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!