Peace to this house and all who dwell here

 

On August 29, I blessed the new house of Adonay and Ludy Tarazona, members of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church, our sister congregation in the city of Barinas. Corpus Christi currently does not have a regular pastor and since I have known the Tarazonas for 21 years, they invited me to do it. Adonay and Ludy first met in Sunday school at Corpus Christi. They have three children who all still live with them.

The Rev. Ross Johnson, a former missionary to Venezuela, points out that the speaking of a blessing, or benediction, conveys the message of God's mercy and grace in private situations as well and the Divine Service. The blessing of a home as a Christian ritual has a long history. It is often done during the Epiphany season, with customs associate with Epiphany, because of Matthew 2:11. "And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary, His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him." As the Gospel lesson for the blessing of Adonay and Ludy's new home, I read Matthew 7:24-29, which is the parable of the house built on rock versus that built on sand.

More medicines from GLO, Lutherans in Chile

On Sunday, August 11, 2024, we distributed the 12th shipment of over-the-counter medications sent as part of Global Lutheran Outreach’s Venezuela Relief Project. During the project’s initial years (2017-2020), many pharmaceutical companies ceased operations in Venezuela, and medicine had almost ceased to be available at local pharmacies. We still live in an inflationary economy with chronic shortages, but medicine is more readily available although at high prices. Many Venezuelans must decide on a monthly basis between medicine and food for the family.

Since 2017, the base of operations for the Venezuela Relief Project has been Divina Providencia (Divine Providence) Lutheran Church in Santiago, Chile. This congregation is affiliated with the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile. Medicines are purchased in Chile with the cooperation of a local pharmacy. Then volunteers at the congregation, many of them Venezuelan immigrants to Chile, collate the orders and prepare them for shipment.We give thanks to God for this ministry and also pray that it might continue. As the Rev. James Tino, director of Global Lutheran Outreach (GLO), explained in a recent newsletter, the congregation rents its facilities for around US $2,000 per month, or about double the average monthly wage in Chile).

The congregation has been struggling to meet rent payments and their current rental contract will soon expire. At this point, a suitable property in Santiago will cost around US $450,000 for a basic building, or US $850,000 for one that can house the church and the pastor's family, while also having space for some income-producing activity.

The Rev. Adrian Ventura is the current pastor of Divina Providencia. I first met him in 2002 when he was the pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturín, Venezuela. In 2004, he began a second term as president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. He commissioned Luz Maria as a deaconess on the national level in 2004; in 2008 he ordained me as a pastor of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. Since 2018, Pastor Adrian has served as a fellow GLO missionary in Chile.

The lights went out in Venezuela

For years we have to live with local and regional power outages. Typically, lights may go out at any moment of the day for perhaps 10 to 15 minutes, but sometimes for an hour or two. The country's power grid is in a poor state of maintenance and is more than 80 percent depended on a single power station. The Guri reservoir and hydroelectric facility was built on the Caroni River, near what had been the mouth of the Guri River and the village of Guri. The first stage of the facility was completed in 1969 and was designed to be enlarged in two additional stages, whose scheduling would be determined by national power needs. However, electrical demand in Venezuela grew so fast that stage two, begun in 1976, encompassed both later stages, and final work was completed in 1986. In its day the Guri power station was a marvel of engineering, but has had difficulty meeting the continually growing demand for electricity.

Roosters crow like clockwork

One of the most poignant moments in the Passion story is when the Apostle Peter realizes that he has denied his Lord three times before a rooster in the vicinity of Pilate’s courtyard has finished calling the watches of the night. Listening for cockcrow as a way of marking the passage of time between midnight and dawn is an ancient and worldwide practice. Roosters will crow several times soon after midnight, and again at the dawn of day. The birds have an internal rhythm that tells them when to crow. Although roosters can occasionally crow at any time of day, the majority of their crowing is like clockwork, peaking in frequency at time intervals roughly 24 hours apart.

We have firsthand experience of this. Backyard chicken flocks are a staple in Venezuela, as they were in the rural South Dakota of my childhood. Once, during a Skype call, my mother, who grew up on a farm, heard one of our roosters crowing and closely guessed its age by the tone of its crow. I was quite impressed.

Besides the crowing rooster in the parallel Gospel accounts of Peter’s denial of Christ, our Lord speaks of a rooster in Mark 13:35. Hens and their chicks are mentioned in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34. There are no clear references to chickens in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word, zarzir, in Proverbs 30:31 is sometimes translated “strutting rooster”, but other translations render it, “greyhound”, while in Job 38:36 the word, sekvi, also is of uncertain meaning. Sometimes it is translated as “rooster”, but otherwise as “heart”.
In 1932, an onyx seal was found on a tomb 12 kilometers northeast of Jerusalem, dating back to the the seventh century BC. It features a fighting rooster, with the inscription: “Belonging to Jaazaniah, servant of the King”. This could be the man named in 2 Kings 25:23 and Jeremiah 40:8.

Why roosters are worth the noise

Our flock has grown to 20 hens, two roosters and 60 chicks. We sacrificed four hens who were no longer laying (not in a propitiatory sense) for Easter dinner for our congregation. It has been some time since we have had to buy eggs (which are selling for $5 for a carton of 30). In fact, Luz Maria has sold eggs to people who want a farm-fresh, organic product. Once I got into an online debate with people who tried to tell me that it’s not worth the trouble to keep roosters. They are noisy, when there’s more than one, they fight over the hens, and hens will lay eggs anyway. But the hens are healthier when they maintain their natural reproductive cycle, you do not have to buy new hens to replace the ones that have stopped laying, and many people here consider eggs produced with the help of roosters to be of higher nutritional quality. In addition to providing eggs and meat, free-range chickens help us control termites and biting ants.

César Delgado confirmed on Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024, we received into communicant membership César Miguel Delgado Rojas. He chose as his confirmation verse Isaiah 41:13, “For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, Fear not, I will help you.” The second part of the book of Isaiah, chapters 40 to 66, is known as the Book of Consolations and pictures the restoration of the remnant of Israel, the messianic King, and the final glory of the Church. “Fear not, I will help you” or “Fear not, I am with you” is a favorite phrase of the prophet.

Deborah, woman of God
On March 8, 2024, we concluded “Old Testament I”, an online course for deaconesses in training, with a study of the Book of Judges. Deborah, prophetess, wife and judge, was a woman who loved Jehovah and his Word. God gave her wisdom from her and she used it for the good of her neighbors, giving them advice from her.

We know more about Deborah than about the five Old Testament prophetesses, including Miriam, Moses' sister; Huldah, advisor to King Josiah (2 Kings 22:8-20; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28); Isaiah's wife (Isaiah 8:3); and the mother of King Lemuel (Proverbs 31:1). Prophetesses mentioned in the New Testament include Anna, the widow who blessed the Baby Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:25-35); Philip's daughters (Acts 21:9); and the prophetesses of Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:5).

Although the Scriptures mention prophetesses, none were public speakers during a meeting of God's people or priests in his temple or apostles or pastors of the church. In fact, St. Paul's reference to prophetesses in 1 Corinthians 11 occurs in a passage that emphasizes the leadership role of a husband. The Scriptures always distinguish the roles of men and women. Women can proclaim God's Word publicly through song (like Miriam and Deborah) and privately through counsel. Furthermore, the Scriptures strictly warn against false prophetesses (Ezekiel 13:17) such as Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14) and Jezabel (Revelation 2:20-23).

Continuing deaconess training

On March 19, the Rev. Dr. Sergio Fritzler from Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic began the orientation of 16 pastor various countries for the next course, "Diaconal Practice 2" with a devotional on the mercy of God. The next step was the orientation of more than 40 women from Venezuela and other countries on March 21, 2024.

Medicines from GLO distributed

On Sunday, March 3, 2024, we distributed the bulk of non-prescription medicines received from Global Lutheran Outreach. The rest were distributed through in-person visits to those whose disabilities prevented them from leaving the house.

Team South America update.

Here is an important message from the Rev. James Tino, executive director of Global Lutheran Outreach (GLO):

Liisa and Jim Tino.

“A big THANK YOU to everyone for their support of the missionaries of Global Lutheran Outreach through our 24-hour online event, Go Beyond! (November 8-9( Over 125 people made a contribution, offered prayers and words of encouragement, and blessed us in so many ways. Due to popular demand, our Go Beyond! page will stay open for the rest of the month. Until November 30, people can still visit the page, learn about GLO and our missionaries, and make a contribution that will be tripled.”

Through our association with Global Lutheran Outreach, Luz Maria and I are able to help not only people in La Caramuca, but throughout Venezuela and even Chile! Since 2017, Luz Maria, together with Corali Garcia de Loturco and Elianeth Pineda of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile, has coordinated requests for needed medicines from congregations of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela.

During its initial years (2017-2020), the GLO Medicine for Venezuela project was a virtual lifeline because medicine ceased to be available in the country. Many pharmaceutical companies ceased operations in Venezuela, and local pharmacies had bare shelves. Today, medicine is once again available but at high prices and in dollars! Daily medication for high blood pressure, for example, may require 80 percent of someone’s monthly salary!

Non-prescription medicines are purchased in Chile with the cooperation of a local pharmacy. Volunteers at Santiago mission congregation collate the orders and prepare each congregation’s shipment. After arriving in Venezuela, meds are sorted and packed for distribution to each beneficiary. In the first year of the project (2017), 333 patients received a month’s supply of medicine to 333 patients. In the most recent shipment (Jan/Feb 2022), 1,055 patients received a month’s supply!

Elianeth and Corali.

Many of the volunteers in Santiago are Venezuelan expatriates, like Corali and Elianeth. One result of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is that record numbers of Venezuelans are immigrating to other countries. Chile is the third-most popular destination for Venezuelans (behind Colombia and Peru) fleeing their country’s humanitarian crisis. GLO maintains a ministry to Venezuelan immigrants to Chile.

James Tino served for eight years as missionary pastor of “Divina Providencia” (Divine Providence) Luheran Church in Santiago before assuming full-time duties as GLO executive director. Adrian Ventura was installed as the pastor of Divina Providencia in his place on February 19, 2023. I met both men in Venezuela 20 years ago. Adrian was the pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela. James Tino was region director of Latin America and the Caribbean for Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod World Missions after many years as a missionary in Venezuela. Luz Maria and I received premarital counseling from Pastor Tino before getting married in a civil ceremony on November 29, 2003 (our church would follow on July 25, 2004).

Adrian Ventura.

So it was a great honor and privilege to join Pastor Adrian; his wife, Cruz Maria; Corali; and Elianeth as members of Team South America to raise money for the GLO general fund.

This is a breakdown of what online donations (tripled through matching funds) to the GLO general fund will provide:

• $29 provides a missionary with an online donation platform for one year.

• $75 sponsors one person to attend a GLO mission conference.

• $101 provides a missionary with the services of a professional accountant for one year.

• $260 provides a missionary with software and other online services.

  

  Luz Maria with Cruz Maria
  and Yuraima Gonzalez.

• $365 provides for a supportive and encouraging visit to a missionary in their field of service.

• $582 supplies all support services to a missionary for one month.

As Thanksgiving draws near in the United States and the end of the church year everywhere, we live in the expectant hope of Jesus' return while giving thanks to God for all of His gifts, including health, family, work, home and the spiritual blessings of forgiveness and eternal life. May God continue to use GLO to share Jesus with the world so that many more people can join us in looking forward to the life to come!

Please donate to GLO online at our Team South America page: https://charidy.com/glo/samer

Sing with grace in your hearts to the Lord

This past month we received copies of the new Spanish hymnal, Himnario Luterano, the new hymnal intended to become the standard worship resource for 18 Spanish-speaking countries. It was published by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation as a joint project with Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod World Missions, the Confessional Lutheran Education Foundation, and national confessional Lutheran churches in Chile, Argentina and Paraguay. The book is a comprehensive collection of prayers, Scripture readings and 670 hymns. There is even one in Guarani, the second official language of Paraguay after Spanish. 

Eduardo Flores, president of the national church.

Guarani is spoken by about 4.6 million people in Paraguay and there are also small communities of Guarani speakers in Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. Guarani belongs to Tupi-Guarani, an ancient, indigenous language family that gave the English language loanwords like cougar, jaguar and toucan. However, about half of the hymns are carried over from hymnbooks that we already have, “Culto Cristiano” (first published by Concordia Publishing House in 1964) and “Cantad al Señor” (published by Concordia Publishing House in 1991). But these are not the only sources of hymnody for Himnario Luterano. 

During the Middle Ages, music in worship generally was the preserve of professionals. The priest would have chanted the Mass, and in larger parishes and cathedrals a choir might have sung the principal parts. In their monasteries and convents, monks and nuns marked the hours of prayer by chanting services of great complexity. The Reformation restored congregational singing to its rightful place in Christian worship, as was established in the New Testament (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Certainly the invention of the moveable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455 made it possible to place Bibles, copies of the Small Catechism and hymnbooks in homes as well as the pews of local congregations. It is the goal of the Himnario Luterano project to replicate this triad of Lutheran piety – Bible, catechism and hymnal – throughout Latin America.

Sergio Fritzler.

According to the Rev. Dr. Sergio Fritzler, director of Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic, Spanish hymnody could be said to begin with Marcus Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, a poet who lived in northern Spain from 348 to 413 A.D. One of his compositions, “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”, is known throughout the world, and a modern Spanish translation is included in Himnario Luterano. Jesuit and Augustinian missionaries to the New World organized choirs and orchestras among indigenous peoples. But the Spanish Inquisition, active not only in Spain, but also in the Spanish colonies from the 16th through the19th centuries, prohibited the publication and distribution of Bible translation and devotional literature not approved by the Roman Catholic church. As political pressure for religious toleration increased in Spain, William Harris Rule, a Methodist missionary from Great Britain, published a Spanish hymnal in Cadiz, Spain, in 1835. Three hymns from this hymnal are included in Himnario Luterano. José Joaquín de Mora (1783-1864), wrote Spanish hymns anonymously for fear of persecution. In Himnario Luterano there is an original hymn and two translations by José de Mora. Other early 19th Century Spanish hymnwriters whose work is included in Himnario Luterano are Tomás J. González Carvajal (1753–1834) and Mateo Cosidó Anglés (1825-1870).

Blessing the hymnals.

After Spain officially adopted a policy of religious liberty in 1868,  Federico (Friedrich) Fliedner was sent there as a Protestan missionary. Fliedner was the son of Theodore Fliedner, a Lutheran pastor who founded the first modern school for deaconesses at Kaiserswerth-on-the-Rhine in 1836.He founded a seminary, an orphanage, ten primary schools in Madrid and the provinces, and a bookstore. He also published a hymnal and there are 29 of his hymn translations in Himnario Luterano. 

Himnario Evangélico Luterano, the first confessional Lutheran hymnal for Latin America, was published in Argentina in 1927. From 1927 until the final edition of Culto Cristiano in 1995, a total of 16 confessional Lutheran hymnals were published in Spanish. All of these are sources for the hymnody in Himnario Luterano.

The new Spanish hymnal also includes many contributions by contemporary Lutheran authors (in alphabetical order): Adrián Correnti (Argentina), Germán Falcioni (Argentina), Daniel Feld (Brazi), Artur Feld Jr. (Brazil), Alceu Figur (Brazilian in Paraguay), Sergio Fritzler (Argentina), Guillermo Herigert (Argentina), Héctor Hoppe (Argentinian in the United States), Gregory Klotz (United States), Alejandro López (Chilean in Panama), Daniel Pfaffenzeller (Argentina), Cristian Rautenberg (Argentina), Antonio Schimpf (Argentina), Lilian Rosin (Paraguay), Danila Stürtz (Argentinian in Paraguay), Gerardo Wagner (Argentinian in Paraguay), Roberto Weber (Argentina), and Valdo Weber (Brazil).

According to our national church’s II Congress of Lutheran Educators in 2007, “Liturgical hymnbooks doctrinally classify hymns and categorize them in a musical, poetic way according to the ease of singing them. These selected songs make up a useful tool to make possible the liturgy according to the doctrinal philosophy of the church.”

Assisting Pastor Mendoza with the liturgy.

Law and Gospel in Barquisimeto

Luz Maria with Nancy Mora and Anny Duran.

On July 20, Luz Maria and I traveled to Barquisimeto for a deaconess training seminar for four women from Caracas and Maracay. Recognized as Venezuela’s fourth-largest city by population and area after Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia, Barquisimeto is the capital of the state of Lara and an important urban, industrial, commercial and transportation center. It is also the location of “Cristo es Amor” (“Christ is Love”) Lutheran church and the new headquarters of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute. Ángel Eliezer Mendoza is the pastor of Cristo es Amor and director of the Juan de Frias Institute. 

Cristo es Amor was one of the first congregations that I visited on a tour of Venezuela in April 2003, some years after it was planted by Pastor James Tino, now executive director of Global Lutheran Outreach, but then an LCMS missionary to Venezuela.

Zugeimer Aranguren and her family.

 There I met Nancy Mora and her daughter, Anny. Mother and daughter both graduated last from the deaconess program sponsored by the Juan de Frias Institute and Concordia El Reformador Seminary and have bee installed as deaconesses at Cristo es Amor. The same is true of Zugeimer Aranguren, who met several times over the years. Zugeimer is not only a deaconess at Cristo es Amor, but also treasurer of our national church and administrator of a fund to help deaconesses with their work throughout Venezuela. I last preached at Cristo es Amor for the congregation’s 15th anniversary in 2009, when it was meeting in the lobby of a public building rented on Sundays (the congregation has experienced many ups and downs). 

Deaconess students and instructors.

This time I preached at vespers on Friday and Saturday and helped Pastor Mendoza with the divine liturgy on Sunday, July 23. Since July 22, was day of commemoration for Mary Magdalene, it worked well to speak of faithful women of the Old Testament on Friday and faithful women of the New Testament on Saturday. Edgar Coronado, pastor of La Fortaleza (“Fortress”) Lutheran Church in Maracay, preached the Sunday sermon. The theme of the seminar was C.F.W. Walther’s theses on “The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel” as applied to diaconal ministry. Pastor Mendoza led some of the sessions and Luz Maria taught the ladies in others. The students were Teresa Leombruni and Carolina Maldonado of “La Paz” Lutheran Church, Caracas; and Belkys Castellanos and Maria de Coronado of La Fortaleza, Maracay. The objective of the course was to help the students rightly divide Law and Gospel and determine the correct use of both in teaching classes and in personal visits. They analyzed hypothetical cases in light of cultural realities and the Word of God.

 

Maria Gabriela Rosales.

The fruits of Christian education

Luz Maria and I started Epiphany Lutheran Mission in La Caramuca with an emphasis on Christian education. We wanted to provide not only basic skills and character formation for stable, productive families, but also the motivation for doing so, by proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. At least some of the young people we reached became the first in their families to finish high school, and even more important, were baptized and received first communion as members of our mission congregation. This year three of our young people completed sixth grade and will begin their studies in the liceo, which is equivalent to high school in the United States, this fall. Lorena Rujano and Yulmelvis Sala received first communion and Eduardo Garrido was baptized in our mission. Also, Maria Gabriela Rosales, who was baptized at our mission in 2015, received her high school diploma. We pray that she and Eduardo may yet be brought to the Lord’s table.

Eduardo Garrido.

Please continue to pray for these and other young people here. This July marks the surprising success of “Sound of Freedom”, a movie that deals with the frightening reality human trafficking as a global growth industry with tentacles that reach into our small town in western Venezuela. The film dramatizes the rescue of 55 children from a sex trafficking operation in Colombia in 2014. Last September Luz Maria and I participated in an online conference hosted by LeadaChild, one of our sponsoring mission agencies in the United States, and 5 Stones, a Wisconsin-based organization dedicated to raising awareness of child sex trafficking within the USA and elsewhere. We learned that young people can be lured/groomed for sex trafficking by job offers, expensive clothes, jewelry, vacations, restaurants, and anything outside their normal activities. This is consistent with the reported opening scene of “Sound of Freedom” in which two children are lured into a supposed movie audition by a glamorous woman who was a former Colombian beauty queen. But what makes grooming much easier these days is access to the Internet.  

Yulmelvis Sala and Lorena Rujano.

I recorded a special video message on this topic and publshed it on the mission's Spotify podcast (which normally consists of my Sunday sermons in Spanish) and on our YouTube channel. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have supported our mission, especially those who have been our partners from the beginning. We ask that you continue to pray for our young people here and around the world. May the Lord bless and keep you. Amen.

More news from the chicken coop

We built another section onto our chicken coop to accommodate 20 hens and their chicks. Our egg production has nearly reached the point where we may start regular sales of eggs. The chicken coop not only has been expanded, but greatly fortified to provide the chickens with more protection from predators, which include hawks, oppossum and snakes.