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.

Sojourn at a solar-powered seminary

From November 18 to 23, Luz Maria and I were in the Dominican Republic for Foro Venezuela, an event hosted by Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod World Missions at Concordia The Reformer Seminary, Palmar Arriba. Foro means forum and ours was one of a series in which representatives of the LCMS, mission agencies and sister churches in Latin America and the Caribbean talk about what can be done to help proclaim the Gospel in the region.

As a rule, the foros are held in their respective countries to which interested parties from North America travel. For example, I was delighted to discover that this year’s Peru Foro was attended by members of Messiah Lutheran Church of Hays, Kansas, where I was a member while attending Fort Hays State University from 1976 to 1980. Not only did they visit the LCMS mission in Lima, Peru, but in particular the Los Olivos congregation where Luz Maria’s daughter, Yepci Santana, and her children now attend.

In other cases, such as Venezuela, it is a better idea to hold the meeting outside the country in question. LCMS World Missions made a special effort this year to bring all the national pastors of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela (including myself) to the Dominican Republic. In fact, all but one did. We were missing Edgar Coronado, pastor of La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay, who was unable to obtain a Venezuelan passport. It was noted, however, that because of increasing costs, this may be the last year that such a large group will be invited.

Luz Maria and I last visited the seminary in 2016 for a Latin American deaconess retreat. Since then a third floor has been added to what was a two-story building. The complex includes not only the seminary, but a Christian day school, Mercy Center and a home for the disabled. A local congregation meets in the chapel on Wednesday and Sunday. All the electricity for this complex is generated by an array of solar panels on the roof. The system is much like the one that we just installed, but on a much larger scale.

Reporting on projects

On May 24, the first class graduated from the seminary. Among the eight graduates was Isaac Machado of Venezuela. On November 12, Isaac was ordained and installed as a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Spain in Madrid, the national capital. His parents, Elsy and Juan, were with us on our trip. Elsy, as national coordinator of LeadaChild projects, presented a report on the current state and future plans for projects in Venezuela.

LeadaChild is a Kansas-based organization that supports Christian education projects around the world. It has supported projects in Venezuela since 1996 and our mission in La Caramuca since 2006. Luz Maria and I were able to meet with Dr. Phil Frusti, executive director of LeadaChild.

Luz Maria was responsible for gathering information and presenting a report on the distribution of medicines in Venezuela. This was made possible by the joint efforts of Global Lutheran Outreach, the Confessional Lutheran of Chile, Lutheran World Relief, LCMS Disaster Response and LCMS World Missions. Luz Maria and I were able to meet with Rev. James Tino, executive director of Global Lutheran Outreach.

The foro program also included a shortcourse in ecclesiology taught by Rev. David Preus, a member of the seminary faculty. This was an intensive look at the mystical union between Christ and the church, the public ministry of the church by the external Word (preaching and sacraments) and the marks of the visible church on earth. Pastor Preus is the grandson of Robert Preus (“Getting Into The Theology Of Concord: A Study Of The Book Of Concord”, I have read it several times); grandnephew of J.A.O Preus, former president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod; son of Rolf Preus,has taught courses in theology for Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Concordia University Wisconsin, and St. Sophia Lutheran Theological Seminary in Ternopil, Ukraine; and a nephew of Klemet Preus, author of “The Fire And The Staff”, also an important book for me.

Friends old and new

During our stay, Luz Maria and I enjoyed the hospitality of Deaconess Caitlin Ramirez, who we first met at the deaconess retreat in 2016, and her husband, Jeancarlos, who is in his second year of study at the seminary, and their son, Abraham. One morning Caitlin hosted a breakfast for deaconesses from four different countries at her home in Santiago de los Caballeros.

I was able to reunite with Regnier John Fritz, who during our 2016 visit, was studying for the ministry. Now he is ordained and chaplain of the day school associated with the seminary. I also met Hector Paneque, a seminarian from Cuba. He explained to me that LCMS missionaries had planted churches in Cuba before Fidel Castro’s revolution. But after Castro seized power, the churches were closed and the missionaries returned to the United States. Missionaries from the Wisconsin Evangelican Lutheran Synod (WELS) were able to make another attempt to evangelize in Cuba during the 1990s. These missionaries were not able to stay permanently, either, but left one church which sent Hector to the seminary. This illustrated to me the advantage of having a seminary strategically located in Latin America: It would be hard to imagine a Cuban being able to attend seminary in the USA under present circumstances!

The Venezuelans who traveled to the Dominican Republic were met by Venezuelans already there. These included Sergio Maita, who is a member of the seminary faculty and pastor of Pan de Vida Lutheran Church in Santo Domingo; Sergio’s wife, Yoxandris, and their children, Irene and Andrés; Sergio’s brother, Arturo, now a missionary in Puerto Rico, along with Ruth Pollex Maita, Arturo’s wife, and their daughter, Mikaela; and Josue Ventura, and his uncle, Carlos Vionnel Ventura, who are both seminarians (Josue is the son and Carlos the brother of Adrian Ventura, once pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela, and now a missionary in Santiago, Chile).

Hope for a new hymnal

Every day opened with Matins and closed with Vespers from a new Spanish Lutheran hymnal expected to be published in its entirety within this next year. Everyone was humming “El Magnificat”. Preachers included Rev. Iban Navarra, the third citizen of the Dominican Republic to be ordained as a confessional Lutheran pastor; Rev. Mark Braden, pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Detroit, Michigan, adjunct faculty member of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and visiting professor in both Venezuela and the Dominican Republic; and Rev. Theodore Krey, regional director for the Latin America and Caribbean region of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and former missionary to Venezuela for eight years.

We returned to Venezuela in time to celebrate the last Sunday of the church year. Now, as we prepare for Christmas, we ask you to consider a years-end donation to Global Lutheran Outreach on behalf of Epiphany Lutheran Mission. Our travel expenses to the Dominican Republic were paid, but now we have to confront an economic situation in Venezuela that is more volatile than ever. We rely on donations from you to continue and extend our service to people who are in both material need and in need of the light of God's love.  

Back to counting chickens

Luz Maria and I have returned to Epiphany Lutheran Mission in La Caramuca after our first trip together since 2012. Luz Maria was invited to attend a conference of deaconesses from across Latin American sponsored by Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod World Missions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The centerpiece of the conference was a study of the epistles of St. Paul, led by Ginnatriz Vera de Mendoza. A native of Argentina, she was trained as a deaconess at Concordia Seminary of Buenos Aires and now lives in Yaritagua, Venezuela, with her husband, Angel Eliezer Mendoza, who is pastor of New Life Lutheran Mission there. They met while Angel Eliezer was a student at the seminary.

Clarion and Joel Fritsche with Angel Eliezer Mendoza;
Elsy Valladares de Machado; Luz Maria; and
Ginnatriz Vera de Mendoza.

We were met at the airport in Santo Domingo, the capital city, by missionary Joel Fritsche; his wife, Clarion, and two of their three boys. Pastor Fritsche served his vicarage at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church of Freeburg, Illinois, where my mother is a member. From Santo Domingo it was a two-hour bus ride to Santiago, the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic, where the conference was held. The event drew deaconesses from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Panama and the Dominican Republic as well as Venezuela. In addition to Luz Maria and Ginnatriz, Elsy Valladares de Machado from Caracas represented Venezuela.

Dr. Gillian Bond of Concordia Seminary, St.Louis, with Elsy,
Ginnatriz and Luz Maria.

The three deaconess training centers of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod were represented by Amy Rast, associate director of deaconess studies at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Gillian Bond, director of deaconess studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri; Deborah Rothrock on behalf of Concordia University, Chicago. We also enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with old friends, like Pastor Ted Krey, a former missionary to Venezuela who is now region director LCMS World Missions in Latin America and the Caribbean; Rebecca Krey, his wife and their four children; Sergio Maita, a native of Maturin, Venezuela and graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary now serving as a missionary in the Dominican Republic; and Yoxandris Marcano de Maita, Sergio's wife, and their two children.

Vicars Idjon Fritz and Justn Massey.

For me, a highlight of the trip was our visit to Palmar Arriba, a small town in the mountains outside of Santiago. There LCMS World Missions has established a mission, a home for the disabled, and the beginnings of a seminary. On Sunday I helped vicars, Idjon Fritz (a native of the Dominican Republic) and Justin Massey (from Kankakee, Illinois) with a service of evening prayer. I also enjoyed talking with Pastor Carlos Schumann of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile, who represented the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

Upon returning to Venezuela, we spent a few days in Caracas as I attended a meeting of the pastors of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela.

Now that we are back in La Caramuca, we are please to see continued progress on the construction of a new learning center and chapel. We also have expaned our chicken project.

Counting chickens and eggs.

The inspiration for this project came from Luz Maria's daughter, Charli Santana. She obtained the chickens from her in-laws. At present we have three hens, one rooster and 10 chicks.  The hens are producing three eggs per day. We use the eggs to prepare breakfast for 10 to 20 preschool children every morning. Typically the eggs are served with arepas, the corn-meal muffins that are a staple of the Venezuelan diet (the arepas are stuffed with eggs, deviled ham, cream cheese, sardines or whatever other filling is available). We have the space to raise a maximum of 100 hens, but we think a flock of 30 would be the optimum size to produce enough eggs to significantly reduce our dependence on purchased ingredients. Thanks to a donation from Jim Burns, we have built on to the chicken coop, bought more chicken feed and hope to build the flock up to 30 laying hens within three months. Jim is the brother of Kathy Conrad, wife of Daniel Conrad, a former LCMS missionary to Venezuela who is now serving as a missionary in Mexico City, Mexico.

Another goal of this project is teach the children and young people involved with our mission how to raise chickens in their own homes. Backyard chickens are a Venezuelan tradition that is in danger of being lost due to social and economic changes.

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Deaconesses to gather in the Dominican Republic

English: Dominican Republic (orthographic projection). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Next week deaconess students from Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela will travel to the Dominican Republic for a three-day course on the letters of St. Paul. Deaconess Ginnatriz Mendoza will teach the course. She is the wife of Ángel Eliezer Mendoza, pastor of Nueva Vida (New Life) Lutheran mission in Yaritagua, the capital of the Peña Municipality of Venezuela's state of Yaracuy. She is a native of Argentina and trained as a deaconess at Concordia Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina, where her husband, a Venezuelan, recently graduated. They met while he was studying at the seminary.

Luz Maria and I also will travel to the Dominican Republic. Luz Maria trained as a deaconess by taking theological courses by extension and has worked with the Lutheran Church of Venezuela to train more deaconesses. 

Some may ask, what is a deaconess? One might also ask, what is a deacon? The two words have a ong history within the church. Both are derived from the Greek work, διάκονος (diakonos), which in a broad sense means "servant" or "one who runs an errand". The apostle Paul refers to himself as a "deacon" or servant of Jesus Christ in Colossians 1:23. However, the word also is used in the New Testament in a special sense to mean trusted laity in positions of responsibility. The first example of this is found in Acts, chapter six, where the Apostle delegated the oversight of the distribution of food to the widows to seven men "of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom."

Unlike the pastoral office of public preaching, teaching and administration of the sacraments, the office of "deacon" was not created by God's command. The apostles did not receive a divine order in a vision or a dream, but used their own judgement. This is similar to what happened in Exodus 18 when Moses, exhausted after trying to deal with all of the Israelites' problems himself, took the advice of his father-in-law and appointed "able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe" as his helpers.

Because the responsibilities of the "diaconate" or auxiliary offices are not fixed by divine mandate, they can change according to the needs of the local church. There is evidence within the New Testament that women as well as men were able to serve in auxiliary offices within the early church. The primary passage is Romans 16:1-2, in which St. Paul refers to a woman named Phoebe as a  "servant of the church at Cenchreae" The word translated "servant" is διάκονον, the feminine form of  διάκονος. 

Other women in the New Testament, while not specifically named as deaconesses, are described as devoting themselves to the service of the church. Outstanding examples are Lydia, a woman who who housed many Christians in her home; Priscilla, who with her husband, Aquila, helped Apollos to teach more accurately the way of God; and Dorcas who made clothes for the needy.

Some interpreters argue that the mention of "women" in 1 Timothy 3:8-13 means the wives of deacons. However, in verses 1-7, Paul speaks of the requirements to be a bishop (pastor) without mentioning their wives, ( only that a bishop must be the husband of only one wife). On the other hand, Paul makes a parallel list of requirements for deacons and "women". The word, γυναῖκας, "gunaikas" could mean a woman of any age or marital status, and thus could mean deaconesses. This was the interpretation of John Chrysostom (347-407), a great theologian of the early church.

An early reference to deaconesses outside the Holy Scriptures is found in a letter written to the Emperor Trajan by the Roman magistrate, Pliny the Younger, in the second century A.D.He mentions torturing two deaconesses to find out more about what Christians really believed.

The office of deaconess was formally recognized at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, and the Apostolic Constitutions, a Christian work of the fourth century mentions deaconess as an official position in the church. The work of the deaconess work in the post-apostolic church was to help the poor and sick; instruct catechumens; help in the baptism of women; and attend to the needs of woman in circumstances where a male deacon did not have access or could not be sent.

After the fifth century A.D., however, the office of deaconess was discontinued. As the church as an institution became more powerful within late Roman and early medieval society, it became more hierarchical in structure. The word "deacon" came to mean a rank within the clergy, not a lay office. Thus, deacons could not have female counterparts. The work performed by deaconesses did not disappear, but was taken over by orders of nuns. 

The modern revival of the office of deaconess began when Theodor Fliedner, a Lutheran pastor, and his wife, Friedericke Munster, opened the first modern Lutheran deaconess mother house in Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. Germany, in 1836. Fliedner saw a pressing need, demand for nurses with religious formation to attend the wounded as the Napoleonic Wars had created devastation and great misery.  By 1864, year of his death, some 1,600 women had received training as deaconesses in Kaiserswerth. One of them was Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse of the Crimean War.

In the village of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872) also became interested in the restoration of the office of deaconess. He established a school for deaconesses in 1849, where women trained to care for the sick, teach school, and work in other fields of service to the church.

Rosie Adle with Luz Maria and Elsy Valladares
de Machado in 2007.

The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod began training deaconesses in 1919 and today both Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and Concordia Theological Seminary, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, provide deaconess training program. 

Deaconess Rosie Adle, an instructor at the Fort Wayne seminary, worked in Venezuela to recruit and train deaconesses in 2007. She explained the role of the deaconess in a recent Issues Etc. interview.

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Remember those for whom Christ died

Last month the news of natural disaster in Japan captured the world's attention. Of course, we have heard of the events that continue to unfold in Japan, but here in La Caramuca there was tragedy on a more personal level. A 17-year-old boy who lived just down the block from our mission was murdered in the wee hours of a Sunday morning after attending a street party. Sad to say, he was never involved in any of the activities of our mission, but the family was known to all and his death had quite an impact on the community, although I doubt that his death made international headlines. We remembered his family in prayer that same Sunday.

Ruth Rivero de Kempff, 1957-2011

Also this past month, many longtime members of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela remembered in prayer the family of Ruth Kempff, who died March 23, 2011, after a painful struggle with cancer. She was born Ruth Rivero in Venezuela, August 5, 1957. She married Mark Kempff, a former missionary to Venezuela and now a member of the faculty of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, on July 30, 1978. Their surviving children include Raquel and Rebeca. There was also a son, Juan Marcos, who died shortly after his birth in 1982. Ruth also is survived by her older sister, Ramona, who is married to Rudy Blank, another former missionary to Venezuela and also a member of the Center for Hispanic Studies faculty.

Whether it is death and destruction on a grand scale, or the death of a friend or relative, we may take consolation in the fact that God cares for all of us and no life is insignificant to Him. "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). In the person of Jesus Christ, God Himself entered a world full of suffering and death, and suffered all, even death, that no matter how brief our time here might be, or how much we might be afflicted, in baptismal grace there is always the promise of eternal joy with Him. We recall this especially during this season of Lent and also that since no one is guaranteed a certain number of years on earth, we should live in anticipation of being called home to the Lord at any time. If we seek first the kingdom of God, than we may look back without regrets and forward with joy.

Cholera and swine flu, too

We would ask you to pray for the health of everyone in Venezuela.

In February I became ill and was confined to bed for a couple of days after receiving an antibiotic from our doctor. I could tell from the questions that he asked that the doctor was trying to find out whether he had a case of cholera on his hands. Fortunately, it probably was just food poisoning.

Image via Wikipedia

In fact, there was a brief outbreak of cholera in February. Venezuelan Minister of Health Eugenia Sader said that around 300 cases were treated before the disease was declared under control. The cholera apparently was brought to Venezuela by Venezuelans who attended a wedding in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic has recorded 238 cases of cholera since November. The disease came from neighbouring Haiti, where an epidemic has killed almost 4,000 people. Almost 200,000 Haitians have been infected since the epidemic broke out in October, but aid agencies say the rate of infection has slowed. For Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, it is the first cholera outbreak in more than a century.

But no sooner had the cholera crisis passed than swine flu took center stage. Venezuelan health officials on March 28 said that 415 people have been diagnosed with "swine flu" (H1N1 influenza) in 19 of the country's 24 states. Two people have died from swine flu since an initial spate of cases were confirmed on March 17. George Jenkins of the World Health Organization attributed the sudden rise in flu cases to an unusually cold and rainy summer.

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