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