Guests of various species

We have welcomed a parrot to our menagerie of animals. It just showed up one day, evidently attracted to the bunches of bananas we have hung out to ripen out back.

There are all kinds of parrots in Venezuela, ranging from small, wild parakeets to the large macaw-like birds called guacamayas. Ours is medium-sized. It seems to be a tame bird, but no one has shown up to claim it yet. I can't help thinking it would be a very expensive pet in the United States, but not so here.

Our household also includes two cats and a large dog as permanent residents. The dog. Peluso (Shaggy), is our dutiful night watchman, while the cats, at least in theory, catch and kill rodents. In practice, they pursue this labor when they feel like it. In the manner of cats, they spend the greater part of their waking hours wrestling and swatting each other in the face.

The cats are very similar in their markings. One is slightly larger than the other and has dark fur on its right ear. The other is smaller and has a light-colored right rear. Nevertheless, we have not assigned names to these creatures. I address them both as "Gato" (Cat). This is not as confusing as you might think.

We have had guests of various other species, including chickens (they appear every morning and evening), a pair of eagles, a horse, an iguana over two feet in length and runaway hogs.

School is out now. The new school year begins in mid-September. Yepci and her children took advantage of the vacation period and spent three weeks in Caracas with Yepci's sister, Wuendy. It really was more of a working vacation as Yepci helped prepare food first for seminarians studying Greek and then for a team of volunteers from the United States who performed renovations in Quinta Lutero, the national church's office in Caracas.

The team from the United States consisted of Megan Obermueller's students from Concordia Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. Yepci told me afterward that she was impressed by the young people's willingness to travel to Venezuela and work hard on a purely volunteer basis.

Yepci and her children, Aaron, Oriana and Elias, were back in time for vacation Bible school at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas, August 22 to 25. The VBS was based on the story of Noah's Ark and how, as Noah and his family passed through the waters of the Great Flood, we pass through the waters of baptism to salvation. Attendance peaked at around 50 children. Many of them attended the Sunday service at Corpus Christi with their parents (a number of whom were not members) to explain what they had learned.

In addition to Aaron, Oriana, Elias and Pedro, another of Luz Maria's grandchildren, we took Sandro, a boy from La Caramuca, to the VBS. With three adults and five children, the logistics were a little difficult. We had to find a taxi driver who drove a full-size sedan rather than the compact cars that most taxistas drive here, because they will not take more than four persons (adults or children) in the smaller taxis.

We are planning a vacation Bible school in La Caramuca in September.

Also on Sunday, August 26, there was a congregational meeting at Corpus Christi with Pastor Ted Krey, who has been named pastoral counselor for the Western Zone of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. Edgar Brito reaffirmed his decision to resign as pastor of Corpus Christi, but will continue to serve until a vicar (and prospective candidate for full-time pastor) can be called.

In order for this to become a reality, the church must be able to provide a place for the vicar to live. There is a bedroom and office available in the church, but top priority must be placed on the restoration of running water in the bathroom and kitchen.

Luz Maria last week attended the national convention of the Venezuelan Lutheran women's organization in the eastern state of Monagas. She wore several hats at this meeting: secretary of the organization, national coordinator of Christian education, and one of two national coordinators of the Venezuelan deaconess program.

She first left for the city of Valencia. From there she traveled east with her old friend Cruz de Castillo, whose husband, Rafael, just passed away.

I remained in La Caramuca to prepare for my return to regular study in Caracas starting next week. From September through December we will study homilectics, the Lutheran Confessions, an overview of the New Testament, and Paul's epistles to the Romans and First Corinthians.

It's Greek to me and you, too

παυλος αποστολος ιησου χριστου δια θεληματος θεου και τιμοθεος ο αδελφος τοις εν κολοσσαις αγιοις και πιστοις αδελφοις εν χριστω χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη απο θεου πατρος ημων και κυριου ιησου χριστου ευχαριστουμεν τω θεω και πατρι του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου παντοτε περι υμων προσευχομενοι ακουσαντες την πιστιν υμων εν χριστω ιησου και την αγαπην την εις παντας τους αγιους δια την ελπιδα την αποκειμενην υμιν εν τοις ουρανοις ην προηκουσατε εν τω λογω της αληθειας του ευαγγελιου

Luz Maria and I have spent the past two weeks in Caracas studying New Testament Greek together. We had to translate the above text. It reads something like this in English:

"Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and brother Timothy, to the Colossian saints and faithful brothers in Christ. Grace to you and peace from God, father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God and always pray for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints through the hope stored for you in the heavens, of which you have heard in the truth of the gospel."

Of course, this passage is found in Paul's letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verses 1-5. It seemed a fitting theme for our journey.

Yepci, Luz Maria's daughter, and grandchildren, Elias and Oriana, traveled with us so Yepci could attend a preschool education workshop.

There were 15 people in the Greek class besides us. The youngest was Neudys Franco, daughter of Alcides Franco, a former president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. She just graduated from high school and, according to custom, her parents were prepared to throw a big graduation party for her. But she asked them to use the money they had saved for her party to send her to Caracas to study Greek. Her older brother, Jonathan, also attended the class and was charged with looking after his sister in the big city.

We met many old friends, such as Armando Ramos, resident pastor of Tierra de Gracia Lutheran Farm. Pastor Francisco Cabarcas, chaplain of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran School in Maturin was in the class, too. He was staying in Caracas with his wife, Dagnys, and their daughters, Oriana and Veronica.

Our instructor in Greek was Mark Braden, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Cleghorn, Wisconsin (about six miles south of Eau Claire). Pastor Braden learned Spanish as a boy. His father worked for the USO and the family lived in England, Italy and Spain. His fondest memories are of the years in Cadiz, Spain, where there was a U.S. submarine refueling base.

Pastor Braden returned to Spain for a time as an 18-year-old student. A former university administrator, Pastor Braden entered the ministry as a second career and worked as a Greek tutor at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In two weeks we learned only the basics of koine Greek, but it was enough to read the original New Testament text with the help of a lexicon and compare the accuracy of various translations. As we discovered, koine Greek, the lingua franca of the first-century Mediterranean world, is a more complicated language than most modern tongues, but it is also more precise with more specific words for specific concepts, and less ambiguity than modern English and Spanish.

Pastor Braden encouraged us to read and translate a few verses every day in the Greek New Testaments that each of us received. Many in the class wanted Pastor Braden to return and teach more Greek and also more theological courses.

Luz Maria and I also met some members of Pastor Braden's congregation: Carol Schauer, Arnie and Carol Riske, and Jerry Vetterkind. When we arrived in Caracas, they were in the nearby city of Valencia as part of a short-term mission team sponsored by Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership and led by Dale and Elizabeth Thompson of Woodbury, Minnesota.

The team returned Friday evening, August 3, after finishing a room, three rooms, complete electrical wiring and half of the sanctuary in a new building for La Fe (Faith) Lutheran Church of Valencia. People from Valencia and Maracay helped with the work. One day there were 40 workers on the project and over the course of two weeks, never less than 17 per day.

The foundation for the building was laid four years ago when I came to Venezuela and it has been a struggle to finish the project. But now Pastor José Urbina and the congregation are overjoyed at the progress made in just a couple of weeks. Soon they will be able to begin worshipping in the sanctuary.

On Saturday morning, the team's flight back to the United States was overbooked and the Riskes had to stay another day, so we got to see more of them.

We also had the opportunity while in Caracas to meet Michael Tanney, a former missionary to Venezuela who now is in Puerto Rico. He came here to make a presentation to the Lutheran Church of Venezuela´s Christian education committee (of which Luz Maria is a member).

I hope I have not made learning Greek sound like too much fun. It was hard work to gain even a minimum understanding, but a necessary step for all of us in our preparation to teach the sound doctrine of the faith. And we certainly thank God for all of the people working with us here and in the United States to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Venezuela.

We pray that all of you might have the grace and peace of our Lord.

Oh, by the way, I have a new Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. Thanks to everyone who made replacing the ruined camera possible. A digital camera is essential to documenting our work here and it also is an important social tool as Venezuelans love having their pictures taken. Now I do not have to see the disappointed faces of the children back in la Caramuca when they ask what happened to my camera.

Yepci returns home

Luz Maria's daughter, Yepci, returned home after 16 days in the hospital. She had to undergo surgery twice, once to stop internal bleeding and again to treat the five bone fractures she suffered in the automobile accident. Yepci has one arm in a cast, but she is able to walk and is slowly recovering from her ordeal. About four or five of the children from our Sunday school have
taken it upon themselves to visit Yepci since she's been back.

She was treated at the large public hospital in Barinas. In Venezuela's health system, the hospital bed and services of the doctors and nurses are completely underwritten by the government. However, the families of patients are responsible for purchasing all the necessary medications and materials used for treatment. The family of Yepci's taxi driver (who was also seriously injured) assumed responsibility for paying for most of Yepci's medications, according to the Venezuelan sense of honor. However, we had to pay about $150 for the materials used in Yepci's second surgery.

Unfortunately, Junior, a young man who asked to have Pastor Paul Pfotenhauer pray over him while the volunteers from Minnesota were here, had to leave the hospital without the operation he needed because his family could not afford similar costs.

In addition, the demand for medical services exceeds the available resources in public hospitals, so it is also the family's reponsibility to ensure the round-the-clock care that the doctors and nurses are unable to provide. Luz Maria and her daughter Charli took turns keeping vigil at Yepci's bedside. Luz Maria would spend at least 12 hours there, then Charli would stay for 12
hours. Of course there were many other family members on hand to help out, but it was a grueling schedule for 16 days, especially because one week was the time in which volunteers from the United States were visiting our mission project.

Yet Luz Maria was glad to devote as much time as she could to our visitors. At one point she asked me if in the United States we used the expression, "The show must go on!"

This past week we visited Luz Maria's sister, Denise, (whom everyone calls Pina) at a private clinic where she is being treated for a kidney infection. Private clinics are available for those who can afford them and offer a higher standard of care.

The Venezuelan government has initiated a program, called Misión Barrio Adentro, of building and staffing small community clinics to provide the same level of care to the poor and relieve some of the burden on public hospitals. Some of the staff for these clinics are doctors on loan from Cuba. Such a clinic is under construction in La Caramuca.

Pina and her husband run a very successful restaurant, La Mazorka, in the town of Barinitas. The team of volunteers from Minnesota had dinner there after their whitwater rafting excursion. Pina was pleased that members of the team were willing to try traditional Venezuelan cuisine, including chiguirri, a large rodent that is considered a delicacy here. According to some sources, the chiguirri is the world's largest rodent, typically achieving a mature weight of around 100 pounds. It looks like a cross between a beaver and a wild pig.

Pina once prepared a meal of octopus for Luz Maria and me, but I was not converted into a lover of seafood.

As we were taking the bus back to Barinas from Barinitas, Luz Maria and I noticed a business that sells outdoor swingsets. We resolved to check their prices on our next visit to Barinitas. We had made swings for the children in La Caramuca out of wooden planks and rope with a metal pipe between two trees for support, but they wore out the ropes after a couple of weeks.

Our thanks to everyone for their prayers for Yepci during this difficult time.

Yepci in the hospital

Just a quick update on Luz Maria's daughter, Yepci: She now can walk and started eating solid food after four days of intravenous feeding. Her fractured arm is still healing, but we expect that she will be released from the hospital this week.

We are left with the mystery of the man who saved the lives of Yepci and her taxi driver. Witnesses say they saw from a distance a man, who appeared to have been walking alongside the road, pull Yepci and the driver from the burning car. By the time the police arrived, he was gone. No one knows who he was or where he went.

Pastor Paul Pfotenhauer made another visit to the hospital along with some other volunteers from Minnesota. He prayed over Yepci, the taxi driver and another young man who requested a prayer.

The team of volunteers was a great blessing to us and Corpus Christi Lutheran Church. They spent Tuesday and Wednesday in La Caramuca, then went whitewater rafting in the mountains on Thursday. Their time here was quite an adventure as they encountered the oversized cockroaches that live here, learned why foreigners should only drink bottled water, and experienced one of our frequent power and water outages at their hotel. Nevertheless everyone retained a positive attitude throughout.

The people here were very touched by the fact that the volunteers traveled all the way from the United States to share their faith with them and their visit will not be forgotten.

On Friday the volunteers went into the city of Barinas and visited a nursing home. Saturday was a day of puppet drama, songs and games in the street in front of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church. There also were about 30 women and men in Rhoda Pfotenhauer and Dorothy Young's crafts sessions. On Sunday morning the group participated in the worship service at Corpus Christi.

They handed out many small New Testaments of the type distributed by the Gideon Society (the Spanish 1960 Reina-Valera version) and also such items as toothbrushes and toothpast, which were greatly appreciated, too. They left us with great quantities of crayons, glue construction paper and many other supplies.

We will always be grateful for this first visit by supporters in the United States.

Volunteers from Minnesota

This week we and Corpus Christi Lutheran Church are hosting the first team of volunteers sponsored by the Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership to visit the state of Barinas. So far it has been a rewarding experience for everyone. But the joy of having our friends from the United States here has been overshadowed by the fact that Luz Maria's oldest daughter, Yepci, was hospitalized after what could have been a fatal car accident. She is now recovering from major surgery for internal injuries.

Luz Maria and I met the mission team in Caracas and heard the news about Yepci while we were on the way back. Yepci, who is in her late 20s and has three children, was riding in a taxi to the city of Barinas. It is the rainy season here and the torrential rains often reduce visibility make the roads slippery. In fact, this is only one of a number of automobile accidents involving members of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela within the last month. Yepci's cab hit a slick spot, flipped over and caught on fire. Some brave man (we have yet to find out his name) pulled Yepci and the taxi driver from the flames.

Yepci was taken to an emergency room with a fractured arm and bleeding in her stomach. She underwent surgery to discover and stop the source of the internal bleeding. She appears to be in stable condition now, but we do not know when she will be released from the hospital. The taxi driver also experienced serious injuries and was taken to the same emergency room.

We also have heard that Haymer de Zamora, wife of Felix Zamora, a deacon at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela, also was hospitalized after a similar accident. Just two weeks ago Pastor Edgar Brito was involved in a collision while driving around Barinas with Pastor Adrian Ventura, president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. This also happened during one of the tropical downpours.

No one was injured in Pastor Edgar's accident, but is a problem that has resulted from the incident, as he explained to the visiting mission team. He drives a pre-1975, v8-powered tank of a car, built entirely of metal as cars were back then. So it wasn't damaged very much, the other car was a less sturdy model. Pastor Edgar's car is insured (he uses it as part of his day job as a package deliveryman) but the other car was not. The problem is that the other driver is afraid that he will get into trouble for not having insurance if he files a claim with Pastor Edgar's insurance company and wants Edgar to directly pay him a substantial amount (somewhere around $1,000). Members of the other driver's family came to the school where Pastor Edgar is taking night classes in youth counseling and threatened him if he did not do what they wanted.

But Pastor Edgar still refused, telling them that the worst thing they could do would be to kill him, but then they still would not have their money and would be in more serious trouble than they were to begin with.

Luz Maria was visiting Yepci in the hospital when Pastor Edgar told this story, but she later explained to me this type of situation is quite common in Venezuela and that Edgar is handling it in what is probably the best way.

Edgar also told the group how he came to be a pastor. As a boy he was a member of circle of friends that included Armando Ramos (who is now the resident pastor at Tierra de Gracia Lutheran Farm, an agricultural mission project in eastern Venezuela). These boys would meet every night to play football (soccer) on a certain street. As they entered adolescence, the members of this circle were drifting into lives of petty crime. But Edgar Poito, a missionary sent to Barinas by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, moved into a house on that street. He began playing football with the boys and kept inviting them to attend Corpus Christi Lutheran Church.

Edgar Brito did not respond to the invitations until after Edgar Poito and his family had moved away from Barinas. But once he did, he began attending regularly and eventually became pastor of the church. He felt called by God to bring the Gospel to youths moving down the wrong path as he once was. Edgar remains committed to his calling as a pastor, although he receives no income from his small congregation and must fit his pastoral duties into his work and study schedule. This also is not an unusual situation in Venezuela, and it is common for pastors in these circumstances to feel their sense of commitment fail.

Although Pastor Edgar was willing to fill in for her, Luz Maria was on hand during the mission team's first day in La Caramuca. The team spent the morning at a posada (bed-and-breakfast farm) where they met graduates of the main public preschool in La Caramuca. These chldren will become first-graders when the next school year starts. The team led the children in song and Matt Blackford, a vicar at Woodbury Lutheran Church, Woodbury, Minnesota, presented an excellent summary of the Gospel for them.

At lunchtime, the team was treated to traditional Venezuelan food, music and demonstrations of traditional Venezuelan dance (joropo). The three-man band included Jose Jacinto Ramos, Pastor Armando's younger brother, on the maracas. The other instruments were the harp and cuatro (Venezuelan four-stringed guitar). One of the teachers from the main preschool sang the state song, "Linda Barinas", in true llanera style.

Some of us missed the major portion of this presentation. Luz Maria and I went to the hospital, accompanied by Paul Pfotenhauer, retired pastor of Woodbury Lutheran Church, Matt Blackford, Clint Souligny and Glenis, the owner of the tour bus that we had hired for the team. Pastor Paul said prayers over Yepci and the taxi driver. (Pastor Edgar had visited the emergency room the night before.) Our North American friends also had the opportunity to meet Rosaura de Castillo, one of Luz Maria's sisters, and Charli, another one of Luz Maria's daughters.

Back at our home in La Caramuca that afternoon, we welcomed children from our Sunday school plus a busload of children from Punta Gorda, a neighboring village where we have started Sunday school and adult Bible studies. The children from Punta Gorda were chaperoned by Maira and Tomasa, sister and mother respectively, of Pastor Armando Ramos. The mission team entertained the children with puppet theater, songs and Bible lessons. Vicar Matt gave drawing lessons using the story of King David as inspiration. Rhoda Pfotenhauer, Pastor Paul's wife, and Dorothy Young led adult women in Bible study and crafts. Actually, Rhoda was very surprised that five adult men also participated in the crafts sessions.

Two young women on the mission team, Angela and Hannah, spoke very good Spanish. Working overtime as translators for the members of the team who did not were Clint Souligny and Luz Guerrero. Clint is cross-cultural ministries coordinator for Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod World Missions in Caracas. Luz Guerrero, a native of Colombia, served as a volunteer missionary at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Maturin before returning to the U:S. and entering the deaconess program at Concordia Seminary, St.Louis, Missouri.

On Wednesday morning, the mission team did more of the same work specifically with children enrolled in our preschool. In the afternoon they worked more with children from the surrounding neighborhood. It was quite moving for me to see the team interacting with Argenis, Vanesa, Noel, Yovanny, Anita, Yexi, Efren, Karelis, Pedrito and others that I have come to know either by name or by face.

Today the mission team has a free day. Most of them went sightseeing (we had scheduled for them a trip high into the Venezuelan Andes, but the recent rains washed that road out). Luz Guerrero stayed behind to have lunch with Luz Maria and me. The three of us then went to visit Yepci in the hospital. Other visitors included Jaime, the man who lost his right hand in a gun accident that I mentioned in a previous newsletter.

Tomorrow and Saturday the mission team will spend time at Corpus Christi church in Barinas.

Of course we would ask you to pray for Yepci and others who are experiencing difficulties in Venezuela. One other thing to pray for: Due to an error that we made in filling out Luz Maria's application for a U.S. tourist visa, she was not able to get an interview at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas Monday. The next available interview date is September 7, so we will have to rethink our plans for visiting the United States. Either I must travel to the U.S. alone in August or we try to schedule a trip in December which is the next time Luz Maria will have free to travel. We ask the Lord to help us in making the best decision.

Bring in the clowns

Today we brought in the clowns. Actually just one clown but he was enough: Paco, also known as Frank Janssen, president of Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership. More than 50 children were ecstatic as it was the first time most of them had seen a clown in person.

Some of the children confessed that they consider clowns very scary. But since Frank changed into his clown costume after arriving, they knew he wasn´t a real clown, but a man dressed up as a clown. That made him funny not frightening.

Using bird puppets, Paco told them a story about how God created all kinds of birds and loves them all, just like all children are special creations and loved by God. They are even more special because God sent His Son Jesus into the world to suffer and die for them.

Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership is a mission society based in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. You can visit the VLMP Web site at www.vlmp.org and also look it up in the membership listing of the Association of Lutheran Mission Agencies (www.alma-online.org).

Frank is a member of Woodbury Lutheran Church in Woodbury, Minnesota. He was accompanied by Marlin Harris, an associate pastor at Woodbury, and Clint Souligny, facilitator for cross-cultural ministry in Caracas. The three of them were visiting Lutheran churches across Venezuela. It was the first time any of them had visited La Caramuca or Barinas.

Please pray for these men as they continue their journey.