Perhaps you have heard of the Pan-American Highway, which stretches
from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, on the southernmost
tip of South America. Except, that is, for the 106 kilometers (66
miles) between Yaviza, Panama, and Turbo, Colombia. This is the
notorious
Tapón del Darien, or Darien Gap. No engineer yet has
figured out a cost-effective way of building a paved road through
this rugged, rainy region of marshland and mountains. Adventure
travelers on the ultimate American road trip can have their vehicles
transported from Panama to Colombia by water ferry. But for desperate
people migrating north on foot,
the
Darien Gap is dense and dangerous.
So this year, 76
Venezuelans have disappeared while trying to cross the Darien Gap
and some have been found dead. These stories and similar accounts of
the perils of Venezuelan migrants dominate our local news, in between
success stories of Venezuelans who have become NASA
engineers, Major
League Baseball players, and classical music composers
and conductors.
Because the reality
is, although political and economic conditions have stabilized
somewhat, economic recovery will take years and people
continue to leave Venezuela to escape violence, insecurity and
threats as well as lack of food, medicine and essential services.
Even with a recent increase in the minimum wage, mainly for
government employees and pensioners, most
Venezuelans still do not reach the figure of $1.90 a day set by
the World Bank to consider the way out of extreme poverty. According
to one survey, four
in 10 Venezuelans say they would like to leave the country.
Good news from
Global Lutheran Outreach
Although food and
medicines are available through various outlets, most Venezuelans
still have to decide each month whether to buy food for their
families or needed medical treatment. So we were glad to hear that
after a year of hiatus, Global
Lutheran Outreach (GLO) has resumed its Venezuela
Relief project. The resources are available to resume this work
of mercy for at least one more operation, although is no guarantee
for the future.
During the initial
years (2017-2020), the project was a virtual lifeline because
medicine ceased to be available in Venezuela. Today, medicine is once
again available but at high prices and in dollars! Here’s how the
program works:
Requests for
medicine are coordinated through the Lutheran congregations in
Venezuela.
Recipients can
choose from a list of 18 common medications (up to three medications
per patient). Additionally, volunteers in Santiago, Chile, send a
supply of seven common medications to each church for them to distribute
locally. All medicines are available in Chile without a
prescription.
With your
donations, medicines are purchased in Chile with the cooperation of
a local pharmacy.
Volunteers at
the Santiago mission congregation collate the orders and prepare
each congregation’s shipment. Medicine is shipped using a
globally-known shipping company, and then is unpacked and sorted for
distribution to the beneficiaries.
Pray for Luz
Maria’s mother
God willing, Carmen
Rivero de Henriquez will celebrate her 92nd birthday on September 21.
However, she is in increasingly frail health and cannot live alone.
An assisted living unit, such as the one where my mother has lived
since my sister’s death in February, is out of the question. Most
of Luz Maria’s siblings still live nearby and have been taking
turns caring for Carmen, including Luz Maria’s sister, Rosaura, who
is a registered nurse. While Carmen was staying with us on the last
weekend in August, she awoke at 4 a.m. and fell while trying to get
dressed. She was taken by ambulance to a clinic and diagnosed with a
double-fractured hip. There is a good chance of recovery, but will be
completely confined to her bed for the foreseeable future. This will
mean more frequent trips into town for us, but thanks be to God,
COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed and gasoline rationing has
ceased.
First new
deaconesses consecrated
In July we attended
the graduation of 35 women that Luz Maria had mentored through the
new deaconess program sponsored by the Juan de Frias Theological
Institute and Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican
Republic. On August 13, 2022, Angela Puzzar was consecrated and
installed as deaconess at “La Fortaleza” Lutheran Church in
Maracay, state of Aragua, by Pastor Edgar Coronado. On August 28,
2022, Migdalia Rodriguez was consecrated as deaconess at “Cristo
Rey de Gloria” Lutheran Mission in Maturin, state of Monagas.
Reflection on the
diaspora
On September 1, 2022, the United
Nations reported that the number of Venezuelans that have fled
Venezuela at 6.8 million, more than the 6.6 million Syrians that have
fled Syria’s civil war and matching the 6.8 million Ukrainians
displaced by the Russian invasion. This movement of Venezuelans out
of Venezuela has been called “the Venezuelan exodus” or “the
Venezuelan diaspora”. Both words can be traced to the Holy
Scriptures.
Obviously, there is an entire book of the Old Testament about the
first Exodus. The word, diaspora, derived from the Greek διασπορά,
nowadays broadly refers to the mass dispersion of groups of people
from their historic homelands. Many today may think of the flight of
Jews from Germany in the face of Nazi persecution, but that was not
even the first Jewish diaspora. The word was first used in reference
to the dispersion of the Hebrews, their language and Scriptures,
throughout the Mediterranean world beginning with the Assyrian
conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel around 740 B.C. and
continuing Babylonian conquest of Judah in 584 B.C.
Diaspora
appears in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the
Old Testament, first in Deuteronomy
28:25 as a warning of what will happen to the people of Israel if
they disobey the laws of the covenant. In other passages, forms of
the word generally refer to the “dispersion of the Jews among the
Gentiles” or “the Jews as thus scattered”.
In the New Testament, the word, diaspora, appears in John 7:35 in
the context of the Pharisees misunderstanding the words of Jesus
about His return to the Father to mean that He would go out to the
Jews dispersed among the gentiles and seek disciples from among them
and also the Greeks. That is not what Jesus did, but it is what His
apostles did. In James 1:1 and 1 Peter 1:1, the apostle address the
new Israel, the church, in its diaspora.
The importance of this can be seen in Acts 8, following the
stoning of Stephen, the first martyr, in Chapter 7. “And there
arose on that day a great persecution against the church in
Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of
Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen
and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the
church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women
and committed them to prison.”
It is in the context of persecution, suffering and flight that the
church spread from Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and
ultimately to the far corners of the Roman Empire (and farther, if
tradition about the Apostle Thomas traveling to India is true). Many
times in the last 2,000 years, God has used wars, disasters and
persecution that drive people from their homelands to further the
Great Commission of baptizing and making disciples of all nations.
This is evident in the case of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela,
planted by North American missionaries in the 1950s. The GLO
Venezuela Relief project depends on Venezuelan immigrants in Chile.
Venezuelan immigrants also are being served the Lutheran Church –
Missouri Synod Mission in Lima, Peru, and by the synod’s partner
church in Bolivia, the Christian Evangelical Lutheran Church of
Bolivia. We have Venezuelans as missionary pastors in the Dominican
Republic, Puerto Rico and Chile.
German
Novelli Oliveros, formerly associated with the Lutheran Church of
Venezuela, now serves in the United States as president of the
Hispanic Missionary League and pastor of Grace Lutheran Church,
Milwaukee.
Alfonso
Prada, formerly the pastor of El Salvador Lutheran Church in
Caracas, now is the pastor of St. Martini Lutheran Church in
Milwaukee. (I was a member of Grace Lutheran Church of Oak Creek, on
the far southern edge of the Milwaukee metro area from 1986 to 1995,
and my great-great-grandparents settled north of Milwaukee, near what
is now Concordia University Wisconsin, in the 1840s.) So, although
times are hard for Lutherans in Venezuela, the Lord has used this
crisis to further the proclamation of His Gospel among Latin
Americans.
Oh God, who would have Your church testify of You among all the
nations: Grant to the faithful, amid the trials of this present age,
courage to confess Your name. Enable us by Your Holy Spirit to be
among all those whose who serve You, that the hearts of men may be
changed, the weak strengthened, those who sorrow be comforted, and
peace proclaimed to the abandoned and afflicted. In the name of Your
Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
