Sex trafficking and cellphones

“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.” (1 Timothy 1:8-10 ESV)

Obedience to the moral law does not win for us salvation, although the law is God’s will for how people should live. The law serves to make us conscious of our sin and need for a Savior, while the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us of that Savior and brings to the repentant sinner the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. For those who have been reconciled to God in Christ, the law acts as a guide to how to lead a God-pleasing life, not out of fear of His wrath, but out of the love inspired by His love for us.

But for those who reject the gospel, the judgment and condemnation of the divine law remains in effect, in this world and the next. There is not only a general disposition toward evil on the part of the unregenerate, but they become guilty also of specific transgressions. St. Paul gives us a list of these in this verse from 1 Timothy.

There is a lot in this passage that applies to the world today, but let’s focus on the word, ἀνδραποδισταῖς (andrapodistais). The King James Bible translates this in a literal fashion as “menstealers”. Some more recent translations render it as “kidnappers”, while the English Standard Version quoted above, and others say “enslavers” or “slave traders”. All of these are consistent with the original understanding as all who exploit other men and women for their own selfish ends, but especially such as abduct girls and boys for the purpose of selling them into slavery.

This understanding is close to the definitions provided to us by Debby Suchyta from 5 Stones.

• Human trafficking: The recruitment, harboring, transporting, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of labor, services, or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.

Sex trafficking occurs when a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person who has not attained 18 years of age is induced to perform sex acts in exchange for love, food, shelter, gifts, family and money.

Luz Maria and I participated in three ZOOM conferences with Debby Suchyta, Nury de Milian from LeadaChild, the LeadaChild Venezuela committee, and deaconesses and teachers from several countries where LeadaChild educational projects are located. The conferences took place September 7, 9, and 10, 2022.

Debbie Suchyta worked for 14 years with MOST Ministries, sending groups of short-term missionaries to Venezuela and other countries in Latin America. In 2017, she began her work with 5 Stones, a non-profit organization which focuses its attention on preparing personnel who work directly with children and young people, to make them aware of the dangers of sex trafficking and ways to protect themselves.

We learned to identify “red flags” of children and youth being groomed for sexual exploitation, which, if recognized in time, may help prevent the exploitation of young people:

• Fatigue/sleeping in class

• Isolation: Withdrawal from family, friends and school activities

• Absence from school

• Physical injuries/bruises

• Abuse of alcohol or drugs

• Increase in expensive items the young person cannot afford.

Children and youth most vulnerable to sex traffickers are most likely to live in single-parent homes or abusive home environments, living in poverty and heavy alcohol and drug usage. When Luz Maria and I started Epiphany Lutheran Mission nearly 20 years ago, we knew many in the surrounding community fit this description. One big change since then has been the increased availability of cell phones with Internet access. When I came to Venezuela, getting online meant going to a cybercafe where there was at least some supervision and some limits could be placed on online activity. Now getting online means getting your hands on a cellphone, which is easy to do, while adult monitoring is difficult.

Now sexual predators can access victims through social networking sites like Snapchat, Facebook or WhatsApp, often posing as children or young people like themselves. Sexting (the publication of inappropriate photos) has become a rite of passage and traffickers trick young adults who into sharing messages or photos of other friends. The photos can be used for blackmail later.

Young people also can be lured into running away from with promises of employment or a better life elsewhere. With current economic conditions, young Venezuelans are more likely to fall for this approach. According to the Borgen Project, in June 2019, the story of two shipwrecks near Trinidad and Tobago brought the dark underbelly of Venezuelan sex trafficking to light. In both cases, captains of the boats concealed the fact that the women and children were headed to Trinidad and Tobago to work as prostitutes. Survivors of the second shipwreck testified that the traffickers charged $250 and $500 to everyone aboard the boat headed for Trinidad and Tobago.

An analysis by CARE, a leading humanitarian organization, performed at two checkpoints along the Venezuela-Colombia border found troubling indications of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls at informal border crossings. In particular, women and teenage girls face extremely high risk – not only of abuse – but also being forced to resort to transactional sex as a means of survival. Additionally, Venezuelan migrants are easy targets for trafficking and exploitation, as they often lack official documentation and have limited awareness of their rights.

According to a report released by the U.S. Department of State, international networks involved in trafficking Venezuelans have expanded to at least 19 countries. The document indicates that in 2020 authorities found cases of Venezuelan migrant trafficking and exploitation in Aruba, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Spain, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Macao, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Another year of in-person classes

On October 3, 2022, we opened our preschool for, God willing, a full year of in-person classes. Venezuela began a process of gradual return to face-to-face classes last October 25, which was accompanied by the COVID-19 vaccination plan for Venezuelan adolescents over 12 years of age. Later, on November 8, the Bolivarian Government used the Cuban Soberana II vaccine to immunize children between 2 and 11 years of age. On March 17, 2022, the Minister of Health, Magaly Gutiérrez announced that 61 percent of the Venezuelan child population had already been immunized and the authorities will initiate an intensive campaign in schools to increase the current percentage.

In 2003, Luz Maria enrolled her home in Barinas in the NutriNiño project sponsored by the Fundación del Niño (Child’s Foundation), a non-profit organization which received state funding. The project began as a way of providing nutritionally balanced meals for children in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in homes that passed health inspection requirements. Later the foundation paid certified teachers to conduct preschool classes in these homes. This was the beginning of our preschool.

As the years passed, the NutriNiño project was phased out, but our preschool remained in operation. The Ministry of Education assumed a more direct role in the inspection and accreditation of our preschool. In 2016, we incorporated our mission as a non-profit organization under Venezuelan law, in order to maintain its status as a Christian school in the face of changing government regulations. There is still strong cultural opposition to the “ideología de género” (gender ideology), a broad term encompassing legalization of abortion as well as legal standing for same-sex relationships and transgenderism. However, activism in favor of these goals is on the rise. We will need to renew our non-profit organization charter as the people named as our board of directors have left the country, with the exceptions of Luz Maria and myself.

Hurricanes bypass Venezuela, but heavy rains claim lives

Hurricane season in the Caribbean lasts between June and November, usually peaking in mid-September. This was the first year since 1997 that no named storms formed during the month of August. However, August brought heavy rains and flooding to Venezuela, resulting in property damage, power outages and loss of life.

Heavy rains in August destroyed over 8,000 homes and forced about 35,600 citizens to refuge in shelters across Venezuela. Besides affecting 116 roads and ten bridges, floods and landslides damaged power stations in the states of Amazonas, Barinas, Bolivar, Delta Amacuro, Merida, Monagas, Tachira, and Zulia. At least 15 people died in western Venezuela as a result of the torrential August rains. We experienced extended power outages in La Caramuca, but no flooding or landslides.

More storms and the flooding of a river on September 26 left eight dead and two missing from a Methodist church retreat in the western state of Tachira. Some of the church members were bathing in the river when the rains came down, suddenly raising the water level and washing them away. Four of the dead were between 12 and 17 years old, according to police records obtained by AFP news agency. The ages of the rest of the victims ranged from 19 to 25.The search and recovery of the bodies was difficult due to the geographic characteristics of this mountainous region

The tropical storm that became Fiona, the first major hurricane of 2022, bypassed Venezuela, moving north to wreak havoc, particularly in Puerto Rico. Fiona hit Puerto Rico on September 18, about five years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Reuters reported an estimated 120,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico two weeks after Hurricane Fiona caused an island-wide outage for its 3.3 million people. After hitting Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Fiona turned north and slammed into eastern Canada on September 24, leaving more than a third of Nova Scotia without power.

On the other hand, Ian, the second major hurricane of 2022, moved into the Caribbean Sea as a tropical wave and brought wind and heavy rains to the northern coasts of Venezuela and Colombia on September 21 and 22. As a Category 4 Atlantic hurricane, Ian caused widespread damage across western Cuba and the southeast United States, especially the states of Florida and South Carolina.

In our congregation prayers for Sunday, September 18, we included the people of Puerto Rico and the LCMS missionary team there, which includes Pastor Arturo Maita, a native of Venezuela; his wife, Ruth; Pastor James Neuendorf and his wife, Christel; Pastor Adam Lehman and his wife, Christine, and Ashley Lehr. The missionaries reported on September 23, "The rain was strong and the most damage was caused as a result of flooding. We thank God that already just a few days later, the water has subsided significantly. The church members and visitors of both congregations are all safe and well, although some appear to have damaged homes and property, and all are currently living without water and electricity which can be draining and there is still clean up that needs to be done. We pray that power and water are restored quickly. Both congregations have already opened their facilities to the community to charge their phones, enjoy some air-conditioning, and spend time together. The activity schedule that has been in both congregations is opening wonderful opportunities to bring friends and community into our facilities. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we assess the situation more fully and find more ways to share the love of Christ with the people of Puerto Rico."

A queen is taken, a bishop advances

Our national church, the Lutheran Church of Venezuela (Iglesia Luterana de Venezuela or ILV), like the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, is a member of the International Lutheran Council (ILC) is a worldwide association of confessional Lutheran church bodies. Pastor Eduardo Flores, president of the ILV, attended the 2022 ILC World Conference from September 13 to 16 in Kisumu, Kenya.

Graves of British governors, Trinidad Tobago

On Sunday, September 11, our congregation responded to a request from the ILC and prayed for our fellow Lutherans and others in the Commonwealth of Nations in their time of transition at the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The ILC has member churches in four nations over which King Charles III now serves as monarch: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The monarch of Britain also is recognized as the head of state of several other countries in the Americas: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The LCMS has established missions in Belize and Jamaica. The Lutheran Church – Canada conducts mission work in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Several other nations in which ILC churches are present also have ties to the monarchy through the Commonwealth, an association of 56 nations, most of are former British colonies. In addition to 16 “realms” with the British monarch as head of state (although each with their own prime ministers), five other member states are monarchies with their own individual monarchs, and the rest are republics. Commonwealth nations have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population, on all continents. Of the thirteen Commonwealth member states in the Americas, all but Canada are located within the Caribbean region, and all but Belize and Guyana are islands.

St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Ottawa.

Aside from her father, King George VI, Elizabeth II was the only person to fulfill the role of Head of the Commonwealth under its current charter. King Charles III does not automatically become the new Head of the Commonwealth upon his coronation. However, at their meeting in April 2018, Commonwealth leaders agreed that Charles III should succeed his mother.

We also prayed for a safe journey for our president, Pastor Eduardo (he returned safely). Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland (ELMDF) on September 14, 2022, was elected the ILC’s new chairman without opposition. Bishop Pohjola was catapulted to worldwide media attention in 2021 after Finland’s Prosecutor General charged him and a Finnish M.P., Dr. Päivi Räsänen, with hate crimes for the 2004 publication of a booklet which articulates historic Christian teaching on human sexuality. While the two were subsequently acquitted in early 2022, Finland’s Prosecutor General has since appealed, meaning the case is not yet over.

The ILC also elected Alceu Alton Figur of the Lutheran Church of Paraguay to its board of directors as world region representative for Latin America. The ILC closed Holy Cross Day with a service of vespers. Geraldo Schüler of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (IELB) preached on the theology of the cross.

On the afternoon of September 13, 2022, the ILC unanimously voted to accept two church bodies as full members and one as an associate member. The Christian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bolivia (Iglesia Cristiana Evangélica Luterana de Bolivia – ICEL) was welcomed as a full member. The ICEL’s history dates back to 1978 when Norwegian missions to the country began. The church was officially founded in 1997. The ICEL is led by President Limberth Fernandez Coronado.

Also accepted as a full member was the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (Latvijas Evaņģēliski luteriskā Baznīca – LELB). Lutheranism in Latvia traces its history back five hundred years to when the capital of Riga adopted Lutheranism in 1522. The Latvian church faced severe persecution during the 20th century under the Communist regime but has enjoyed religious freedom again since 1988.

During its afternoon session, the ILC also voted to accept the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Panama (Iglesia Evangélica Luterana de Panamá – IELPA) as a new associate member. The IELPA arose out of mission work of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to Panama which began in 1941. It has previously attended other ILC events in the past as a guest. The church in Panama is led by Pastor Patricio Mora Reyes.

Luz Maria’s mother celebrates 92 years

I am happy to report that Carmen Rivero, Luz Maria’s mother, is recovering from her double-fractured hip and celebrated her 92nd birthday on September 21. People here often say, “Thank God for another year of life”. That fits well with Luke 7:11-17, our sermon text for this past Sunday, October 2. Jesus revived the widow of Nain’s son out of compassion for his widowed mother. But He did not spare His own mother (who was probably widowed, although the New Testament writers do not say what happened to Joseph) when He was dying on the cross. That was because God had something better in mind than a few more years of earthly life for Jesus. Three days later He was not simply revived, but resurrected for all eternity, and therefore we will be, too. God is compassionate, but He always has the best in mind for us, as the epistle (Ephesians 3:13-21) says, “Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think”.

Coronavirus crowns health care crisis

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

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

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

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

 Pray for victims of the coronavirus

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

A delayed diploma

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

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

So, who was Juan de Frias?

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

CRUZ DE LA ESQUINA 

"CRUZ VERDE"

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

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

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

Singing grace

Gracias damos, Señor, por el pan, gracias damos, Señor, por el pan.

Por el pan espiritual que alimenta cada cual, también por el pan material.

That is one of at least two table prayers that we sing before meals in Venezuela. In it we thank the Lord first for spiritual bread, then for material bread.

For, as the Small Catechism teaches, our daily bread consists of all that we need to sustain our life on earth. We trust in God for these things, but we also remember the Lord’s words that man does not live by this bread alone, but by all that proceeds from the mouth of God, which is the Word of life (Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3).

With that in mind, over the summer break from school, our mission has hosted a series of bakery workshops led by Alba Rosa Bastidas, an instructor licensed by the Ministry of Education. About 25 women have attended, either members of our congregation or mothers of preschool children. Every session began with a Bible reading and prayer, followed by the preparation of baked goods.

Rather than bake at home, Venezuelans in the past have preferred to buy fresh bread and pastries from the local bakery/cafe called a panadería. With spiralling inflation, however, now it is more economical to buy wheat flour and make many loaves of bread at a time, rather than spend the same amount of money on just one loaf. So the kitchen in our preschool has been filled with the aroma of all sorts of bread, cookies, biscuits and, my personal favorite, cinnamon rolls!

NASA images of fires in Bolivia,
Brazil and Paraguay.

Deliver us from evil

We also pray in the Lord’s Prayer that the Lord would save us from all kinds of danger or peril in this world. Every Sunday we include in the prayer of the church specific peticions for those in our congregation and local community who are infirm and in need; for our national church and its pastor; for the nation of Venezuela and Venezuelans, especially family members, who are in exile; and for persecuted Christians throughout the world.

It is wonderful to have access to such information, for it helps the local congregation or mission feel part of a much larger, global community of Christians. Advances in communication technology have always helped drive Christian mission work. In the early centuries of the church, the replacement of heavy, cumbersome scrolls with the codex, or bound book, allowed copies of the Scriptures to easily be carried in journeys over the extensive system of paved roads built by the Romans. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the moveable-type printing press in the mid-1400s allowed for the economical printing of Bibles and the rapid distribution of the works of Luther and other Reformers in the 16th Century.

The telegraph wire was the 19th Century’s version of the Internet. It allowed messages to be sent around the world in minutes rather than weeks or months. Along with steamships and railroads, the telegraph allowed for Christian missions within a truly global framework. In the 20th Century, radio and television broadcasts allowed the Lutheran Hour and other missionary organizations to transmit Gospel messages in support of church planting missionaries, and even inside countries where foreign-born missionaries were not allowed. So now we have the World Wide Web and communications satellites, and we live in more of a global village than ever before, perhaps much more than Marshall McLuhan envisioned when he coined the phrase in the 1960s.

Graciously defend us from fire and flood, war and pestilence, drought and tempest, want and hunger. Heavenly Father, preserve and protect all who travel by sea, land and air. We pray for those who speak for you in distant lands; and by every medium of communication. As we all are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, help us to prepare for the life to come, before the hour of judgment arrives. Amen.

Swing low, sweet chariot

More Bibles and books from Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! In this joyous Easter season, we remember our Lord’s victory over the condemnation of sin, the power of the devil, and, especially that last enemy, death. For 40 days the risen Christ walked among His disciples and was seen by as many as 500 at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6). We continue to celebrate His resurrection until the day of Ascension, when He was taken up into the clouds with the promise that one day He would return among the clouds. Alleluia!

I am pleased to report that we have achieved one of our goals for the material benefit of the mission. That is the purchase of a 2008 Volkswagen Golf station wagon, kept in excellent condition by its former owner, a schoolteacher. This will be a great help in overcoming the problems we face with the increasing scarcity and unreliability of public transportation. (No photos of the car for security reasons.)

In Parque del Este, Caracas.

On April 27, Luz Maria left for Caracas to investigate leads on cars for sale there, accompanied by her brothers, Robert and Moisés Henríquez, and her nephew, Roamird Castillo (the son of her sister, Rosaura, not Robert or Moisés). They expected to be gone only two or three days, but spent the entire week in Caracas.

This was because on April 30, there was another uprising against the socialist regime. It was significant that, for the first time, members of the Venezuelan military openly supported the opposition. In a bold move, the soldiers freed Leopold López, an opposition leader, from house arrest. Lopéz appeared with Juan Guaidó, president of the opposition-led National Assembly, in a press conference outside La Carlota Air Force Base. The soldiers then acted as bodyguards for Lopéz and Guaidó as they led a day of street demonstrations. The backlash was brutal, however, as troops on the other side attacked even the unarmed demonstrators. Images of armored vehicles running over protesters were broadcast by international news media and social networks. By the end of the day, four young people had been killed and dozens were injured.

Planning Lutheran women's gathering.

Thanks be to God, Luz Maria and company were unharmed. But, at the risk of sounding flippant, it really complicated the closing of the deal on the car. Luz Maria had to stay through the weekend. But this gave her the opportunity to sit in on a meeting of women from our sister congregations in Caracas, who were planning the next national convention of the Venezuelan Lutheran women’s organization.

Upon finalizing the deal, Luz Maria immediately put the car to use by transporting back to La Caramuca boxes of Spanish Bibles and copies of “A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories” in Spanish, both published by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

Keeping the lights on

Our next project will be setting up an electrical backup system to cope with continuing power outages. Blackouts now last about six hours at a time, occurring at least once a day, but sometimes twice. I would like to install an inverter (which would switch to backup power when the grid goes down), batteries and auxiliary power source, such as solar panels or a gasoline-powered generator. All of these things could be found in Venezuela. However, although I have a general idea of how such systems work, I have no experience in designing one. If anyone could offer me advice on estimating load, capacity, quality of materials, etc., I would appreciate it.

Remember in prayer

1. All of Venezuela as the country’s crisis continues.

2. Eleno Sanchez and Anyi Garrido, who have begun studying Luther’s Small Catechism. Eleno’s goal is to join the church by profession of faith; Anyi looks forward to her first communion.

3. The many Venezuelans in exile. Praise be to God for the missionaries who minister to Venezuelans in Chile and Peru, but especially remember the expatriates in Ecuador, where there is no confessional Lutheran presence.

Meat offered to idols

“Conscience, I say, not your own, but that of the other. For why is my liberty judged by another man’s conscience? But if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I give thanks? Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:29-31

For the first time in 11 years, I received a complaint about posting photos on Facebook of our Carnaval party for the preschool children. We have celebrated Carnaval with them for 16 years, with the approval of their parents and guardians, but I have only had a Facebook account since 2008. The boys dress up as Spider Man or Batman, the girls as Disney princesses (or pirates) and we used our parade around the neighborhood as an opportunity to pass out tracts from Cristo Para Todas Las Naciones (the Spanish Lutheran Hour) before CPTLN shut down operations in Venezuela. “But Christians do not celebrate Carnaval,” this person insisted. “It has pagan origins.”

A bit of background: In many countries, especially culturally Roman Catholic countries like Venezuela, the two to five days before Ash Wednesday is a time for masquerades, parades, parties and pranks. If that sounds something like Halloween, well, it is, and for some people it raises some of the same issues.

The word in English is carnival and it has the same origin as Carnaval, but the traveling shows known as carnivals are a somewhat different topic. People in the United States may be most familiar with pre-Lenten partying in the form of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, “mardi gras” being French for “Fat Tuesday”, the day before Ash Wednesday.

“Carnem levare” is the Latin root, and it means to take away the flesh or take away the meat. In medieval Europe, it became mandatory to abstain from foods derived from the bodies of land-based mammals and fowl during Lent, although the severity of the rules varied according to time and place. To remove some of the temptation, and, as a practical matter, because certain animal-based foods like eggs and butter would not keep for 40 days, it became customary to consume all remaining meat and dairy products in the house over several days of non-stop feasting.

The association of “carnivale” with masquerades and parades began in Italy, and soon spread to France and Spain, and from those countries to the New World. As with Halloween, which began with Christian observance of All Saints Day, but coincides with the approximate dates of ancient fall harvest festivals, some customs of pre-Christian origin may have been incorporated into festivities that usually coincide with the coming of spring.

Now the issue for Christians today is not so much the origins of Halloween or Carnaval, but what these events have come to mean as secular celebrations. In my childhood, Halloween was the occasion for pumpkin carving contests, bobbing for apples and going door to door in costume to receive candy. Some older youth were more into “tricks” than “treats” and sometimes crossed the line into vandalism, but that was the extent of the trouble with Halloween. For Luz Maria, who grew up in western Venezuela, “Carnaval” meant masquerade parties for children, parades and water balloon fights in the streets for the rowdier types.

Nowadays, many in the USA really think Halloween is a pagan festival and are tempted into actual witchcraft and occultism. Likewise, in many countries, Carnaval has become an excuse for sexual immorality and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Particularly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Carnaval has grown into an international event that throws a spotlight on Brazil’s social problems, such as sex trafficking and an extremely high occurrence of HIV/AIDS. Especially this year in Venezuela, in the midst of shortages of food and medicine, high crime rates and political tension, there are some who question why there should be something like Carnaval, frivolous at best and a invitation to wretched excess at wo

rst.

But should we for these reasons deny children a time for make-believe and simple games? The first Christians lived in a world full of pagan ritual and symbolism. They were commanded to avoid idolatry, but did becoming a Christian mean cutting all ties with unbelieving family and friends, indeed with your whole culture? Furthermore, the mission of the church was to reach out to these same unbelieving family and friends to bring them into God’s kingdom.

The Apostle Paul deals with this issue in 1 Corinthians, especially chapters 8 and 10, when he speaks of “meat offered to idols”. The city of Corinth, like all urban centers in the first-century Mediterranean world, was full of pagan temples and shrines. Based on archeology and other sources outside of the Bible, we know that animal sacrifice was a key feature of all pre-Christian religion, including ancient Judaism. The meat from animals sacrificed on pagan altars would be consumed in feasts in honor of the god or goddess, since every temple had an attached dining hall. Any meat left over would be given to the priests of the temple and their families. Also, when the dining halls were not in use for the religious festivals, they would be rented out for weddings, celebrations of victory in battle and what we might call award ceremonies. Sacrificial meat would be served at these functions. Finally, if there was still some meat left over, it would be taken to the vendor’s stalls in the public markets to be sold to the public.

Eidólothutos, the word translated “meat offered to idols” first appears in Acts 15:29. It was a Jewish term (Gentiles referred to such meat with the term, hierothutos), and the passage in Acts represents the preoccupation of Jewish Christians with sharing meals with Gentile converts. The Jerusalem church council advised Gentile Christians to avoid serving meat that had been offered to idols, along with any other meat not prepared according to kosher rules out of love for their Jewish brethren (not because they were bound by the ritual purity laws of the Old Testament).

In 1 Corinthians, the emphasis is on encounters outside the community of faith. St. Paul warns that Christians absolutely should not participate in pagan religious rituals. In chapter 10:21, he says, “You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons.” Although the gods of pagan mythology, like Zeus, Apollo or Hermes, did not exist as such, nevertheless the temptation to idolatrous worship was the work of demons. Today there can be no “interfaith” worship, even with those who claim to worship just one god (Jews or Muslims).

But there were those in the church at Corinth who believed themselves to be of superior understanding and “strong” in the faith. Because they did not believe the pagan gods had any power over them and that all meat was just meat, there was nothing wrong with attending feasts at pagan temples that were not specifically for religious purposes.

Paul rebukes their spiritual pride and tells them that, even though it was quite true that the pagan gods had no power over them, that meat offered to idols was just meat, and that simply entering a pagan temple did not tempt them to idolatry, they should be concerned for the “weak” who could be tempted by such things. They should not even give the appearance of condoning pagan worship or allowing that pagan gods had some kind of authority.

However, Paul affirms the principle of Christian liberty against those, who out of a different kind of self-righteousness, would go to the other extreme. Meat sold in the public markets was not labeled according to origin, therefore there was no problem with purchasing it, even though it was likely some had been sacrificed to idols (1 Corinthians 10:25). Likewise, if invited to a meal in the home of an unbeliever, with the opportunity of sharing the Gospel, the Christian should eat what is set on the table and not make a fuss about where the meat came from. However, if someone else were to identify the meat as having been sacrificed in a pagan temple, the Christian should politely refuse it, rather than dismiss the scruples of weaker brethren before unbelievers.

One form of legalism is to insist on observance of ceremonies that God has not commanded as necessary to salvation or Christian living. Another is to insist that all abstain from practices that are not contrary to God’s will. We should resist efforts to force such views on us. As with meat offered to idols, we may enjoy customs that may have non-Christian origins, as long as no one is really tempted to sin by them and they provide the opportunity to share God’s Word with those who have not heard it.

Postscript on the capybara

I cannot talk about the Lenten fast in Venezuela without mentioning the capybara or “el chigüire” as it is known here. Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris is world’s largest species of rodent. It has a heavy, barrel-shaped body and short head, with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of its body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Adults grow to 106 to 134 cm (3.48 to 4.40 feet) in length, stand 50 to 62 cm (20 to 24 inches) tall at the withers, and typically weigh 35 to 66 kg (77 to 146 lbs.). In the 16th Century, the Pope responded to a petition from Venezuelan priests to declare the semi-aquatic rodent an exception to the rule against eating red meat. Since then, eating chigüire during Lent has been a Venezuelan tradition, much like turkey dinner for Thanksgiving in the United States.

Ash Wednesday and apagones

Our Ash Wednesday service on March 6, 2019, was bookended by power outages or apagones in Spanish. On late Monday afternoon, our power went down for 21 hours. I do not know if this was just a local blackout, because it didn’t make the news, but the next one sure did. On Thursday, March 7, the entire electrical grid went down across Venezuela for 60 hours, leaving most of the country without electricity, telephone, television, radio, Internet or water (because no power for the pumps). The lights came back on at 5 a.m. Sunday for 5 hours, then went out again. It was the same Monday: Five hours of electricity early in the morning, then a blackout for the rest of the day. Finally, at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, full power was restored.

This is apparently what happened: There was a major breakdown at the Guri Dam hydroelectric plant. When it was built in the 1960s, the Guri plant was the largest generation facility of its kind in the world. Today it is the third-largest, at I7,426 meters in length and 162 meters in height. It impounds the Guri Reservoir, which has a surface area of 4,250 square kilometers (1,641 square miles) . The Guri hydroelectric power plant is situated 100 kilometers upstream of the Caroni River in Necuima Canyon i. With an installed capacity of 10,200 megawatts, it has for years provided 75 to 80 percent of Venezuela’s electrical demand.

Electricity generated by the smaller Matagua hydroelectric plant and a thermoelectric plants allowed the government to implement the draconian energy rationing program of five hours of electricity per day.

In La Caramuca, we lost contact with the outside world, except for intermittent cellphone signals. But we were able to pump water from our well with a portable gasoline generator. We have not used the generator for some time, because even gasoline is strictly rationed now. Also the generator is over 10 years old, has been overhauled several times and no longer has the capacity to do everything we would like it to do. But it earned its keep this past week. No more than ever, we would like to install a battery backup system, perhaps with solar panels on the roof, and a satellite link to the Internet.

Pots and pans play protest music

The last few weeks have been eventful for Venezuela as a whole. However, in La Caramuca the most excitement that we have had was a cacerolazo on the night of January 23, 2019.

“Cacerolazo” is derived from “cacerola”, which means either stew pot or sauce pan (English speakers may recognize the equivalent French word, “casserole”). The cacerolazo is a traditional form of political protest in Venezuela and other Latin American countries which involves the banging of kitchen pots and pans at open windows or in the street. Our cacerolazo in La Caramuca was quite noisy and lasted for some time. But, it was only a faint echo of the demonstrations that swept the country that same day, resulting in 40 dead and 850 people detained as a result of government attempts to control the marches. Four people died during demonstrations in our neighboring city of Barinas, and we remembered their families in our prayer as a church the following Sunday.

Afterschool students.

Political tensions have intensified as the international community has taken sides in the conflict between two rival groups are each claiming to be the legitimate government of Venezuela. Just a few days before Nicolas Maduro, leader of the Socialist Party that has ruled Venezuela for 20 years was to begin his second, six-year term as President of Venezuela, there was a meeting of the Lima Group, an organization of Latin American nations formed in 2017 specifically to address the growing regional problem of Venezuela’s economic collapse. The Lima Group declared that Venezuela’s 2018 presidential election was not a free election, and therefore Maduro would not be assuming office as a legitimate head of state. Also, the Lima Group said it would recognize only the opposition-led National Assembly elected in 2015 as a legitimate governing body in Venezuela.

The National Assembly agreed that Maduro should not be regarded as President of Venezuela, and invoked a clause of the national constitution which says that in the absence of a legitimately elected president, the leader of the National Assembly may assume the office of Interim President until free elections may be held. Juan Guaido, president of the Assembly, did this in a public ceremony on January 23. Thousands of people filled the streets of all of Venezuela’s major cities in support of this event. Since then, Guaido’s claim to be Interim President has been recognized by the United States, Canada, Israel, and most of the nations of Latin America and Europe. Maduro’s government is recognized by China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Mexico, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba.

Afterschool students.

There was another wave of demonstrations throughout Venezuela on Saturday, February 2, both for and against Maduro’s regime. However, this time there was no loss of life and liberty, and we gave thanks to God for that in our February 3 worship.

Because of this turmoil, most schools in our surrounding community have not reopened since the holiday break ended on January 6. However, we have shut down our preschool only twice. Once on January 23 and the folowing Thursday and Friday, and again on Wednesday, January 30, because of a schoolteacher’s union march in Barinas for higher wages (paid on time). Despite the fact that there has been no elementary school, Luz Maria’s afterschool tutoring students have shown up every day.

Keep the water running

We had to have one of our two water pumps fixed. Our water system consists of a well, a pump to draw water from the well and move it up the hill to an underground tank; and another pump (the one we had fixed) to move water from the underground tank to three water towers that provide gravity flow to our house, the preschool and chapel, and outdoor public restrooms. The system was designed to supplement the public water supply for our complex. But there has been no public water in our community for more than two years. Not only do we relay on our well for all of our water, but we also provide water for surrounding homes that have no running water. We pray that parts and service may continue to be available for our water system.

Fixing the pump.

“Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”

The Gospel reading for our fifth Sunday of Epiphany was Matthew 8:23-27 and the Old Testament lesson was Jonah 1:1-17. The parallels between these passages include God’s control over the wind and waters, and that neither the 12 disciples nor the prophet Jonah were shining examples of perfect faith. Yet God saved them and was with them in time of trial, as He saves us and is with us always.

Sharing water.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake to guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake; All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Hymn #651

The Lutheran Hymnal

Text: Psalm 46:10

Author: Catharine Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, 1752, cento

Translated by: Jane Borthwick, 1855

Titled: "Stille, mein Wille"

Composer: Jean Sibelius, b. 1865, arr.

Tune: "Finlandia"

When the border is your back door

“Closing the back door” was a phrase that I often heard at conferences and seminars when I served on my local congregation’s board of evangelism in the 1980s. “Increasing numerical membership growth” was a topic that usually was filed under “evangelism and outreach”. Whether gaining more members for your congregation is necessarily the same as proclaiming the good news of salvation in Christ is a whole other topic, which I do not intend to get into now.

Luz Maria bids farewell to her grandson, Pedro.

But everyone can agree that bringing more people into the church (God’s sheepfold) is an important missionary objective, although not the only one. So, the point was, you might be bringing lots of people into the church through the “front door” (baptisms, confirmations, transfers of membership), only to be experiencing net loss of members through the “back door”: People slowly drifting away from the church. Evangelism, therefore, meant not only presenting the Gospel to the unchurched, but also discipling and involving new members in the life of the church as quickly as possible.

Now, in a North American setting, one of the factors that may contribute to backdoor losses is people moving away to another city or state. But none of those discussions of 30 years ago dealt with the situation that our mission faces now. And not just our mission, but other congregations in the Lutheran Church of Venezuela and other church-bodies as well. This situation is the sudden, snowballing mass emigration of people from the country. Imagine people who have been active and enthusiastic members of your congregation suddenly deciding that they can’t take it anymore and moving themselves and their families abroad.

Here the border is almost in our backyard, if not at the back door. La Caramuca is a town of about 5,000 people just outside of Barinas, a city of several hundred thousand. Only two or three years ago, we could catch a bus into Barinas at a corner less than a block from the mission. Now we have to walk across La Caramuca to the highway to catch a bus. The highway is national Highway 5, which you can take from Barinas all the way to Valencia. Then at Valencia you can hop on the four-lane freeway to Caracas. It’s a journey of seven to eight hours by car or bus.

But rather more people these days are interested in traveling the opposite direction on Highway 5. From Barinas, it’s about four or five hours to San Cristobal, the last major city before you reach the Colombian border. Highway 5 long has been a pipeline for the smuggling drugs, firearms and other contraband to secret airstrips and ports on the Venezuelan coast.

I visited San Cristobal once when I fell asleep on the bus back from Caracas and did not wake up when it stopped in Barinas. That was in 2007, and even then, the U.S. State Department has a standing waring against U.S. citizens traveling that close to the border, because of all the fun and games with paramilitary groups/drug traffickers in the borderlands.

Just on the other side of the border is the city of Cúcuta, Colombia. Thousands cross the border every day at Cúchuta, often on foot. Venezuelans fill the streets of Cúcuta. From Cúcuta, they may be able to find overland passage to Ecuador or Peru (few can afford to fly out of Venezuela).

Sharing soup after Divine Service.

Most of the people leaving Venezuela are young enough to hope for careers and families in their future, and able-bodied enough to work and try to send money back to relatives who are not so fortunate. Those left behind are the very old and the very young; parents in many cases have left their small children in the care of grandparents. These, of course, are people especially vulnerable to the shortages of food and medicine. We are ṕleased to work with Global Lutheran Outreach to meet these needs within the parameters that have been set for us.

Above all, we continue to offer a message of hope in the midst of a national crisis. Preaching, or public proclamation of the Gospel, must be by “whether in season or out of season”, according to the English Standard Version translation of 2 Timothy 4:2. Whether the current situation is an opportune time or not may be a matter of perspective. In the midst of great instability, people may be the most ready to receive the good news of the Lord’s continued presence, now and forever, in the lives of those who believe and have been baptized. Nevertheless, whether opportune or not, the public proclamation of the Gospel must continue. To combine Word and sacrament ministry with works of mercy and compassion has a long history among us.

We continue also to pray for the Venezuelans in exile; that they may find the better life they seek, but also may be fed with the Word and sacraments. Thanks be to God for Lutheran mission work in Ecuador and Peru.

“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.” Proverbs 16:3-8

Praying for the Venezuelan diaspora

Leavetaking is common in Venezuela.

“Diaspora” is derived from Διασπορᾷ, a Greek word that means “dispersion” or “scattering”. It literally means “to seed apart” (dia, apart, plus speiren, to seed). Nowadays, in English and other languages, diaspora means the flight of a religious or ethnic group from their homeland because of a catastrophic event,  and the dispersion of their language and culture.

There have been many diasporas throughout human history. For instance, the mass emigration of the Irish during the great potato famine of 1845 to 1849. My own ancestors (those that spoke German) were among the “altluteraner”, the Old Lutherans, who fled religious persecution in the Kingdom of Prussia in the early 1800s. Some of them emigrated to the United States, others to Australia.

Many people today understand Diaspora with a capital “D” to mean the forced flight of the Jews from the Holy Land after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. But that was not, in fact, the first Jewish diaspora. The Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar II also destroyed Jerusalem and the first Temple, built by Solomon, in 586 BC. Later the Persian Emperor Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to return to their homeland and rebuild the city and the temple. But many Jews did return, and, during the 300 to 400 years before Jesus was born, thriving Jewish communities grew in nearly every part of the ancient Mediterranean world. This also meant that many parts of the pagan world gained familiarity with the Jewish language, culture and religion.

By the early first century, “the diaspora” had come to mean the entire community of Jews living outside of the Holy Land. The word is used in this way in John 7:35. The dispersion of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem in the face of persecution (but before the destruction of the city) is described as “the diaspora” in James 1:1 and 1 Peter 1:1

It was the diaspora of both Jews and Jewish Christians that provided the seedbed in which the early church grew beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and of Jewish culture. Paul, who was known as, and called himself, “the apostle to the Gentiles”, on his missionary journeys always first seek out a synagogue in the cities that he visited.

Likewise, in Venezuela, Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod work begin in the early 1950s primarily in response to a call from Germans who had migrated to Venezuela in the aftermath of World War II. This led in time to the development of a predominantly Spanish-speaking Lutheran Church of Venezuela.

Which brings me to the topic of the “Venezuelan diaspora”. While the flight of Syrians from their country’s civil war has been called the century’s first great refugee crisis, some analysts estimate the exodus of Venezuelans from Venezuela may surpass it.

"The next refugee crisis is not being driven by a violent war but by a socioeconomic disaster of magnitudes hardly seen before," says Dany Bahar, a Brookings Institution economist. While United Nations data indicates there are currently 5.5 million Syrian refugees, about 4 million Venezuelans (over 10 percent of the population) and the number of Venezuelan refugees could surpass that of Syria.

“This is a humanitarian crisis,” Willington Munoz Sierra, regional director of the Scalabrini International Migration Network, a Catholic charity running a shelter in Cucuta, Colombia, told the Washington Post. In Cucuta and other border towns, desperate Venezuelans are live in parks and cheap motels or sleep on sidewalks.

As sad as this situation is, it is encouraging to hear that the dispersion of Venezuelan Lutherans may  open doors to mission and mercy work in surrounding countries. On May 6, we said farewell to Luz Maria’s daughter, Yepci, and her three children, Aaron, Oriana and Elias, as they left for Peru. Our prayers were answered as they arrived safely in Lima. LCMS missionaries and former members of La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay, Venezuela, came to their aid. They have both a place to live and a place to worship.

Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod involvement in Peru began in 1997, when the LCMS awarded a grant for flood relief and medical care. In August 2007, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck south of Lima killing more than 500 people, injuring more than 1,000 and destroying more 34,410 homes, according to news reports. LCMS missionaries traveled to Lima, Lucumo and Lunahuaná two weeks after the earthquake to evaluate how they could respond to the people in need. Missionaries handed out Bibles, food and personal hygiene products, and they got approval from the local government authorities to work there.

Lima is one of the largest cities in the Americas. Roughly 10 million people live there, which means that Lima contains one-third of Peru’s population. Mission sites in Lima include La Victoria, San Juan de Lurigancho, Chorillos. San Borja, and Los Olivos. Most of the Venezuelan expatriates attend the congregation in Los Olivos, says Cullen Duke, missionary pastor.

Pastor Adrian Ventura at my ordination in 2008.

 LCMS missionaries in Peru also prepare for the arrival and service of short-term teams, which perform many tasks, such as assisting with construction work in villages and teaching English in order to build relationships and share the Gospel. I was pleased to learn of the imminent arrival of such a team from Messiah Lutheran Church, Hays, Kansas, where I was a member from 1977 to 1980.

Venezuelan Lutherans also have found a new place to live and worship in Chile. On May 5, 2018, Adrian Ventura was installed May 5, 2018, in Constitución, Chile,as a church planting pastor. For more than 20 years, Adrian was pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela, his native city. He twice served as president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. Pastor Adrian was the first Venezuelan pastor that I had the privilege to meet in 2002. Pastor Adrian shares responsibility with Omar Kinas, a pastor of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile for mission work in Concepción, Chile. Pastor Adrian is serving Venezuelan expatriates and others in his new call.

Sharing water.

Meanwhile, here in La Caramuca, we continue to attend the needs, spiritual and material, of those who remain in Venezuela. Since there is no public water system for the foreseeable future, we have been sharing the water from our well with our neighbors. We pray every Sunday as a congregation and every day in our homes for those Venezuelans who have left, and that God may grant us what we need to provide refuge, hope and assistance in this dark place.