The need for creeds

Luz Maria and I traveled north to Barquisimeto for a pastor’s conference at Cristo es Amor (Christ is Love) Lutheran Church from June 25 to 26. It was privilege to celebrate the 495th anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession with other pastors of our national church, the Lutheran Church of Venezuela.

Argénis Hernández, pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church in San Félix de Guayana, offered a meditation on Matthew 10:26-33 at the opening Matins service on June 25. I did the same for the appointed epistle, 1 Timothy 6:11-16, at Vespers.

The word “confession” is used in different ways. Perhaps most widely understood is the confession of sins. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”, 1 John 1:9. In the Lutheran church, confession of sin may be public or private. The dialogue of communal confession of sin by the congregation and absolution by the pastor as part of the Divine Service is of ancient origin. But Lutherans also retain the practice of private confession, either specific sins to a neighbor one has wronged, or sins that weigh particularly heavy on the heart to the pastor. Private confession is not a requirement, but a gift.

“Confession” as declaration of faith, or creed, is always understood as a public, not a private matter. (The word “creed” is derived from the Latin “credo” or “I believe”.) This is the essence of public worship, as shown in Nehemiah 8:1-12, the Old Testament lesson which was not read. Ezrah the priest publicly read from the books of Moses and all the people answered “Amen, Amen!”, while lifting up their hands. “And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.” God speaks to us in his infallible Scriptures, and we respond.Whether one says “I believe” or “we believe” does not matter, for what follows is not personal opinion, but an authoritative articulation of what the Scriptures say. An open proclamation of the truth and a steadfast defense of the truth, is demanded for every follower of Christ.

“Therefore whoever confesses me before men, him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven”, Matthew 10:33.

“Do the work of an evangelist”

St. Paul also tells his disciple in 2 Timothy 4, “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” This served as the basis for another highlight of the pastor’s conference was a presentation by Carlos Ventura on “The Pastor as Evangelist”.The word εὐαγγελιστής (euaggelistés) is used in only two passages of the New Testament. Ephesians 4:11 sets evangelists among Christ’s gifts to His church: “And it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers”.Apostles and prophets are those who received direct revelation from God. Because the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments contain all we need to know for salvation, there is no need for new revelation, therefore apostles and prophets do not exist in the contemporary church.

“Pastors and teachers” describes the regular ministry of publicly preaching the Word and administering the sacrament, which in all periods of the church has been and remained the same. The expression “teachers” probably refers chiefly to the public activity, while the other, “pastors,” to the application of the pastoral office to the individual members of the congregation. “Evangelists” is placed on the list in between apostles and prophets, and pastors and teachers.
In Acts 21:8, the title of evangelist is given to Philip, one of the original deacons of the church selected by the congregation at Jerusalem in Acts 6, but driven from the city by later persecution. Philip’s activities in Acts 8 are the only description given of “the work of an evangelist”.

He travels as an itinerant missionary, preaching and baptizing, performing miracles in Christ’s name, but under the authority of the apostles. Peter and John had to travel to Samaria to confirm the validity of Philip’s baptisms (Acts 8:14-17).

So what of Paul’s admonition to Timothy, a pastor and bishop, to do the work of an evangelist? We may conclude that even as the apostolic mission of the church continues without the apostles (Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-16; Lucas 24:47-48; Acts 1:8), the work of an evangelist is not limited to the pastoral office. For Acts 8:4 says all who fled Jerusalem “went everywhere announcing the good news” (literally, εὐαγγελιζόμενοι, euangelizomenoi, evangelizing). It is highly desirable for all members of a local congregation to share the Gospel with family, friends and co-workers, pray for them and invite them to church. But the pastor also has an important rose to play in evangelism, as a teacher, guide and planner of intentional strategies.

Pastor Carlos Ventura and his wife, Berkis, with Meduardo Aparismo, the youngest of the five children of Rafael and Sabrina Aparismo, one of the founding families of El Redentor Lutheran Church.

A pioneer pastor

This month El Redentor (Redeemer) Lutheran Church of San Antonio de Capayacuar, Monagas state, will celebrate its 70th anniversary. During our spare moments in Barquisimeto, its current pastor, Carlos Ventura, talked with me about Heinrich Zeuch, its first pastor, installed in 1955. Zeuch was ordained as a deacon in Germany.  During World War II, his home in Berlin was destroyed by Allied bombing, leaving his family without a place to live. After the war, the Zeuchs arrived in Venezuela in refugees on an Italian ship, thanks to Gerhard Zeuch, Heinrich's son, who already had a job as an agronomist on a tobacco plantation. After many struggles and difficulties, they settled in San Antonio. At that time, San Antonio did not have electricity, a hospital or paved roads. Heinrich taught adult Bible classes and vacation Bible schools in the area, and was colloquized as Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod missionary before being called to serve El Redentor. San Antonio de Maturín became for many years in the center of a growing Lutheran presence in the state of Monagas and the southern zone of Sucre state.

Wind, rain and a wild ride

We returned from Barquisimeto on Friday. Day after day of heavy rains and strong winds in northwestern Venezuela made the rivers overflow, the dams explode, landslides and closed roads. The government quickly declared an emergency state in the mountain states of Trujillo, Tachira and Mérida, and eight of the 12 municipalities in the state of Barinas. In the afternoon Wednesday, June 25, 2025, the intense rainfall affected the state of Portuguesa, leaving the overflow of several rivers and the flooding of communities near the road that leads to the city of Guanare. Flooding of the Ospino River and overflow of a dam caused the collapse of the La Trinidad bridge on the José Antonio Páez highway, between Barquisimeto and Barinas. A detour around the collapsed bridge took us on a wild ride on a old, two-lane road as heavy traffic continued to flow as if on four lanes and roadside crews removed debris. We are now high and dry on our hilltop, but we ask you to please pray for those left homeless and otherwise affected by the inclement weather (200,000 families in Barinas state alone).

Leaving on a jet plane

Luz Maria left this week for Buenos Aires, Argentina, to attend the First Lutheran Deaconess Gathering in Latin America and the Caribbean. April 30 to May 4, 2009. The event will be hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina with support from Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod World Relief and Human Care, as well as LCMS World Missions. Pastor Matthew Harrison, executive director of LCMS World Relief and Human Care, will be the keynote speaker. The event also is expected to draw people from Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Elsy Valladares de Machado of Caracas will be Luz Maria's traveling companion. Together Luz Maria and Elsy are national coordinators of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's deaconess program.

Clearly I did not marry just any Venezuelan. It is said the new model for overseas missions is for North Americans to work in partnership with national church leaders, a concept that we have taken to an extreme.

Nevertheless, there is a lot to be said for it. Over the last 50 years, the world has seen phenomenal growth in the number of Christians living in "the Global South" (Africa, Asia and Latin America) or "Majority World" and the emergence of national churches there.

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The term "Majority World" has come to be used as a replacement for "Third World" or "developing world", and it has a double meaning. First, the majority of the world's human population now lives in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Second, so does the majority (75 percent) of the world's Christians.

According to Pennsylvania State University professor Philip Jenkins, author of an influential Atlantic magazine article, "The Next Christendom" (which he later developed into a bestselling book):

“Christians are facing a shrinking population in the liberal West and a growing majority of the traditional Rest (of the world). During the past half-century the critical centers of the Christian world have moved decisively to Africa, to Latin America, and to Asia. The balance will never shift back.”

Yet Christians in the United States still have the financial resources, educational institutions and, above all, the religious liberty, to train and send cross-cultural missionaries that many national churches do not. There are not that many places in the world where there is a happy combination of all three of these things.

Becoming a cross-cultural missionary means not only receiving a sound theological education, but also learning to live day-to-day in an environment where the language and customs are very different. But even with the amount of preparation involved, once a trained cross-cultural career missionary is in place,
it often is more economical to support such a person than to rely on short-term volunteer missionaries.

Dr. Douglas Rutt, a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a former missionary to Latin America, wrote in a 2008 paper "Global Mission Partnerships: Missiological Reflections After 10 Years Of Experience", that U.S. mission agencies should not simply fund projects for national churches but also provide the career missionaries who can train national church leaders in all aspects of the missionary endeavor.

According to Dr. Rutt, "What we have seen in our circles is that there is precious little preparation of a
missiological nature for those missionaries coming from the majority world. While typically they have a thorough theological education at a residential seminary, most have had almost no orientation in cross-cultural ministry, linguistics, mission strategy, mission history, and theology of missions...Too often we have made assumptions about the readiness of a family to live and work in another part of the world that have proved to be false because we assume the cultures are similar. For example, if you send a Brazilian family to work in a place like Panama, you may assume that, since they are Brazilian from Latin America, they will have to cross very little cultural and linguistic distance to minister effectively in Panama, another Latin American country. Our experience has been that in this kind of situation those Brazilians who go to a place like Panama run into the same kinds of misunderstandings in their new home, make the same kinds of inaccurate judgments about the new culture, go through the same culture shock, experience the same loneliness and isolation, often have similar linguistic challenges, and go through the same kinds of
trials and tribulations that are a part of becoming enculturated in a new society, just like any of our missionaries from the U.S."

Nevertheless, from 1988 to 2008, the number of "career missionaries" sent out by U.S. mission agencies declined by 45 percent. Ralph D. Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Missions, said in a 2007 speech to the Asian Society of Missiology in Bangkok. that nearly two million short-term volunteers leave the United States each year compared to 35,000 long-term missionaries. It costs at least five time more overall to send a short-term volunteer than a long-term missionary – financial support that Winter suggested would be better invested in a long-term missionary. (In 2005, Time magazine included Winter in a special feature section on "America's 25 Most Influential Evangelicals")

Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with short-term mission trips. These trips may yield long-term results if:

• Volunteers are moved to consider preparing for a career in the mission field themselves;
• Or, return home with a renewed zeal to support long-term missionaries.

However, it is a question of balance. Craig Greenfield wrote in the February 2009 issue of Lausanne World Pulse: "...the mission pendulum has swung heavily toward resourcing local people...supplemented by short-term missionaries who focus on transferring their skills without learning the language and culture. But we must strive to find balance by remembering the rich biblical tradition of prophetic outsiders...Throughout biblical and recent history, God has used outsiders to bring about his purposes in foreign nations".

Greenfield is the international coordinator of Servants to Asia's Urban Poor. For six years he and his wife, Nay, lived among the urban poor in the slums of Cambodia.

In regard to "empowering" national church leaders, Greenfield writes "The concept of empowering people is central to good mission work. But it takes wisdom to discern the difference between empowerment and
disengagement. Just as a good manager of people will know just how much to delegate and how much support to provide, so a foreign missionary needs to learn how to empower rather than overpower. However, not showing up at all is not empowerment; it is apathy".

In addition, according to Greenfield, "It is a beautiful and exciting thing to see African, Asian, and Latino missionaries spreading out across the globe, and there is much more that can be done to assist and support them. But when Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples, he wasn't letting any nation off the hook as though their contribution was not worthy or useful. We must come alongside our brothers and sisters from around the world and joyfully do our part in the Great Commission".

Luz Maria and I have this objective in our mission project: To use the strengths of our different backgounds to provide the Christian instruction sorely needed in this country, both at basic and advanced levels, and particularly for the region where we live. We thank God for the opportunity to serve and that we may continue the good work that has begun here in La Caramuca.

Spanish Portals of Prayer once more in print

Spanish translations of Portals of Prayer were at one time popular as devotional literature in Venezuela. Actually, they still are. But only used copies have been available since 2003, when Concordia Publishing
House stopped printing Portales de Oracion. Since 2007, someone at El Salvador Lutheran Church has been faithfully transcribing the used copies in which the dates correspond to the current year and e-mailing to everyone on the Lutheran Church of Venezuela mailing list. The drawbacks to this include the time required for transcription and the costs of printing and making multiple copies of the e-mails every month.

Now there is another alternative as CPH has resumed publishing Portales de Oracion. Even better news is that this time the daily devotions will be composed in Spanish rather than translated from English as was the practice in the past. Individual subscriptions will cost $10. Presumably there would be the cost and logistics of shipping Portales de Oracion to Venezuela, but it has been done before.

Baptisms, confirmations and impending ordination

Well, more baptisms and confirmations.

Maria de los Angeles Brito was baptized in La Caramuca, Saturday, Novermber 29, 2008. Maria actually lives in Barinas and attends Corpus Christi Lutheran Church, but her father wanted to attend her baptism and was not able to do so on Sunday, November 30. So Maria was baptized by Pastor Ted Krey on his last official visit to Barinas and we had our second service of Holy Communion for the newly confirmed in our mission. I am happy to report that Sandro Pérez was once again released from the hospital and was able to attend.

The following day there were three baptisms and four confirmations at Corpus Christi. The children baptized were Moisés, Olgret and Ricardo Rivero. Confirmands were Maria Brito, Maria Eugenia Vera, Yelitza Pérez and Luís Eduardo Jimenez. Since Eduardo Flores personally instructed these four young people, it was a great way for him to end his year of vicarage in Barinas.

Eduardo and I will be in Caracas this week, preparing for our ordinations on Saturday, December 13. I have received and accepted a call from the Lutheran Church of Venezuela to serve as a missionary in western Venezuela. I will be based in La Caramuca (and authorized to preach and administer the sacraments there, but also will have the privilege and responsibility of searching for new locations to plant churches (we already have made some contacts in the neighboring state of Apure, for example).)

Eduardo and our fellow “seminarista” Sergio Maita will be ordained and installed as instructors at the “mini-seminary” that has been established in Caracas. Sergio has completed his vicarage at Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in the eastern city of Maturin. In addition to teaching new seminaristas (there are six prospects so far for this next year), Eduardo and Sergio will take turns serving the congregations of La Paz (Peace) and La Santa Trinidad (Holy Trinity) in Caracas. Neither of these congregations have full-time pastors.

Pastor Abel García, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, will be moving from the city of Barcelona, Venezuela, to Caracas in order to supervise the seminary.

The Juan de Frias Theological Institute was founded by Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod missionaries 45 years ago and based on the concept of theological education by extension (TEE). This concept, TEE, was pioneered by Presbyterians in Guatemala in 1963 as a way of meeting some of the challenges of training pastors within a Latin American cultural context.

After some apparent initial success, the TEE model became widely promoted throughout Latin America by many denominations. But, in Venezuela at least, after 45 years that as a total replacement for a seminary education, TEE leaves something to be desired.

The New Testament does not mandate any specific method for training pastors. We have the example of Jesus teaching the Scriptures in the typical manner of a Jewish rabbi, and selecting 12 men from among those who listened to His teachings. To these men He gave special training for three years before commissioning them as apostles (there were, of course, only 11 by that time, Judas Iscariot having dropped out of the program in a spectacular fashion). So according to the model of our Lord Himself, there should be several years of preparation and examination before one is qualified to receive a call into the public ministry.

This preparation does not involve only “book learning”. We read later in the New Testament that although Saul of Tarsus was highly educated by both Jewish and Greco-Roman standards, approximately 17 years passed between the time of his conversion and when he was ready to embark on his first missionary journey as the Apostle Paul (Galations 1:16-2:1). Preparation for the public ministry is a matter of character formation as well as intellectual development.

Finally, we may note the importance of Biblical instruction starting in early childhood for Paul's protege, Timothy. Before receiving Paul's special training, Timothy was taught the basic doctrines of the Holy Scriptures by his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-16).

It also is important to consider that the original 12 apostles were devout Jews, too. Jews in the first century A.D., like Jews today, placed a great deal of importance on religious education. So, despite being “simple” fishermen and tradesmen, they did not start from a position of ignorance when Jesus chose them as his disciples.

The modern, North American system of recruiting young men for the seminary presupposes this kind of religious upbringing. The grooming of a pastoral candidate from early childhood on can greatly speed up the process of pastoral formation. In addition, a shared faith motivates a family to make the sacrifices necessary to support the prospective pastor for four years of college plus four years in the seminary.

Beyond the family, Missouri Synod Lutherans historically have recognized the importance of undergirding seminary training with formal Christian education at all levels. This is why the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod developed the second-largest network of private preschools, elementary schools and colleges in the United States (surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church).

One problem throughout much of Latin America is these preconditions for seminary training often do not exist (although there are Lutheran seminaries in the larger, more prosperous countries of Brazil and Argentina). In Venezuela, second- or third-generation Lutherans are rare birds. Members of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela often are the only members of their extended families who are practicing Christians of any sort. So the young man who wants to become a pastor may not have a role model within the family to emulate, plus the family may not be keen on the idea of the young man being taken out of the workforce for eight years only to receive wages considerably less than what he could expect in a secular profession that required an equal amount of education.

Likewise, in Venezuela even the Roman Catholic Church does not support the vast network of parochial schools that one sees in the United States.

Then there is in Latin America the wide cultural gap between those who have received some form of higher education and those who have not. This gap exists to some extent in the United States between those who have gone from high school to four-year liberal arts colleges and classmates who ended their formal education with a high school diploma or maybe two years at a technical college or business school, but the difference in Venezuela and other Latin American countries is much more pronounced. Young people who have left their rural village or urban slum for the university may find it very difficult to reassimilate into their old community.

The TEE alternative is to offer theological training to people already recognized as leaders within their communities without requiring them to change their place of residence or abandon their means of earning a living. The students are given printed materials to study on their own time and meet periodically with an instructor to discuss and review what should have been learned. The student can take as many courses as desired and advance at his or her own pace. Involvement with a local congregation is supposed to provide the opportunity for practical application of the knowledge acquired.

Over the past 45 years, the Juan de Frias Theological Institute has offered theological education by extension to all interested parties, with the proviso that one must complete the more basic courses before continuing to a more advanced level. This approach has proved successful in providing laypeople with the basic grounding in Christian doctrine that they may not have received as children or teenagers.

As a method of training pastors, TEE has proved to have a number of shortcomings:

1. It assumes an extraordinary degree of self-discipline on the part of the pastoral candidate, assuming that he will devote himself to daily study for an indefinite period while working to support himself and his family, and assuming leadership responsibilities within a local congregation. The result is a high drop-out rate as students become discouraged by these demands. I should also note that in Venezuela it is, in the first place, quite difficult to find a) a job that b) pays enough to support a family while c) allowing one enough free time for night courses and church activities.
2. The Lutheran Church of Venezuela is struggling to fill its existing pulpits in the face of an urgent need for pastors to plant new churches. Doors are open that probably will not remain so permanently. Yet training pastors solely by TEE has proven extremely time-consuming. The historical average for achieving the training needed for the pastoral ministry by means of Juan de Frias TEE courses is 13 years.
3. The TEE approach does not promote a sense of dedication to the pastoral office. Jesus told Peter, Andrew and the rest to leave their fishermen's nets and follow Him to the ends of the earth, if need be. He also said that heeding His call might well mean leaving family and friends behind (Mark 10:28-31, Lucas 9:59-62). He did not say, “Stay in Capernaum where you can witness to the people with whom you feel most comfortable when you have the time.” According to a Lutheran understanding of mission, not every Christian is called to be a missionary, but all pastors are called to be missionaries wherever the Lord may lead them. It is the responsibility of the whole church to send pastors to preach and (the sacraments, even into the poorest and most remote areas.

While not an inherent flaw in the strategy of theological education by extension, another problem the Lutheran Church of Venezuela must consider is this: LCMS World Missions withdrew nearly all of its ordained missionaries from Venezuela in 2003. Theodore Krey, the last LCMS-sponsored theological educator in Venezuela, will leave in January 2009. The Lutheran Church of Venezuela lacks the financial resources to support theological educators whose only task is to travel regularly to the far corners of the country to teach theological extension courses as the LCMS missionaries did.

Starting in 2006, the Juan de Frias Theological Institute has attempted to balance its TEE offerings with a program of resident or semi-resident study in a central location for pastoral candidates. Eventually this program will be supplemented by regional centers for theological education which will not only serve to teach basic doctrine to the laity, but also recruit pastoral candidates. One of our goals is to establish La Caramuca Lutheran Mission as one of these regional centers.

I began taking Juan de Frias courses during my first year in Venezuela as I realized my continued presence in Venezuela would require at least the capacity to teach Bible classes in Spanish. At first I did not seek the responsibilities of the pastoral office, but eventually I realized that our mission in La Caramuca would require the attention of a resident pastor and that I was the most likely candidate for the position. So it was a great blessing when I was invited by the national church to participate in the pastoral study program in 2007. The program requires a five-year commitment: one year of intensive, resident study; a year of vicarage; and three more years of attending seminars in Caracas and other locations.

This program has allowed me to study for the ministry without interrupting the development of our Lutheran school in western Venezuela.

Over the past five and a half years in Venezuela, I have had the privilege of receiving instruction from the following visiting profesors:

• Dr. Douglas Rutt and Dr. David Coles of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• José Pfaffenzeller, Concordia Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Dr. Rudy Blank, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
• Mark Braden, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Cleghorn, Wisconsin, and a Greek tutor at the Fort Wayne seminary.
• Paul Brink and Henry Witte, both former missionaries to Venezuela currently serving Latino missions in Iowa.

I am grateful to these people and also to Phil Bickel, another former missionary pastor to Venezuela, and Dale Saville, agricultural missionary in eastern Venezuela, who awakened my interest in mission work as a second career and in Venezuela as a mission field.

Convention in Maracay

Luz María and I last week attended the annual meeting of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. It took place at La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay, which is a little more than two hours west of Caracas.

I studied Spanish for several months in Maracay when I first came to Venezuela. It is one of the most beautiful cities in the country. Juan Vicente Gómez, a ruthless military dictator who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, preferred to exercise his iron hand from his cattle ranch near Maracay rather than Caracas, the traditional seat of power. Gómez was officially president of Venezuela for part of the time he wielded power, but even when he wasn't, he was still the real head of state.

When I lived in Maracay, the congregation of La Fortaleza met in rented facilities across from the city´s main cemetery. The building had been a florist's shop. Actually, nearly all the businesses on that block were florist's shops. It is customary to observe el Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) November 1 in Venezuela. Unlike Mexico, however, there are no candy skulls or graveside altars with offerings of food and tequila. Rather, it is much like Memorial Day in the United States, when everyone buys flowers to lay on the graves of the honored dead.

Now La Fortaleza Lutheran Church has its own beautiful sanctuary and surrounding facilities, which include a medical and psychiatric clinic for the benefit of the community. The current complex was built with the help of volunteer teams from the United States.

When we returned to Barinas, Luz María and I were encouraged by the fact that Adrian Ventura, the pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin, will again lead the national church for a two-year term. This will be his third term as president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. Pastor Adrian was elected to his first term as president in 1999, followed by a term as vice president/interim president, then was elected president for the second time in 2005.

Adrian Ventura was born February 14, 1970, in the eastern city of Maturin, the son of Rosalino Ventura and Carmen Susana Marin de Ventura. When he was 10 years old, his sister Iraima died. An aunt talked to the family of the comfort to be found in Christ the Savior and introduced them to Calvary Lutheran Church in La Pica, a small town near Maturin (this church now is known as Cristo Vencedor or Christ the Victor). U.S. missionary Henry Witte was pastor of the church at that time.

Through his involvement in church youth activities, Adrian came to know a young woman named Cruz Maria Islanda Anibal in 1987. Their courtship began with a date at the Rialto movie theater (now closed). They were married December 25, 1993 and today have three children: Adrianny Noemi, Adrian Josue, and Raquel Andreina.

On May 14, 1994, Adrian's father was murdered while working at his job as a taxicab driver.

The Juan de Frias Theological Institute provided Pastor Adrian Ventura with theological training through extension courses. He was installed as pastor of Cristo Rey March 17, 1996. Cristo Rey Lutheran Church began as a mission of Calvary Lutheran Church in 1984.

The issue of who will direct the Juan de Frias Theological Institute was left unresolved due to a shortage of qualified candidates. For the last four years, the institute, which provides theological training for pastors, deacons and laypeople throughout the country, has been under the leadership of Jesús Ricardo Granado, a deacon at Cristo Rey. Nearly everyone at the plenaria expressed gratitude for his service and wished him well. The issue of choosing a candidate for new director was sent back to the Juan de Frias board for further review.


Ricardo was raised as a Lutheran, an unusual situation in Venezuela. He was born in Morrocayo, Monagas, but when he was four years old, his family moved to Ciudad Guyana in the state of Bolivar.

When he was 25 years old, Ricardo moved to Caracas to study business administration at a university there. While living in Caracas he became involved with the youth group at El Mesías (Messiah) Lutheran Church. (El Mesías, unfortunately, has since closed its doors.)

After obtaining his degree, Ricardo returned to Ciudad Guyana, the "Twin Cities" of Venezuela. Ciudad Guyana consists of Puerto Ordaz on one side of the Orinoco River and San Felix on the other. Ricardo managed a bank in Puerto Ordaz. There are two Lutheran churches in Ciudad Guyana, Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life) in Puerto Ordaz and Ascension in San Felix. Ricardo was a member of both congregations at various times.

He continued studying theology through the Juan de Frias Institute and eventually served as pastor of Principe de Paz (Prince of Peace) Lutheran Church in the small village of Sierra Caroni.

Ricardo and his wife, Priscila for six years have three children, Sara, Samuel and Ana Rebeca.

These two men have proven able overseers of the national church during a period of great upheaval, both within the church and within the country. We anticipate that with Pastor Adrian's continued leadership, there will continue to be an emphasis on sound doctrinal instruction and formation of the pastors and teachers that the Lutheran Church of Venezuela needs.

The plan is to expand the program of intensive training of pastors and national missionaries in Caracas to include preparations of candidates for the office of the holy ministry in various regions of the country before they begin studies in the capital city. This fits well with our vision for our mission in la Caramuca as we would be ideally positioned to provide such preparation for candidates in southwestern Venezuela.

Speaking of upheaval, my fellow "seminaristas" and I were to have graduated from our year of intensive study Sunday, December 3, at El Salvador Lutheran Church in Caracas. However, the ceremony has been postponed to the following Sunday, December 11. Political tension in the country is very high as a national referendum has been scheduled for Saturday, December 2.

The Venezuelan government has proposed sweeping changes in the national constitution. The constitutional reform would place more power in the hands of the federal government. Supporters say this is necessary for solving the country's problems. Opponents say the reform gives the government too much power and is paving the way for a dictatorship. Already there have been rioting in the streets to which the police have responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Venezuelan is burdened with an inflation rate of 19.4 percent (the highest in South America) and an unemployment rate of around 7 percent (down from a peak of 15 percent in 2003-2004). One of Venezuela's chronic problems is an over-reliance on the export of raw materials (such as petroleum) and imports of consumer goods.

For instance, despite fertile soils and a tropical climate that supports year-round production of a variety of crops, Venezuela imports more than half of its food needs. For example, Venezuela is second only to Italy as the world's largest consumer of pasta, with annual consumption of 13 to 14 kilograms per capita. But the imported pasta is made from high-quality durum wheat that grows in North Dakota and Pacific Northwestern United States as well as Canada, not from the rice and corn which flourishes in Venezuela. The high cost of imported food is particularly troublesome for the poorer members of Venezuelan society.

Everyone agrees that there are problems, but not everyone agrees on the solutions. Therefore, there is conflict. We continue to pray and urge everyone to seek peaceful solutions with respect for the governing authorities as St. Paul counsels in his epistle to the Romans, chapter 13.

Death of Jesús Franco

We were saddened to hear of Jesús Franco´s death. Jesús had been serving as the pastor of Cristo es Amor (Christ is Love) Lutheran Church in Barquisimeto.

Jesús had been in ill health for some time. As I understand what happened, exploratory surgery and other tests had been done to determine exactly what was wrong, but without success. Then, on October 4, 2007, he suddenly died at the age of 47.

That certainly gives me pause for reflection as I turn 49 this week. However, I have been working on my first sermon for homiletics class, using as my text St. Paul's second letter to Timothy, chapter 2, verses 8 to 13. The entire epistle is an excellent text for meditation on the meaning of our brief lives here on earth.

Second Timothy is Paul's swan song. In nearly all of the apostle's other letters, he speaks of his plans for the future. In Second Timothy he clearly anticipates his own death.

"For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:6-8)

The Book of Acts ends with Paul under a relatively comfortable form of house arrest in Rome. At that time he was allowed to live under guard in a home where he could entertain fairly large groups of people. As a Roman citizen, he had appealed accusations made against him to the Emperor and he apparently expected to be acquitted (Philemon 1:19).

His second letter to Timothy was written some time later under very different circumstances. Paul again is imprisoned, but this time he is cold, isolated and lonely. He asks Timothy to visit him soon, and bring him a cloak and some books. He feels abandoned by people he thought were his friends.

There is much speculation as to what happened to Paul did between the period of house arrest described in Acts and the writing of Second Timothy. Some think he was released from his first imprisonment and perhaps went on a missionary journey to Spain as he had intended.The Scriptures do not speak of these things, nor is there an actual record of Paul's death. But according to ancient church sources, Paul was writing to Timothy from a prison cell during the first great Roman persecution under Nero. He probably was put to death at this time.

As the light of Christ was dawning on the world, Paul foresaw the remaining shadows darkening. "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless ,swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

And, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

Because of this, "...all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." (2 Timothy 3:12-13)

As it happened, the persecution of the church under Nero would prove only the beginning. Over the next 250 years, persecution by the Roman government would continue, only becoming more vicious as the number of Christians in the Empire grew. But this time of trial finally came to an end when Constantine, the first Christian emperor, in 313 A.D. signed an edict which guaranteed religious liberty for all.

Of course, the brief period of tolerance that followed did not last forever, either, as the days of the Roman Empire itself were numbered. The institutional church itself would gain worldly power, drift into false doctrine and persecute those who preached the pure Gospel.

Down through the centuries and to this day, Christians have had to risk imprisonment, torture and execution for their faith. A good source of information about this is www.persecution.com, the official Web site of Voice of the Martyrs. This organization was founded by the late Richard Wurmbrand, a Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned for 14 years by Communists in his native Romania.

But Paul, cold and alone in his prison cell, was nonetheless filled with hope and joy, and ready to accept death with peace. He gave thanks that God had brought him through many trials and tribulations and would take him home in the end.

"But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." 2 Timothy 4:17-18)

Paul also had the assurance that despite his own imprisonment and execution, the preaching of the Gospel could not be silenced because it had the power and promise of God behind it. He notes in 2 Timothy, chapter 4, that there are others who are continuing the work.

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

"The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself." (2 Timothy 2:8-13)

In Christ, we are guaranteed nothing and everything. We are not promised wealth and fame, or even a life of modest comforts. But we are promised the He Himself will stand with us in times of trial, in the hour of our death and beyond. May He grant us all the courage, perseverance and patience of those who have gone before us, confessing Him faithfully to the end.

Speaking of the fleeting nature of human existence, it has been interesting to observe that the children who have been attending our Sunday school in La Caramuca since we began three years ago are not exactly children anymore. They are entering adolescence and five are enthusiastically studying Luther's Small Catechism in hopes of eventual confirmation. One example is Jordi Duque who takes what he learns in confirmation class home with him and discusses it all with his mother and two brothers. He also leads a prayer circle at home. (Last year Jordi gave me a Father's Day card because he did not have a male relative he could think of as a father figure.)

Luz María and I were both busy last week at the second annual Congress of Lutheran Educators in Caracas. Lutheran teachers from both public and private schools came together for four days of seminars and other activities. Most of the Congress took place at El Salvador Lutheran Church and its Concordia Lutheran School, but Sunday we rented a bus to take everyone to La Paz Lutheran Church in Petare.
You can see all the pictures I took here.

This week we had a van from la Fundación del Niño (Children's Foundation) bring beauticians to the preschool. They gave all the children haircuts.

Finally, I would like to announce that I am changing to a new system of managing my newsletter mailing list. I have set up a Yahoo Group for this purpose. If you would like to continue receiving an e-mail newsletter from me on a regular basis, please join this group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/venezuelaview/

I sent everyone invitations to join the group via Yahoo Groups, but I know many of you did not receive one because the spam filter maintained by your e-mail service provider blocked it (not that there is anything wrong with that). Thank you for your patience and support.

Pentecost in Petare

On Pentecost Sunday Luz Maria and I attended La Paz (Peace) Lutheran Church in Petare, a part of the Caracas metropolitan area. La Paz celebrated the 32nd anniversary of its founding this year.

Petare itself was founded in 1621 by Spanish landowners who built a church and provided a Franciscan friar to minister to their Indian laborers. For a long time Petare was a quiet farming community but during the last half of the 20th Century became a hotbed of Venezuela's explosive urban growth. The population of Petare increased from around 180,000 people in 1961 to nearly 660,000 in 1990 to more than 1.5 million in 2000. This rate of growth has proved too much for the community to cope with effectively and many residents of Petare live in extreme poverty with no public services. Petare today is known for its street markets where many things are sold at heavily discounted prices, including many quite illegal products and services. Due to these factors, street crime is a serious problem in Petare.

La Paz Lutheran Church was originally established in a quieter, more secure district of Caracas, but the decision was made in the early 1990s to take the Gospel where it was needed most. The congregation supports a preschool named Preescolar Caterina Lutero, after Martin Luther's wife. There are about 30 children enrolled in the preschool.

During that weekend of Pentecost, there were thousands of people marching in the streets throughout Caracas. They were protesting the Venezuelan government's decision not to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest (on the air since 1953) and perhaps most respected television network. RCTV (the letters stand for Radio Caracas Television) also has been, of all the national news media, the most critical of President Hugo Chavéz. The government claimed RCTV had become an organ of partisan propaganda and was no longer serving the public interest. Its license would be allowed to expire at midnight, May 28, and in the future it would be replaced by a government-owned network similar to Great Britain's BBC.

The government's decision was appealed to Venezuela's Supreme Court, but the court ruled in favor of the government. The international organization Reporters without Borders has prepared a report about the situation and is submitting the document to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Council and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The governments of Spain and the United States have urged the Venezuelan government to reconsider its decision.

Luz Maria and I had planned to go out and see a movie in Caracas on Saturday, but we decided it would be more prudent to stay indoors. There were marches and speeches all day and after sundown you could hear the noise all over the city for over an hour as people deliberately and repeatedly set off the alarm systems in their cars.

As the U.S. Embassy repeatedly states, there have been no documented incidents of politically motivated violence against U.S. citizens. However, no one can predict what might happen when proponents and opponents of the government here square off in the streets, so North Americans are advised to stay away from areas where demonstrations are planned.

I regularly receive warnings via e-mail from the U.S. Embassy about planned demonstrations in Caracas (the capital city is ground zero for political turmoil in Venezuela). Normally we avoid traveling to Caracas at these times, but we both had obligations this time.

Luz Maria had agreed to spend the week in Caracas helping lead a seminar for deaconesses along with Elsy de Machado and Rosie Gilbert, a deaconess from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The seminar drew nine women from across Venezuela.

I was obliged to travel on to Ciudad Guayana for a week-long seminar on the Holy Spirit. It is an eight-hour ride by bus from Barinas to Caracas and another 10 hours by bus from Caracas to Ciudad Guayana in the state of Bolívar.

Ciudad Guayana actually is two cities, Puerto Ordaz and San Félix, and indeed may be thought of as the Twin Cities of Venezuela. As Minneapolis and St. Paul are located where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi, Puerto Ordaz and San Félix are located where the Rio Caroni joins the Rio Orinoco. The area is a center of mining (primarily iron ore and bauxite) and hydroelectric power generation. As I was riding around Puerto Ordaz with Ricardo Granado, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, I saw something I had not seen in some time: a freight train. I explained to Ricardo that every little town in the United States has a railroad depot, which is something you do not see in Venezuela.

One of the reasons why the United States has such a powerful economy is the amount of time and resources that have been invested in infrastructure: railroads, highways, telephone and electrical lines and so forth. Venezuela does not have the benefit of this development. There is no transnational railway. Ther e is one road comparable to an interstate highway that runs from west to east across Venezuela's northern tier, then curves south toward Brazil. Since Venezuela has roughly the same land area as Texas and Oklahoma combined, imagine one interstate highway crossing both those states, starting in the Oklahoma Panhandle at the New Mexico border, running east to Oklahoma City, then curving south to Dallas-Fort Worth and on through Houston down to the Gulf Coast.

If you have ever driven through the wide open spaces of west Texas, imagine all of that with two-lane paved roads at best and you will have an idea of what most of Venezuela is like.

I should also mention that, although there has been massive migration from Venezuela's rural areas to the cities, because of a higher overall birth rate, rural populations have not declined, as in in the United States, but remained stable. However, the economic problems of rural Venezuelans have intensified as more resources have been allocated to urban areas where the greater concentrations of people are found.

We discussed some of these socio-economic issues at the seminar I attended at la Ascensión Lutheran Church in San Félix. Over the course of five days we discussed I believe everything that could be discussed about the Holy Spirit, from filioque controversy, which was one of the issues which led to the division of the churches of the East and the West in 1054, to the meaning of the Holy Spirit for the work of the church today, especially in Latin America.

Dr. Leopoldo Sánchez was our teacher. A native of Chile who grew up in Panama, he served for a time as a missionary in Ciudad Guayana. He now is a member of the faculty of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

Socio-economic issues came up when we talked about the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians, especially in light of verses like Romans 6:13:

"And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."

Later, in chapter 8, the Apostle Paul explains that we are set free from lives of sin and enabled to live as children of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But it is important to understand what that means to a Christian in Latin America where the phrase rendered in English as "instruments of righteousness" is translated into Spanish as "instrumentos de justicia". In Spanish, "justicia" means both righteousness and justice -- and justice is a loaded word because there is so little of it here.

One error is to think of the work of the Holy Soirit and the mission of the church in overly "spiritual" terms -- the proclamation of salvation in the afterlife and the inner peace that comes from that assurance -- without application in the here and now. Surely that flies in the face of our Lord's command to minister to the whole person: to provide food, clothing and shelter for those in need as well as spiritual comfort for all in times of trial.

The other error is that of the men who would have made Jesus their king after the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1-15). This is to make the mission of the church simply that of satisfying material needs. In the United States, the phrase "social gospel" is often used to refer to the idea that since Christ commanded us to help the poor, supporting public policy aimed at redistributing wealth more fairly is the realization of the church's mission. In Latin America we have "liberation theology", which is the "social gospel" on steroids.

"Liberation theology" teaches that a Marxist interpretation of history and the redistribution of land and other wealth, even if that means violent revolution, is the true application of New Testament principles. This school of thought became popular among some Roman Catholics in Latin America after the Second Vatican Council, but was decisively rejected by the Roman Catholic Church after John Paul II became pope. As Lutherans,we might agree with most of John Paul II's reasons for rejecting liberation theology. But the decision has proved costly for the Roman church. Many would say that the Catholic church has lost a lot of credibility in Latin America over the last 30 years because it has come to be perceived as having too much invested in the status quo and nothing to say to the poor.

Furthermore, "liberation theology" continues to provide "inspiration" for much of the political rhetoric in Latin America today and remains a political reality.

Really the preoccupation with "justice" in material terms may be seen as evidence of an unacknowledged spiritual hunger. For generations in Latin America, most people held to a fatalistic view of life: Things are the way they are, and for most of us there is no hope of anything better, either now or in the hereafter. More and more, however, there is the desire for a better life, but it tends to be a vision of happiness in this world: plenty to eat, a nice house, guaranteed medical care, national pride and self-determination. There is nothing wrong with any of these things in and of themselves, but neither do they bring lasting joy in and of themselves. The real hunger is for the peace which passes all understanding, which the world cannot give.

It is difficult to live as a Christian in the midst of injustice and corruption. But also there is little hope of social transformation without the personal transformation that comes through the gift of the Holy Spirit made possible through Christ's suffering, death and resurrection.

Those are some reflections on a seminar I thoroughly enjoyed, although I had to leave early. The protests in Caracas continued throughout the week and there was gunfire exchanged between police and some protestors. There were no persons injured, only property damaged. But Luz Maria prevailed upon me for an early departure from Caracas for the two of us. Friday night Luz Maria´s daughter, Wuendy, and her husband, Jesús, were both working as late as they could. They were reluctant to go home because of the danger in the streets.

In closing, I would offer the words of this Spanish version of the ancient hymn, "Come, Holy Spirit":

Ven Espíritu Santo, ven a iluminar,
Nuestra inteligencia, y a preservarnos del mal.
Tú, promesa del Padre, don de Cristo Jesús,
Ven y danos tu fuerza, para llevar nuestra cruz.
Tú, llamado "Paráclito", nuestro Consolador,
Ven y habita en nosotros, por la fé y por el amor.
Haz que cada cristiano, bajo tu inspiración,
Sea testigo de Cristo, con la palabra y la acción.
Guiados por el Espíritu hacia Cristo Jesús,
Caminemos con jubilo, al país de la luz.

Luz Maria on the radio

Since February Luz Maria has been appearing regularly on a local radio talk-show. It is called "Hablando de Educación" (Speaking of Education). Every Tuesday morning the children gather around the CD player/radio we bought for the preschool (thanks, Rhoda!) to hear their "maestra" (teacher) on the air.

Last Tuesday, April 17, several of our preschool kids were featured on the show with Luz Maria. Together they sang about "Señor Cochino" (Mr. Pig) and Luz Maria's granddaughter, Oriana, sang a solo about a little chicken. Oriana has a friend who also attends the preschool and whom she has nicknamed "Pollita", which means little chicken. Pollita looks and sounds nothing like a chicken, so I do not understand how Oriana came up with the nickname.

The time of year being what it is, the radio show has provided Luz Maria the opportunity to talk about the meaning of Lent, Holy Week and Easter. At the end of the April 10 show, her fellow guest, a Cuban doctor, said, "May God bless you, Maria."

Saturday, April 14, Neida Gonzalez de Mireles visited our preschool. Neida teaches mathematics at Concordia Academy in Caracas. Last year she organized the Venezuela's first Congress of Lutheran Educators and she is coordinating the second such event this year.

Neida was impressed with our preschool. She particularly liked a display of artwork by the children. Each collage depicted the separation of the waters under the firmament from the waters below and/or the separation of the sea and dry land as described in the book of Genesis.

On Sunday, April 15, Adrian Ventura, pastor of Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Maturin and president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, visited La Caramuca for the first time. He enjoyed meeting the Sunday school children and sitting in on the day's lesson (the story of the walk to Emmaus).

We have an electric lamp set high in a tree to illumine our yard after sundown. Pastor Adrian said it reminded him of the lamppost in the movie, "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe." God grant that we may show children the way to Narnia.

Earlier that day Pastor Adrian preached at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas. I assisted Pastor Edgar Brito with the Sacrament of Holy Communion for the second time. The first time was on Easter Sunday, April 2. Pastor Edgar distributes the bread and I distribute the wine.

Following the service there was a discussion with Pastor Adrian about what should be done after Pastor Edgar resigns his ministry July 31. The big problem is what is to be done from August through December. By the end of December, I will have completed my studies in Caracas and be qualified to preach and administer the sacraments as a vicar in Barinas and La Caramuca for the following year.

The tentative plan is this: Pastor Ted Krey will continue to visit Barinas once a month to teach Juan de Frias courses and lead a communion service at Corpus Christi. Once Sunday a month I will lead the Sunday morning service and deliver a sermon prepared by Pastor Krey. For two Sundays in August, Pastor Armando Ramos will be on vacation from his ministry to the rural churches in Monagas and may be available to lead services at Corpus Christi. For the remaining Sundays, the other seminaristas in Caracas may have the opportunity to lead services of the Word in Barinas.

Meanwhile, back in Caracas, we have completed our studies of the liturgy, C.F.W. Walther's "Law and Gospel" and Second Corinthians. By the end of next week we will be done with Church and Ministry, the first course on the Lutheran Confessions and Introduction to the Old Testament.

Please pray for me and my fellow students as we respond to the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's desperate need for pastors, teachers and missionaries.

Eight baptized in La Caramuca

March 25, 2007, was a joyous day for us in La Caramuca as eight children from our Sunday school received the sacrament of Holy Baptism.

From the beginning we have had the objective of planting a church here, but we had imagined baptisms would follow more work with adults in the community. In January, however, after a lesson about the baptism of Jesus, these eight children (well, the older ones, at least) began asking more and more questions about baptisms. This led to the question, "Why can't we be baptized?", then "When can we be baptized?" Then came the simple request, "We wish to be baptized."

Luz Maria and I talked with their parents (there were two families involved) and gained their full support. After a presentation by Pastor Ted Krey on the significance of baptism and the responsibilities of parents and godparents, Pastor Ted and Pastor Edgar Brito from Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas together officiated at the baptisms.

The baptisms were done outdoors under our roofed patio. Not only were the parents of the children present, so were parents of the preschool children.

The children ranged in age from 18 months to 13 years. Their names are:

• Yexi Karina Torres Ortega (13)
• Deisi Yovana Torres Ortega (10)
• Yaneth Andreina Torres Ortega (18 months)
• Yovani Javier Torres Ortega (10)
• Jhonny Alexander Torres Ortega (7)
• Richard Alexander Pérez Chinchilla (7)
• Jimmy Orlando Pérez Chinchilla (8)
• Angie Yoximar Pérez Chinchilla (10)

We rejoice that the Holy Spirit has worked through our mission project to bring these young ones into the Body of Christ. It is the consummation of our hope, and by "we" I mean not just myself and Luz Maria, but also Luz Maria's daughters, Yepci and Charli, who have assumed much of the responsibility for teaching the Sunday school and preschool. Also essential to this work have been the assistance of Luz Maria's son, Pedro, and his wife, Mari; and Luz Maria's daughter, Sarai, and her husband, José, in such tasks as cook and cleaning, construction, property maintenance and repair.

But as the Apostle writes in 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, it may be Paul who plants, and Apollos who waters, but it is God who gives the growth. Even as the foundation of baptismal grace is the promise of salvation in Christ given along with the application of water, not any decision on the part of the baptized, the same Spirit who created faith in the hearts of these children will fan it into flame in their lives.

It has been been our great privilege to have taught these children since 2004 and witnessed their response to God's Word. We pray that the sowing of the Word here will bear much more fruit.

Construction of the fence around our property has been slowed by a shortage of cement. The reason for the shortage is the Copa America, an international soccer event scheduled to be held in Venezuela for the first time this year. Barinas is one of the eight cities in Venezuela that have been chosen to host Copa America competition (in fact, the U.S. soccer teams plays Paraguay here July 2). Therefore most of the available supplies of cement have been purchased for remodeling La Carolina Stadium and expanding guest capacity in the city's hotels.

Nevertheless, we were able to purchase some bags of cement this past week. Pedro and José have been drawing water from our well to make concrete blocks on site. This is much more economical than buying ready-made concrete block and paying a truck driver to haul it out here. Yesterday José working on his own made 30 concrete blocks.

There is some bad news from Barinas. Edgar Brito has announced that effective July 31, 2007, he will resign as pastor of Corpus Christi. Edgar has served as pastor of Corpus Christ for the last four years without receiving any salary or benefits of any kind. To support himself and his wife, Mariel, he has had a job delivering packages during business hours on weekdays. But he and Mariel want to start a family (both of them are under 30) and Edgar has reached the point where he does not think he can find higher-paying job that will allow the free time for his responsibilities as a pastor.

The Corpus Christi congregation will be greatly challenged to find the leadership it needs when Edgar steps down, given the lack of qualified pastors within the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. It is for this reason, and for the sake of the children that have been baptized here, that I am studying in Caracas to assume pastoral responsibilities for our mission in La Caramuca.

My wife, the deaconess

"I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well." Romans 16:1-2

The word translated as servant in the verse above is the Greek word diakonos, from which is derived deacon and deaconess. The Apostle Paul refers to himself and Timothy as "deacons" or servants of Jesus Christ in Philippians 1:11. However, Acts 6 records the establishment of the diaconate as a special ministry of service within the Church, distinct from the pastoral ministry and intended to allow the apostles to concentrate on preaching and prayer. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was a deacon. The requirements to serve in this ministry are described in Paul's first letter to Timothy, chapter 3.

Romans 16:1-2 is regarded as evidence that women served in this ministry in the early Church. In addition to this Scriptural reference, Christian deaconesses are mentioned by Pliny the Younger in a early second-century letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan.

The office of deaconess was formally recognized at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. The responsibilities of deaconesses in the post-apostolic to medieval periods included assisting in the baptism of adult women, leading prayer services for women, instruction of catechumens, caring for the sick, and, in some areas, administering the sacrament of Holy Communion to women who were ill, to nuns, and to young children when a pastor was not available.

The female diakonate had gradually disappeared as a distinct ministry within Western Christendom by the 6th Century and within the Eastern Orthodox Church by the 11th Century. However, interest was renewed as a spiritual revival and rapid social change swept Europe and the United States in the 19th Century, prompting women to seek ways of dedicating themselves to the Lord's service. Theodor Fliedner and his wife, Friedericke Munster, opened the first Lutheran deaconess motherhouse in Kaiserwerth on the Rhine in 1836. Fifty years later, there were over 5,000 deaconesses in Europe.

Within the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, deaconesses have served in a variety of roles since the 1830s. In 1919, the Lutheran Deaconess Association was formed and assumed responsibility for the formation of deaconesses wishing to serve in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Deaconesses were trained at the Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they received training as nurses. Later, in 1943, the program moved
to Valparaiso University.

As time went on, the training of deaconesses evolved and deaconesses no longer needed to be trained as nurses or social workers. Those wanting to serve in parish settings were trained in spiritual care and were educated in the scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, so they could teach and assist the pastors by providing both spiritual and human care to those in need. Both LCMS seminaries (Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne) offer a master’s degree-level deaconess track for women with undergraduate "pre-deaconess" courses offered at universities within the LCMS "Concordia" system.

So why am I telling you this? Because the Lutheran Church of Venezuela has a similar training program for deaconesses. In fact, it is the largest deaconess program of any of the LCMS partner-churches in Latin America. Currently there are 65 women studying to be deaconesses through extension courses offered by the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and nine Venezuelan women actively serving as deaconesses. Much of the rapid development of this program is due to the work of Fort Wayne deaconess-missionaries Mireya Johnson and Rosie Gilbert, who although no longer serving in Venezuela, remain consultants to the program.

The two most highly trained deaconesses within the Lutheran Church of Venezuela are my wife, Luz Maria, and her friend from Caracas, Elsy de Machada. In fact, since these two have completed all of the four levels of theological education by extension offered by the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, there is no one here with a higher level of theological education than Luz Maria and Elsy.

Luz Maria is actively serving as a deaconess through her involvement with our preschool and mission project in La Caramuca. Elsy, a member of La Paz Lutheran Church, Caracas, is involved with Katerina Lutero (Katherine Luther) Preschool.

Because of their qualifications, Luz Maria and Elsy have been named coordinators of the deaconess program in Venezuela. They met February 27 with Olga Groh, director of deaconess programs in Latin America for LCMS World Missions. Olga is the wife of Dr. Jorge Groh, Latin America region director for LCMS World Missions. The meeting went very well and Mrs. Groh was favorably impressed with the work that has been done in Venezuela.

Afterward Luz Maria returned to Barinas, but I and the other men studying in Caracas traveled with the Grohs to Colonia Tovar, an ethnic German community in the mountains north of the city. The Grohs are natives of Argentina and descendants of German-Russians who settled there.

Colonia Tovar was founded in 1843. Agustin Codazzi, an Italian explorer, geographer and close friend of Simon Bolivar, raised the money to transplant farmers from the Black Forest in Venezuela. The idea was that the highly efficient family-farming practices of the Germans would greatly improve Venezuela's agricultural economy. Unfortunately the plan did not work as intended because the Germans made themselves at home in a remote valley and did not mix with the general population.

For more than 100 years, Colonia Tovar's only connection with the outside world was a steep, rugged dirt road up into the mountains. Because of the Germans' farming expertise, their community remained largely self-sufficient during this time, and because of their isolation, their German language and culture was preserved.

Then in the 1970s, a blacktop highway was built from Caracas to Colonia Tovar and the community has become a tourist attraction. In Colonia Tovar today, you can enjoy a plate of German sausage and potato salad in an outdoor restaurant while "oompa oompa" music plays in the background. We talked to a young woman running a strudel stand. She had natural blonde hair and blue eyes, both extremely rare in Venezuela. Her parents could speak German, she said, but the only language she knew was Spanish. The old ways are gradually disappearing despite the incentive of the tourist trade.

The Roman Catholic Church of St. Martin of Tours remains at the center of Colonia Tovar. The street leading to the church actually is a "via crucis", with the stations of the Cross at various points along the way. The town cemetery is up on a hill with every grave facing toward the church visible below. The church has a large parish school attached, something you do not often see in Venezuela.

I could not help but think of the last time I was in a similar setting, especially when I saw a sign for a travel agency called "Regenwald Tours". In contemporary German, "regenwald" means "rainforest", but many years ago it was the name of the village on the Rega River where my great-great-grandfather was born (in other words, "the wood by the Rega River"). My ancestors on my father's side lived in Pomerania, which lies along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It was once the home of Goths (with a capital "G"), then Slavs, then Germans, and was ruled at various times by the kings of Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Poland. Today Germany claims Pomerania west of the Oder River while the territory east of the Oder, including the Rega River, is considered part of Poland. The largest city, once known as Danzig, is now called Gdansk.

In the early 1800s, Pomerania was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was the will of the King Frederick Wilhelm III that all the Protestant churches in his realm merge into one state-controlled church. My ancestors were among the "Old Lutherans", who remained faithful to the Lutheran Confessions and refused fellowship not based on doctrinal unity. As their resistance grew, the king stepped up persecution of the Old Lutherans, confiscating their property and sending soldiers to hunt down people worshipping in the traditional Lutheran way on Sunday mornings, and carry them off to prison. (There were populations of Roman Catholics, Jews and Mennonites within Prussia at this time and the king had set up agencies to control their affairs. However, these groups were apparently not large enough to worry the king. It was the Lutherans who really put the bee in his bonnet.)

The persecution resulted in thousands fleeing to the United States of America. My great-great-grandparents eventually became part of a group that settled on the western shore of Lake Michigan and named their community Freistadt. (The geography of eastern Wisconsin is similar to that of Pomerania with Lake Michigan substituting for the Baltic Sea.) Their leader was Heinrich von Rohr, who had served with distinction as a captain in the Prussian army. He was of noble blood, with a pedigree that reached back to German knights of the Crusades. But von Rohr had been stripped of his rank and medals for having his firstborn child baptized by a Lutheran pastor rather than a minister of the king's state church. In time the former Captain von Rohr became Pastor von Rohr, and the church my great-great-grandparents helped found, Trinity Lutheran Church of Freistadt, remains the oldest existing Lutheran congregation in Wisconsin.

Freistadt is now part of the Milwaukee suburb of Mequon. When I lived in the Milwaukee area, I used to go to Freistadt every July 4 when the community would have an all-day celebration of their cultural heritage and the religious freedom they have enjoyed for generations as U.S. citizens. A group called the Pommersche Tanzdeel (roughly "Pomeranian Dance Company") would perform traditional folk dances with the women dressed in cone-shaped hats and flowing gowns, and the men in the tunics and pantaloons typical of Pomerania in the 1800s.

The Independence Day festivities would culminate with the raising of the U.S. flag in the the town square and a 21-gun salute by local members of the VFW and American Legion.

In 1989 I attended Trinity-Freistadt's 150th anniversary (founded in 1839, the congregation has been part of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod since 1848). There was a large wall completely covered with photos of the children of the congregation who had become LCMS pastors and teachers. Among them I found a picture of my great-grandfather, Louis Ernst, who left Wisconsin to become the pastor of congregations in Iowa, Texas and Nebraska.

The point of this digression being, that although the language and customs of my great-great-grandparents are, like the language and customs of Venezuela, foreign to me, I am grateful that previous generations of my family were able to pass on the most precious part of our heritage, a common confession of faith. Also it is clear, as I study the Lutheran Confessions in yet another language, that the enemies of truth and freedom are always with us, and if one is not willing to suffer all, even death, for what one believes to be the truth, one will not enjoy freedom for very long, either. And I give thanks to God that His Word and His Spirit abides with us always.