting the business of the congregations be introduced everywhere. This included, among others, that all the congregations should choose pastors under his direction and with his help.

The New Testament model of raising up local elders, already proven for spiritual maturity and leadership (1 Timothy 3) , is actually much closer to today’s non-residential programs than the sending of potential candidates off to a centralized location for pastoral formation and academic education. The value of a residential seminary program, of course, in consistent doctrinal training for all pastoral candidates and formation of character as well as intellectual growth under the almost daily observation of experienced instructors.

But the costs and other requirements of residential seminary education long have been an obstacle to church planting in Latin America, where many families do not have the resources to send young men away from home for four years, especially if the seminary is located in a distant country. Even before the Internet became available to the public, Presbyterian missionaries to Guatemala in the 1960s developed the concept of theological education by extension (TEE). Under this model, theological educators travelled to regional centers where they provided intensive instructions for men already recognized for their leadership qualities within local communities. In between visits, students were provided with structured self-study materials. The goal was to work toward ordination without the need for abandoning jobs and families. This approach was widely adopted in the 1970s by missionaries in Latin American countries where the establishment of seminaries proved difficult.

In Venezuela during this decade, Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod missionaries organized the Juan de Frias Theological Institute to proved guided instruction not only for pastoral candidates, but also lay leaders and continuing education for ordained pastors. It was training through the Juan de Frias Theological Institute that led to my ordination by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in 2008.

I had signed up for two years in Venezuela as a LCMS World Missions volunteer missionary in 2002. When I married Luz Maria, I came to share her vision of a church and school in La Caramuca. I began taking Juan de Frias courses with the aim of improving my ability to teach Bible classes in Spanish. More and more of the young people attending our weekday and Sunday evangelistic activities at the mission began asking if they could be baptized and receive the Lord’s Supper, yet there was no national pastor who was willing to serve our rural mission on a regular basis.

So I took advantage of an invitation in 2006 to participate in the Juan de Frias Institute’s renewed campaign to ordain more pastors. This involved setting up a kind of “mini-seminary” in Caracas where students who had already been studying for the ministry lived together in a house and dedicated their time to prayer, Bible study and classes, followed by a year of vicarage before ordination. I was part of this in 2007, except that I went home on the weekends. This meant a six- to seven-hour bus ride back to La Caramuca on Friday night, and ride to Caracas on Sunday night. But it was a great time. We had visiting professors from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne; and Concordia Seminary of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the world’s largest Spanish-speaking seminary. After a year of vicarage in La Caramuca in 2008, I was ordained at El Salvador Lutheran Church in Caracas, along with two Venezuelans, Sergio Maita and Eduardo Flores.

But opportunities for the continuing education so necessary for a pastor soon became few and far between. Travel within, as well as to and from, Venezuela became more uncertain and risky. Little by little, there were no more weekly, or even monthly trips to Caracas; no traveling Juan de Frias Institute workshops; and no visiting professors. And this was before COVID-19.

Concordia El Reformador Seminary was established as a regional center for residential and distance learning for people in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands and South America. Its first students graduated on May 24, 2019. At the same time, more than 30 men in 12 Latin American countries continue their theological education on-line through the FPH program. That fact that this year’s graduation ceremony done by videoconference because of the pandemic shows that distance learning plays a more important role than ever.

Even more videoconferencing

The week before the virtual graduation, Luz Maria and I participated in a virtual symposium on “Life and sexuality: pastoral care and the public voice of the church”, hosted by Concordia Seminary El Reformador.

• May 25: Pastoral Care in Cases of Sexual Sin (Rev. David Warner, former LCMS missionary to Spain and now pastor of two congregations near Custer, South Dakota).

• May 26: Sexuality and Society from a Biblical Perspective (Rev. Dr. David Preus, professor at Concordia Seminary El Reformador)

  

• 
  May 27: The public voice of the Church on sexuality, life and death (Rev. Dr. Clóvis Jair Prunzel, professor at Concordia Seminary, São Leopoldo, Brazil).

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  May 28: What is life and death, from the perspective of the Word of God and the Catechism of Martin Luther (Rev. Dr. John Pless, professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana).

We participated on May 10 to 19 in an online workshop on confessional biblical interpretation with the Rev. Dr. Roberto Bustamante of Concordia Seminary El Reformador, Brian Gauthier from Concordia University of Nebraska, Pastor Roberto Weber from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina and 60 pastors and seminarians from all over Latin America.

On Thursday, May 13, and Friday, May 14, we participated in the LeadaChild Symposium 2021 by Zoom videoconference. LeadaChild is a Lutheran mission agency dedicated to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to children through Christian education in five regions of the world, Guatemala, Central America and Haiti, South America, West Africa and Asia, and also supports an after school program. in Bethlehem. LeadaChild's method is to provide scholarships, school enrollment, and supplies for children so that they can attend Lutheran schools and after-school programs. Also to provide professional development for leaders and teachers, with an emphasis on effective ways to share the gospel and teach Bible truths to children. LeadaChild began supporting educational projects in Venezuela in 1991 and has supported our mission since 2006. The theme of the symposium was changes in education around the world due to COVID-19. We reviewed new software and strategies for online Christian education.

And, every week, Luz Maria mentors 40 women enrolled in the deaconess training coordinated by Danelle Putnam of Concordia Seminary El Reformador and Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute.

COVID-19 claims a life in our community

We received word that Global Lutheran Outreach and the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile are planning another shipment of non-prescription medicines to Venezuela. We give thanks to God for this. Pray for us as the COVID-19 virus has arrived in La Caramuca and adds to the health risks that already threaten our people. This past week COVID-19 claimed the live of Rafael Méndez, a prominent member of the community and proprietor of a general store and butcher shop near the town plaza. We remembered his family in prayer on Sunday and also others among us that suffer from the virus.

“You will not fear the terror of the night,nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.” Psalm 91:5-6

Almighty God, Who forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases, Who has proclaimed Your name to be the Lord that heals us and has sent Your well-beloved Son to bear our sicknesses, look in mercy upon Your servants, pardon and forgive us our transgressions, and of Your lovingkindness remove the plague with which You have visited us. This we ask according to Your will, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

Make us to be numbered with thy saints

 

A bountiful harvest

While power outages, rationing of gasoline and shortages of medicines continue, we give thanks for bountiful harvests of eggs, avocados, mangos, passion fruit, pineapples, papaya, plantains and bananas, cacao, tomatos and peppers. We share this production with elderly people in the neighborhood who live alone because their children have left the country looking for work. This Sunday, May 9, is named Rogate Sunday on the historic church calendar and precedes the Minor Rogation Days, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the Feast of the Ascension, which are dedicated to prayers for crops (I remember such prayers at this time from childhood). The Minor Rogation Days, instituted by Bishop Mamertus of Vienne (Gaul) in 470, originally were observed by processional litanies and fasting as a supplication for clement weather for the crops and deliverance from pestilence and famine. There is a good discussion of the Rogation Days tradition by Mark Braden, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Detroit, Michigan, on the Gottesdienst.org Web site. Pastor Braden visited Venezuela several times as a visiting professor with the Juan de Frias Theological Institute.

 Inordinate honor for an honorable man

 Friday, April 30, 2021, was a landmark day for many Venezuelans as Dr. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros (1864-1919) was beatified at a formal ceremony in Caracas. Beatification is the penultimate stage before being officially declared a saint by the Roman church, a process that began for Dr. Hernández in 1949. He was in many ways a remarkable man, but it is an error to honor someone with a status that belongs only to Christ, or that all who receive baptismal grace may not be numbered among the saints.

When he was only 13 and a half years old, José Gregorio Hernández made the long and difficult journey from his remote village in the Andes Mountains to Caracas to embark on a career in medicine. At 17 he began his studies at the Central University of Venezuela, where he still is remembered as one of the most brilliant medical students in the university's history. After post-graduate studies at research laboratories in Paris and Berlin, he returned to Venezuela to introduce the latest scientific techniques in medicine to his country. During the height of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 23,000 people in Venezuela in three months, he took his medical practice into the poorest barrios of Caracas. Dr. Hernández, however, did not die as a result of the flu, but was struck down by an automobile, perhaps one of the first in Venezuela.

Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Roman Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name. The difference between this and full canonization is that veneration of the beatified is limited to a particular region or group of people, while full canonization means all Roman Catholics must revere the deceased as a saint.

As matter of fact, Venezuelans have prayed to Dr. Hernández for healing for years before this official recognition. Popular piety in Venezuela may be described as “Christo-paganism”. In most pre-Christian traditions, there is a distant “God above the gods” who is not interested in the daily lives of human beings. Rather it is better to pray to the many intermediate beings between men and their Creator, such as the souls of the ancestors and spirits who control the forces of nature. There is belief in an afterlife, but little hope of a happy one. The best one expect is to enjoy the good things of this life by the favor of supernatural beings. In “Christo-paganism”, the triune God of the Scriptures is placed in the role of the distant “high God” and the Virgin, saints, angels and other beings become the intermediaries.

Historically there have been three levels to this popular piety in Venezuela. The first is the veneration of the Virgin and the saints approved by the Roman church throughout the world. The second is a kind of “folk Catholicism” in which there are shrines and festivals dedicated to persons not officially recognized as saints by Rome. The church often does not actively promote these activities, but does not actively discourage them, either. The third level is the invocation and supplication of non-Christian deities, such as the goddess, Maria Lionza, and even demonic entities. The Roman church, of course, is opposed to this, notice that, aside from the approval or disapproval of the church, it is hard to differentiate between these levels and many Venezuelans do not.

So for years, devout Roman Catholics in Venezuelans have placed images of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in their homes and chapels, but not only strict Catholics, but also followers of Santería and indigenous brujeria (witchcraft) and espiritismo (spiritism) invoke the good doctor’s name.

As Lutherans, we may recognize the achievements and moral example of Dr. Hernández, but we reject this concept of sainthood. All who die in baptismal faith enter immediately into the church triumphant with all of the surety of Christ's promises. Not by their own merits, for all have fallen short of the glory of God and none have earned merits that may be applied to others. Nor does Holy Scripture teach invocation and supplications of particular saints (heroes of the faith), for such honor belongs to Christ as the only Mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5).

The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. XXI (IX): Of the Invocation of Saints, says in part: “Our Confession approves honors to the saints (heroes of the faith). For here a threefold honor is to be approved. The first is thanksgiving. For we ought to give thanks to God because He has shown examples of mercy; because He has shown that He wishes to save men; because He has given teachers or other gifts to the Church. And these gifts, as they are the greatest, should be amplified, and the saints themselves should be praised, who have faithfully used these gifts, just as Christ praises faithful business-men, Matt. 25:21, 23. The second service is the strengthening of our faith; when we see the denial forgiven Peter, we also are encouraged to believe the more that grace truly superabounds over sin, Rom. 5:20. The third honor is the imitation, first, of faith, then of the other virtues, which every one should imitate according to his calling.

“But since neither a command, nor a promise, nor an example can be produced from the Scriptures concerning the invocation of saints, it follows that conscience can have nothing concerning this invocation that is certain. And since prayer ought to be made from faith, how do we know that God approves this invocation? Whence do we know without the testimony of Scripture that the saints perceive the prayers of each one?

“Again, the adversaries not only require invocation in the worship of the saints, but also apply the merits of the saints to others, and make of the saints not only intercessors, but also propitiators. This is in no way to be endured. For here the honor belonging only to Christ is altogether transferred to the saints. For they make them mediators and propitiators, and although they make a distinction between mediators of intercession and mediators [the Mediator] of redemption, yet they plainly make of the saints mediators of redemption.”

Please pray, therefore, for all the Venezuelans who do not yet understand that there is one Mediator between God and man, and that we may approach the Father in prayer through the atoning death and the intercession of His Son and with faith given and nurtured by the Holy Spirit. Also that all the baptized are numbered among the communion of saints and enter the church triumphant immediately upon passing from this life. Amen.

Speaking of pandemics

A full year passed without any reported cases of COVID-19 in La Caramuca, but now there have been three. All these people are recovering and none died. However Zugeimer Aranguren, a member of Cristo es Amor Lutheran Church, our sister congregation in Barquisimeto (three hours drive north) lost her grandfather and an aunt to COVID-19.

Reuters reported that on April 5, “Venezuela’s main academies of medicine and science on Monday urged renewed efforts to vaccinate the South American nation’s population against the coronavirus amid a spike in infections that has led the government to extend lockdown measures. The pandemic was significantly less severe than expected in Venezuela in 2020 due to widespread gasoline shortages that restricted vehicle movement, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences said in a joint statement. But Venezuela now faces a worst case scenario of limited vaccine availability, combined with an increase in infections following the relaxation of quarantine measures during the Christmas and Carnival holidays, the academies said.”

In February, Venezuela began its immunization program against the COVID-19 virus by vaccinating front-line health care personnel with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. On April 24, Venezuela received a new shipment of some 80,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. The government’s priority will inoculating healthcare workers and the elderly with the new shipment. Venezuela has also inoculated public officials, firefighters, civil protection personnel and oxygen distribution workers. It is estimated that health care professionals comprise 26 percent of those who have died from COVID-19 in Venezuela.

O God, You desire not the death of sinners, but rather that we turn from our wickedness and live. Graciously behold Your people who plead to You and spare us. Withdraw the scourge of Your wrath and be moved in mercy to turn away this pestilence from us; for the sake of Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

A house of prayer for all the nations

José Miguel Albarran Pumar was baptized on on August 16, 2020, the 10th Sunday after Trinity. Since 2005, 23 people have been baptized at our mission. Of those baptized, 11 have received their first communion here.

The sermon text was Luke 19:41-48, which is St. Luke’s account of the cleaning of the Temple by Jesus. I noted that the Israelites in the Old Testament had a special place, a house for all the people to come together for worship, prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. In the beginning that place was a tent, built in front of Mount Sinai under the direction of Moses. This tabernacle served the people on their pilgrimage in the desert. When the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, the tabernacle remained for many years in the city of Shiloh, then in Jerusalem. King Solomon replaced the tabernacle with the first temple of wood and stone a thousand years before Christ. At Epiphany Lutheran Mission, we worshipped first under a roofed patio, but now we have a beautiful chapel. Like the Temple of Jerusalem, this is a house of prayer for those of all nations who worship in Spirit and in truth. For us, the house of the Lord is wherever the Word is preached in its purity and the sacraments administered according to the Lord’s command. It is a special place because the Lord Himself has invited us to gather at an appointed place and time to receive His gifts (Hebrews 10:25). Our bodies also are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corintios 6:19). As our Lord cleared the moneylenders from the Temple, he cleanses our bodies and renews us in spirit through holy baptism. The church, both as the assembly of believers and place where believers assemble, belongs to Christ. He is the One who sustains it and has promised to keep it until His coming.

Distribution of food from LeadaChild

That same Sunday we distributed foodstuffs to 27 families, thanks to support from LeadaChild, a mission society based in Olathe, Kansas and dedicated to supporting Christian education around the world. We have received financial support from LeadaChild since 2006. In the past, we have distributed donations from LeadaChild as “scholarships” for students in our preschool and Luz Maria’s afterschool tutoring sessions. That is to say, as cash for the families to buy school supplies, clothing and food. This time around we purchased food

items in bulk, in order to get better value for our rapidly devaluing Venezuelan currency. Dividing the currency among the families would mean each household would get less than if we bought the food in one purchase. We were able to do this because of the automobile that we purchased with other donations this past year. Thanks to the car, we drove to the food distribution point and brought the food back to the mission.

On Saturday, August 8, we participated in a Zoom videoconference with Nury de Millian, LeadaChild director for Latin America. We listened to presentations on how to reopen Christian schools during the pandemic, testimony from a COVID-19 survivor, and advice from the Rev. Abdiel Orozco Aguirre, the pastor of Castillo Fuerte (Mighty Fortress) Lutheran Church in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and a immunohematologist.

LeadaChild was founded in 1968 as Children’s Christian Concern Society (CCCS) by Jim and Edie Jorns as agricultural missionaries to the Zacapa region of Guatemala. Their idea was to build a boarding house next to the new Lutheran school in Zacapa so that poor children would receive proper care while attending at the school. Jim and

Edie diligently gathered support from friends, family, and church members in their home state of Kansas. Throughout the years, CCCS grew to provide support to project sites in five world regions – Guatemala, Central America and Haiti, South America, West Africa, and Asia – and also supports an afterschool program in Bethlehem. The organization’s name was changed to LeadaChild in 2013.

I had heard of the Jorns’ mission work in the 1980s, when I was a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Topeka, Kansas, the congregation in which Edie was raised. Luz Maria and I were privileged to meet Jim and Edie in 2006. Last fall we met Dr. Philip J. Frusti, the current executive director of LeadaChild, in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Frusti, a Lutheran teacher and former school principal, graduated from Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Pray for recovery

 

We praise the Lord that Yepci Santana, Luz Maria’s daughter, is recovering from COVID-19 in Lima, Peru. Other members of Luz Maria’s family, with who we have not had face-to-face contact are recovering as well. Also in Peru, Kalen Yolanda Incata Fernández, wife of Martin Osmel Soliz Bernal, a pastor with the LCMS Mission in Lima, was diagnosed with COVID-19 after giving birth to her first child. Also, we should remember Diana Malik, a Global Lutheran Outreach missionary, who has lost 11 members of her extended family to COVID-19 in Kazakhstan. Holy and mighty Lord, who has promised, “no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent” (Psalm 91:10), we beseech You to hear our cry for those who are suffering and dying under the visitation of COVID-19. Mercifully bless the means which are used to stay the spread of the pandemic, strengthen those who labor to heal and comfort the afflicted, support those who are in pain and distress, speedily restore those who have been brought low, and unto all who are beyond healing grant Your heavenly consolation and Your saving grace, through Jesus Christ, Your only Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.

Coronavirus crowns health care crisis

During the last week in July, we received and distributed another shipment of medications from Global Lutheran Outreach and the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile.

 The medicine is purchased in Chile with the cooperation of a local pharmacy and packaged by volunteers (many of them expatriate Venezuelans) at the Lutheran mission congregation in Providencia, Santiago, Chile. Requests for medicine are coordinated through Lutheran congregations in Venezuela. Recipients can choose from a list of 25 common medications (up to three medications per patient). Each of those 25 medicines are available in Chile without a prescription.

 As of Sunday, August 2, 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases in Venezuela had surpassed 20,000, with Caracas replacing the western city of Maracaibo as the epicenter of infection. But even before the COVID-19 crisis, Venezuela was in the middle of a health care crisis. Hospitals have closed or are operating at a fraction of their capacity, many without regular access to electricity or water. The public health infrastructure is so weak that in 2019, Venezuela had the world’s steepest rise in malaria cases. Vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria had already returned long before the epidemic hit. The health crisis began in 2012, two years after the economic crisis began in 2010. But it took a drastic turn for the worse in 2017. Cases of measles and diphtheria, which were rare or nonexistent before the economic crisis, have surged to 9,300 and 2,500 respectively. The Ministry of Health report from 2017 showed that maternal mortality had shot up by 65 percent in one year — from 456 women who died in 2015 to 756 women in 2016. At the same time, infant mortality rose by 30 percent — from 8,812 children under age 1 dying in 2015 to 11,466 children the following year. Shortages in medications, health supplies, interruptions of basic utilities at health-care facilities, and the emigration of health-care workers have led to a progressive decline in the operational capacity of health care. Venezuela is ranked among the least prepared countries to respond to a pandemic, as it lacks basic supplies needed to prevent infection and treat illness.

 Food and medicine both are in short supply. But even when both are available, hyperinflation (more than 50% per month) and rising unemployment mean Venezuelans often have to choose between the two. Thanks be to God, the coronavirus has not reached La Caramuca yet, and we still are in the least restricted zone for COVID-19. However, members of our mission and our community suffer from such infirmities as schizophrenia; bipolar disorder; osteoarthritis; lupus; severe generalized arthrosis; toxoplasmosis; and epilepsy. Thanks to our partnership wih Global Lutheran Outreach, they have been able to receive the medications that they need.

 Pray for victims of the coronavirus

No COVID-19 cases have been reported in our immediate vicinity. But the coronavirus has struck close to home in that Luz Maria’s daughter, Yepci Santana, who moved to Peru two years ago, has tested positive. She has been confined to her apartment and unable to work, so we have helped her to purchase the medication that she needs until the 14 days of quarantine have passed. Yepci and her children, Oriana and Elias, are members of the LCMS mission in Los Olivos, Lima, Peru.

A delayed diploma

In July 2020, I, David, marked 17 years since my arrival in Venezuela for three years of service as a long-term volunteer for Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) World Missions. I had hoped to celebrate this milestone by traveling to the Dominican Republic to receive my Specific Ministry Program (SMP) certificate from Concordia The Reformer Seminary, but, of course, that trip was cancelled.

Since 2015 I have taken online courses offered through the Dominican seminary in cooperation with Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Lutheran Church of Venezuela’s Juan de Frias Theological Institute. The curriculum, Formación Pastoral Hispanoamérica, was developed by the Fort Wayne Seminary as part of the Specific Ministry Program for training bilingual pastors in the United States has been adapted for use in Latin American nations. I have completed the requirements of the four-year program as part of my commitment to continuing education as a pastor. Someday I hope to have that document to hang on my wall.

So, who was Juan de Frias?

It might surprise some people to know there was a Spanish Reformation. In fact, there was, and one of the lasting results was the Reina-Valera Bible, still the most widely distributed and used Spanish Bible in Latin America today. It was largely the work of Casiodoro de Reina, a former monk who became a Lutheran pastor.

CRUZ DE LA ESQUINA 

"CRUZ VERDE"

However, like de Reina, many Lutherans fled Spain to escape the ruthless persecution of the Spanish Inquisition. Some found their way to Spanish colonies in the New World, only to find that the Inquisition has set up shop there, too. From what we know of his background, Juan Francisco de la Barreda, also known as Juan de Frias, was born in Caracas. It is not certain how this priest and Augustinian friar was introduced to the writings of Martin Luther. Perhaps it was through contact with refugess from Spain, or maybe through written materials smuggled into Venezuela by pirates of the Caribbean, some of whom were of Lutheran background.

At any rate, in 1671, Juan de Frias was charged by the Inquisition with teaching “the Lutheran heresy”. The following year he was imprisoned at the Inquisition’s regional headquarters in Cartagena, Colombia. For 16 years he refused to recant and on May 30, 1688, was burned at stake. The Juan de Frias Theological Institute was founded in 1970 and named in his honor.

Recently I learned the address of the Inquisition’s office in Caracas: La Esquina de Cruz Verde, Avda. Sur 1, Caracas 1012, Distrito Capital.