Finally Father's Day and rites of passage

On July 4, 2024, the last day of preschool for the 2023/2024, we celebrated a belated Father’s Day party with the children and their families. Also we highlighted the different regions of Venezuela with examples of their cuisine, music and dance. The opening devotional text for our July 4 celebration was the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). The father in the parable represents God the Father, the prodigal son represents the rebel whose rejection of God is obvious, while the eldest son represents those who think they have earned God’s favor by good works. God's forgiveness is granted instantly and fully, without restriction, and with exuberant joy, to the penitent sinner. He also desires the repentance and salvation of the self-righteous. When God reveals himself to us as our heavenly Father, it is a revelation of His love and mercy. This should be considered a model for earthly parents. "And what man is there among you, to whom if his son asks for bread, he will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will give him a snake? If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children "How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:9-11). Also, Ephesians 6:4, “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” 

A service of thanksgiving

On July 7, the sixth Sunday after Trinity, we gave thanks for the promotion of all students in the community’s preschools, elementary school and high school. Visitors that Sunday included teachers, parents and children from Rafael Urdaneta State Initial Education Center. with teaching staff, and boys and girls. They were invited by Emmanuel David Sánchez, who with his classmates will begin first grade in September. Emmanuel, Luz Maria’s grandson, was baptized in our mission on June 5, 2018, and attended our preschool until he was three years old. The last graduation ceremony in our preschool was in 2020. The age range for our preschool had been six to six years (the year for starting first grade), but it became clear there were no early education programs in the area for children under three years of age, so we changed our age range to two to three years. The sermon text was Psalm 19:7-10. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yes, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”

 In addition to Emmanuel, we rejoiced with Diana Carolina Torres, who will begin her first year of high school in September. Diana was baptized in our mission on August 1, 2017, and received her first communion on October 31, 2021. Two of Luz Maria’s afterschool tutoring students, Reiner Ortega and Erick Jiménez, also will start high school in the coming school year. Emmanuel, Diana Reiner and Erick are past recipients of scholarships to continue their education from LeadaChild, one of our sponsoring organizations. 

Another afterschool student, Mateo Córdoba, will begin first grade. We were pleasantly surprised when Daiyimar Aranguren, a former preschool student, sent us a photo of herself studying medicine at a university in Barinas.

Our garden for children

On November 6, we kicked off Early Education Week with the service of morning prayer for our preschool students, their families, teachers and personnel of Aquiles Nazoa National Education Center. In my meditation on 2 Timothy 3:14-16, I explained that the Lutheran Reformation placed a great emphasis on education, that all might learn to read the Holy Scriptures for themselves. And I mentioned that Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) who coined the term “kindergarten” in 1837 and pioneered the modern concept of education prior to first grade, was the son of a Lutheran pastor.

The first institutions for small children that earlier appeared in Holland, Germany, and England had been welfare nursery schools or day-care centers intended merely for looking after children while parents worked. Froebel stood for providing, as he put it, “a school for the psychological training of little children by means of play and occupations.” The kindergarten plan to meet the educational needs of children between the ages of four and six or seven through the agency of play gained widespread acceptance. During the 25 years following Froebel’s death in 1852, kindergartens were established in leading cities of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Japan, Switzerland, and the United States. The first instances of early childhood education were established in several Latin American countries around 1850. European educators came to Latin America and introduced the kinds of kindergartens that were emerging in Europe.

The word kindergarten may be translated as a garden for children. A plot of land was an important of Froebel’s original idea, as a place where children could interact with nature. Such has also been the case with our mission preschool, where the children always have had the opportunity to plant a garden and observe the animals that wander our grounds, including chickens, songbirds, iguanas and at least one very shy squirrel.

Yusmelvis and Anyi.

Winning entry in science fair

Two of our youth, Anyi Garrido and Yusmelvis Salas, placed first in a local science project competition representing their liceo, or high school. Their topic was the toxic effects on the human skin of substances that people may encounter in nature or intentionally apply to themselves. They will take their presentation to state competition in the city of Barinas. Anyi and Yusmelvis both are communicant members of our mission.

Anyi Santana, Luz Maria’s daughter and our chief preschool teacher, is helping an older group of students, which includes her son, Eduar, in developing the thesis project that they need to gain their diplomas. Eduar also is a communicant member of our mission.

Holy days and holidays

“All be safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin” is a line from Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”, a classic Thanksgiving Day hymn. The first verse gives thanks to God for a bountiful fall harvest, which is entirely appropriate for farming communities throughout the earth’s so-called temperate zones. The hymn calls the church on earth to its mission (“All the world is God's own field, fruit as praise to God we yield”) before closing with a prayer that the final harvest of souls at His Second Coming would happen soon. This dovetails with the end-times theme of the last three Sundays of the historic church year.

Philippians 2:5-11.

But what about tropical Venezuela, where there is no season in which the planting and harvesting of food crops cannot take place? There is typically little rainfall for six months of the year (December through May), but with access to irrigation, crop production can continue. This may be why Venezuela does not have a fall harvest festival as a national holiday.

But the fact that Venezuelans do not celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November does not stop merchants here from advertising “Black Friday” discounts. As in the USA, these discounts are used to encourage people to begin Christmas shopping early. At least in the English-speaking world, Black Friday once meant the same as Good Friday, the day on which Jesus died on the cross. Here it’s always “Viernes Santo” or Holy Friday. Nevertheless, even as the secular world appropriates Christian symbols for its own ends and its own calendar, Christians may use secular “holy days” to do the Lord’s work.

I am thinking of Giving Tuesday, a concept created in 2012, apparently on the assumption that if Black Friday puts people in spending mode, maybe they will be moved to donate to nonprofit organizations the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The date this years is November 28, which means that if you want to give on Giving Tuesday, or any time before November 30, you still have the opportunity to donate to Global Lutheran Outreach and have the value of your gift multiplied by three. Please visit our Team South America page to learn more.

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). As the focus of our worship shifts from the Lord’s return back to His Nativity, we would like to wish all of you a blessed Advent!

Crossing a threshold

On Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, we cut the ribbon and opened the doors of our new learning center, where preschool classes will now be held. There were more than 50 people in attendance, including members of the Barrio Las Lomas common council and representatives of SENIFA, the state's child welfare agency. We began by raising the national flag and singing the Venezuelan national anthem outside the building. After the ribbon-cutting, I led an opening service, which was followed by speeches, pŕizes and awards for select people, then food and entertainment for everyone.

The children had a wonderful time, and many adults were visibly moved by the event. Why? We have had the support of the surrounding community for more than a decade. There is no other institution here that offers Christian education, and we have been here long enough for people to see tangilble results of this. The majority of young people in the community drop out of school after sixth grade (the minimum level of attendance required by law) and many drift into lives of low-paying jobs or unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse, and petty crime. Children who have attended our preschool have done well in elementary school. Some have become the first in their families to finish high school and go on to the local university.

But even more important than their healthy physical and intellectual development is their spiritual journey. Many of the young people who graduated from our preschool have been baptized, confirmed and are now communicant members of our mission. During the last full week of August 2016, we for the first time sent a group of young people to the Lutheran Church of Venezuela's national youth gathering. All but one have been confirmed, yet they gathered for several weeks before the youth gathering for a refresher course on the means of grace, for that was the theme of the event. One example of our group is Gianny Vanesa Roa, who has was involved in both Sunday worship and the preschool since she was a small girl,


El crecimiento de Banesa Roa from David Ernst on Vimeo.

In the opening service, I read Psalm 111:10 and emphasized it as one principle of our educational program.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have good understanding. His praise endures forever!"

Education is more than the acquisition of knowledge; good judgment depends the formation of character, which in turn depends on the recognition and reverence for God as the source of all our blessings in life. Reverence for the Lord is an outgrowth of faith.

But there is even more to it than that. I also read 1 Corinthians 1:23-25.

"But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,  but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Where is faith and reverence for God to be found? God cannot be comprehended by intellectual speculation. The world, by its own wisdom, could not find the way to the knowledge of God, therefore it pleased God to lead human to Himself beings by a way which is ridiculed by those who consider themselves wise, but are foolish for relying on their own reason and strength. In Christ crucified for the sins of the world. By His sacrifice and the power of the Holy Spirit we receive the power to live as sons and daughters of God, full of hope for this world and the next.

Our mission has demonstrated this. But the people were moved because now we have another step forward in faith through the construction of a new building dedicated to Christian education, prayer and worship. There is a saying that, "A church is not a building, it's people." That is true, but for the people who gather to hear the preaching of God's Word in its purity and receive the sacraments in faith as the Lord instituted them, it is a great blessing to have a building. Especially if it is a building that looks like what people picture in their minds as a house of prayer, rather than an office building or storefront.

Even more than that, in the context of the current political and economic crisis in Venezuela, our construction project has shown our commitment to the future of our community and the country. It is something like the story of Noah's ark, but turned upside-down. The storm already is upon us, while others have fled to higher ground, we have built this refuge in the middle of the tempest in the hope that the rains will cease.

We have been able to do this by God's grace and the prayers and financial support of many caring Christians outside our community. Please continue to pray for us and for Venezuela, and consider donating toward our future today.