More adventure than we need

Officers of SOLUDAVE 2016-2017: Luz Maria Henriquez de Ernst, president; Yuraima Gonzalez, vice president; Norma Vallenilla, treasurer; Aikel Rodriquez, secretary; Elías Lozano, pastoral counselor.

During the last week of August, Luz Maria attended the national convention of Sociedad Luterana de Damas Luteranas (SOLUDAVE), the Venezuelan Lutheran women's organization. She has served as president of SOLUDAVE for the last two years, and she was re-elected to serve another term from 2016-2017. This means she will take an active part in organizing the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. She also was recognized by the women's assembly for leading them in a Bible study based on the principle, "Sola Scriptura."

The women of SOLUDAVE gathered in the city of Maturin, capital of the state of Monagas, Venezuela. I arrived in Venezuela in 2003 to serve as a volunteer for a mission project to revitalize rural Lutheran congregations in Monagas. After we were married, Luz Maria lived with me in Monagas for a time, and served as a deaconess with the mission project.

La Caramuca is on the other side of the country from Maturin. If everything were to proceed according to best-laid plans, the bus ride from La Caramuca to Maturin would last 14 to 15 hours. But few things proceed according to plan in Venezuela these days. Of course, it would have taken less time to travel to Maturin by air, but that is almost entirely out of the question. Airline tickets are hard to come by, certainly for international flights and also for in-country travel. Even if you can get plane tickets, there is no guarantee now that you will be able to make your connections.

Buying a bus ticket was not that easy, either. First, Luz Maria was told that she could not buy a ticket to Maturin before the day of departure. Then, on the day on which she wanted to depart, she was told, sorry, no tickets were available. So she had to go back the next day to purchase a ticket for a 9 p.m. departure. She almost did not make that bus because we had trouble finding a taxi to the terminal, even though she starting calling around 6 p.m. The bus left the terminal on time, but broke down on the highway at around 12:30 a.m. All of the passengers had to wait by the side of the road until another bus arrived at 5 a.m. Luz Maria did not arrive in Maturin until 9:30 that evening, after the convention had already started.

Then, for the return journey, she had to spend the night in the Maturin bus terminal in order to get passage back to La Caramuca. Fortunately, she was not alone in a deserted bus terminal in the wee hours, because the terminal was crowded with many other people in the same predicament. All of this is a result of the deteriorating state of the Venezuelan economy. There are fewer taxis to be found, and the buses break down because of the scarcity of automotive parts. And that's just one thing. The cost of travel is also much higher, because of hyper-inflation, and the rising level of violent crime everywhere also makes travel in Venezuela more of an adventure than most people would desire. 

Nonetheless, Luz Maria considered her journey to Maturin worth the effort. Luz Maria is one of three women recognized as deaconesses by the national church (the others are Carmen Gamboa of the Lutheran mission in Cagua, in Aragua state; and Elsy Valladares de Machado of La Paz (Peace) Lutheran Church in Petare). Luz Maria always encourages more women to become involved in the national deaconess program. She proposed at the SOLUDAVE convention that Cruz Maria Islanda de Ventura be recognized as a deaconess. Cruz Maria is the wife of Adrian Ventura, pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church of Maturin.

Luz Maria brought back many handmade gifts that the women of each congregation represented at the convention made for all the other ladies. There also was a special gift for our mission: A box to hold the sacramental bread made by Yudith Sanchez, a member of Cristo Rey.

I thank God that Luz Maria and all the other women have returned safely to their homes. The last time that Luz Maria just took for a getaway together was in 2010. We traveled to the state of Trujillo just because neither of us had been there before. I would like someday to once again travel to parts of Venezuela that I have not seen. I have never visited Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall, nor the Relámpago de Catatumbo, the area of constant lightning strikes at the mouth of the Catatumbo River, and many other wondrous places. But God grant us for now the privilege of continuing our work in His name. Amen.

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Fence-building again

We finally have resumed construction of the gated wall around our property. There still are periodic shortages of cement, to the pointwhere the federal government has ordered the nationalization of the cement industry. There continue to be food shortages as well. One local newpaper, De Frente, said the purchase of chicken, beef and milk has become like a lottery:
You just have to be in the right store at the right time because there is no guarantee as to when and how much of these items will be stocked.

Nevertheless, we were able to buy some cement. Luz María's son, Pedro, this week began clearing part of the property for laying the foundation of the wall facing the street. Specifically, he and another fellow cut down the mango tree with large branches that would have been in the way. There were other problems with the tree. In Venezuela, mangos grow in nearly everyone's backyard, so if the tree produces more than your family and friends can consume, there is not really a market for the excess fruit. Keeping the yard clear of rotting mangos is really a chore. The tree also was a magnet for local boys who threw stones to knock down the fruit hanging high in the tree. Recently one boy threw a stone hard enough and far enough to shatter the glass in our bedroom window. So, all things considered, it was time for the mango tree to go.

The last week of March, Eduardo and I traveled to Barquisimeto for a seminar on urban missions at El Paraiso Lutheran Church. The seminar was taught by Jim Tino, a former Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod missionary to Venezuela. El Paraiso actually is located in Cabudare, a suburb of Barquisimeto. The church compound is like a little garden of Eden with many rare plants.

There were perhaps 40 to 50 people in the seminar and even more showed up that weekend for the ordination of Miguelángel Perez. As a national missionary, Miguelángel will serve as pastor to the two Lutheran Church of Venezuela member-congregations in Barquisimeto, El Paraiso and Cristo es Amor (Christ is Love). Eduardo stayed for the ordination, but returned to Barinas Saturday to lead the Sunday service at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church.

I left the seminar with these thoughts about our mission in La Caramuca:


In the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's eastern zone you may find the largest and most stable congregations in the national church, such as Cristo Rey (Christ the King) in Maturin. These are the legacy of Heinrich Zeuch, a Lutheran deacon who came to Venezuela to start a new life after his family's home in Germany was destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II. Zeuch worked at a variety jobs in the agricultural sector in the eastern state of Monagas, all the while starting Bible study and prayer groups. When LCMS missionaries in Caracas heard of what Zeuch was doing in the early 1950s, they quickly contacted him and saw to it that he was ordained as a missionary pastor. The Zeuch family eventually moved to Brazil, but the rural congregations planted by Heinrich Zeuch continued to thrive and serve as seedbeds for congregations in the more highly populated areas of eastern Venezuela.

As in the United States and much of the rest of the world, the tremendous increases in agricultural productivity over the last 100 years in Venezuela greatly reduced the need for unskilled farm labor and spurred emigration to urban industrial areas. Venezuela, which perhaps experienced the most rapid urbanization of any Latin American country, has been ill-equipped to deal with the growth of urban masses, many of whom found the promise of better-paying jobs in the city to be an illusion.

But thanks to a generally high birth rate, rural populations in Venezuela have not declined that much, despite emigration to the cities. Rural Venezuelans face many of the same problems as urban Venezuelans: poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, family instability, lack of any sense of a higher purpose in life. But because economic and human resources have been shifted to urban areas to deal with the high concentrations of people there, rural communities in this most "urbanized" South American nation are more isolated than ever.

For a time families from the rural churches of Monagas served as nuclei for new urban churches. But then a decision was made to move North American missionaries, upon whom the Lutheran Church of Venezuela still was highly dependent, completely out of rural ministries into the cities because "that is where the people are." But this decision to "follow the numbers" proved to be a mistake.

The rural churches were not prepared to deal with this shift and fell into decline. With the seedbeds in disrepair, a generation of leadership was lost. Now, with the withdrawal of nearly all LCMS missionaries from Venezuela (and, in fact, from nearly all of Latin America), the Lutheran Church of Venezuela is in crisis. With a total membership of only about a 1,000 in a nation of 26 million people, there still are not enough pastors to serve all of the exisiting congregations, much less do evangelistic outreach. In Caracas, Venezuela's largest city, the Lutheran Church of Venezuela has only three member-congregations and only one of those is served by a full-time pastor.

Tierra de Gracia agricultural mission, where I served as a lay volunteer when I came to Venezuela, was set up in Monagas to help revive the rural churches there.

Its objectives include:

• Help farm laborers improve their skills and opportunities for employment.


• Evangelize those who work on the farm and their surrounding communities.


• Support evangelization in rural areas and pastoral care in the existing rural churches.

Here in western Venezuela we do not have the historic base that the churches in Monagas have. But we think the development of Christian education in our rural zone can solve this problem. With the availability of quality Christian education, many would not have to leave the area to improve their skills and prospects in life. At the same time, those that did move to the city would be prepared to serve as lay leaders and full-time church workers there. Actually, it is easier for a person from the country to adapt to city life than a city person to adapt to the country.

We have historical examples of how this could work. For example, in the 19th Century Wilhelm Loehe trained and sent Lutheran missionaries to North America, Australia, New Guinea, Brazil, and the Ukraine from Neuendettelsau, a small town in Bavaria.

Likewise, what would become Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, began as a one-room school 100 miles south of St. Louis in rural Perry County, Missouri. Today the seminary has more than 800 students from around the world.

Concordia University of Seward, Nebraska (population 6,500), since 1894 has trained teachers and candidates for the seminary among the cornfields of eastern Nebraska.

From 1893 until 1986, St. John's College of Winfield, Kansas, did the same amid the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma.

That is why at La Caramuca Lutheran Mission we have these goals;

• To provide Christian education for children from preschool through sixth grade.


• To establish a Lutheran congregation to support the school and serve the surrounding community.


• To establish an educational center for the training of pastors,
  teachers and evangelists for the Andes and Venezuelan Plains regions.

Three visit the farm

On April 29, 2004, a crowd of people from Maturin, Banco de Acosta, Rio Chiquito and Quebrada Seca gathered at the farm to welcome our visitors, pastors Jorge Groh and Phil Bickel.

Dr. Groh is the new director of missions in Latin America for the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Phil Bickel is missions pastor at St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, the church that commissioned me to serve in Venezuela. He came as a representative of the Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership, a mission society dedicated to working with the Lutheran Church of Venezuela for the evangelization of Venezuela.

I believe both of them were pleased with the number of people who turned out and with the work that has been done on the farm. Pastor Bickel was under the impression that the farm was farther up in the mountains, but no such luck, I am afraid.

Just a few days before they arrived, there was a big grass fire on the farm. No crops were harmed, but the workers were hard-pressed to keep the blaze under control. In the end, however, the fire cleared away a lot of heavy growth and eliminated the need to mow before tilling the land.

But it seems the dry season here may be ending early. The farm has received much rain this week. On Monday, in fact, work had to be called off for the day because the rain was so heavy.

Luz Maria spent a week in Barinas taking a big step of faith. When we were married, she
received six months of paid leave from her job at a preschool in Barinas. She hoped that there would be the opportunity for her to become involved in the farm project and she indeed has become a vital part of it.

Nearly every day she was gone the workers would ask me when she was coming back and one of them said to me, "Señora Luz is a gift to us from God." As I was waiting for the bus to Maturin one day, an old man that I had never met before came walking by and asked me, "Where is the señora?"

However, she has been greatly concerned about providing for her two youngest daughters, Sarai (15) and Charli (18) without the steady paycheck from Barinas. There are plans to support her work as well as that of Armando Ramos as the farm's pastor with revenue generated by the farm as well as contributions to an evangelism fund.

The farm, however, is still about six months away from being a self-supporting enterprise. The main irrigation pump broke down at a critical time for the papàya crop and much revenue was lost due to the drop in production. Also, repairing the pump was a major expense.

Dale Saville estimates the farm needs to gross one million bolivars every week to be self-supporting. Presently it is grossing about one million bolivars per month.

Despite this shortage of funds, Luz Maria has decided to leave her job in Barinas. In part, this is because I promised her that I would provide the $300 per month that she needs for her daughters regardless of whether she received any support from the farm project.

This increases my need for financial support, of course. Any help in this regard would be appreciated. Also please consider contributing to the farm project itself as more workers are needed and much equipment needs to be repaired. Financial support can be sent to:

Venezuelan Lutheran Mission Partnership
3089 Leyland Trail
Woodbury, MN 55125

or

St. Michael's Lutheran Church Venezuelan Ministry Fund
9201 Normandale Blvd.
Bloomington, MN 55437

And please continue to pray for us. Although we have material needs, these are not the greatest
challenges that we face. Everyone involved in the project has been or is being tested spiritually
by an enemy that knows our every weakness and shortcoming.

This is a place where the roaring lion does not bother to hide his true nature. I am reminded of the words of Jesus to the church in Pergamum in Revelation chapter 2, verse 13: "I know where you live - where Satan has his throne..." (NIV)

In my final lesson in the Gospel according to Matthew course, my instructor, Amichel Ventura, and I discussed the sovereignty of God as it relates to the prevalence of magic and witchcraft in Venezuela. Amichel told me how his grandmother would regularly visit a brujo (wizard or warlock) and he demonstrated for me part of the brujo's ritual for healing the sick. There are many people in Venezuela who prefer a brujo or bruja (witch) to a doctor of medicine.

Every year brujos and brujas from all over Venezuela gather on a mountain in the state of Yaracuy. Maria Lionza, the fertility goddess whose 15-foot-tall statue can be seen from the Caracas freeway, is supposed to live in this mountain. There is great danger, including physical danger, for anyone who visits this mountain during the brujo convention, Michel said.

But the point of my lesson was that the power of God is greater than that of witches and evil spirits, and that those who follow the path of faith and prayer will prevail with His help.