From end to beginning

Luz Maria and I wish all of you a blessed Christmas/Epiphany season and a prosperous New Year!

As always, our December was taken up with preparations for the day designated as that of our Lord’s birth. This time the big twist was that the fourth Sunday of Advent, which is typically the last Sunday before Christmas Eve, fell on December 24. There are a number of ways a congregation might deal with this unusual circumstance. The full-scale treatment would be fourth Sunday of Advent service in the morning, Christmas Eve in the evening, midnight mass at, um, midnight, and perhaps two Christmas services the following morning.

Well, we did not do that. Rather, our morning service on December 24 was last of Advent, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day rolled into one. In contrast to the United States (at least, the United States as I remember it), church attendance here hits rock bottom during Christmas and Easter. Nearly everyone thinks of the two weeks from December 24 to January 6 (Epiphany) as vacation time and either a) takes off for the mountains or the beaches; or b) spends the time visiting family and friends. (The same thing is true of Holy Week.) So we scheduled our Christmas celebration before everyone would be traveling out of town. We pray that this might change and someday we will have to answer the demand for multiple Christmas services! We do have a vacation Bible school planned for the week of Epiphany, when many will have returned.

Christmas dinner.

Hallaca.

Our morning service was followed by Christmas dinner, complete with hallacas, pan de jamón (bread filled with ham and olives) and chicken salad. This is the traditional Venezuelan Christmas meal and the hallaca is the centerpiece. What is the hallaca? It consists of corn dough stuffed with beef, pork, and/or chicken and other ingredients such as raisins and olives (there are regional variations). Hallacas are folded in plantain leaves, tied with strings, and boiled. The unwrapped hallaca looks something like a tamale, but do not say that to a Venezuelan unless you want an argument. As for me, tamales were a favorite food before I came to Venezuela and now I like both tamales and hallacas. Bearing in mind the dispersion of Venezuelans throughout the world, it was big news when the New York Times, for the first time ever, published a recipe for hallacas.

Nativity scene.

Hallacas also were on the menu for our preschool Christmas party on December 11 (because the schools close for holiday break on December 15). There also was an opening devotion for the children and their families, traditional dance by the children, Christmas cards made by the children for their parents, and the display of a Nativity scene made from recycled material by Luz Maria’s daughter, Angi Sarai Santana. Venezuelan nativity scenes are very elaborate and often include an entire landscape surrounding the stable. This one was a towering sculpture that won a prize in a competition at the university where Angi is working toward a master’s degree in early childhood education.

Making hallacas.

More hallacas in Ciudad Guayana

On December 14, we shared a Christmas devotion and dinner, complete with hallacas, with the people of the Lutheran mission in Core 8, a poor neighborhood located within the metropolitan area of Ciudad Guayana on the eastern end of the country. It was the first time that I visited Core 8 since my first tour of Venezuela in 2003. Because of its economic condition, the mission has for years been unable to support a full-time pastor. But the people remain faithful. We were able to meet face to face Ignacio Vera y his wife, Emperatriz, the in-laws of Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and pastor of Cristo es Amor (Christ is Love) Lutheran Church in Barquisimeto (three hours north of Barinas). Emperatriz is a graduate of the deaconess program sponsored the Juan de Frias Institute and Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic. So also are Rubys Cortina and Laura Cedeño, other women of Core 8.

Deaconess students.

Luz Maria with students.

For that is why we were in Ciudad Guayana: To help Pastor Eliezer lead a seminar for women currently enrolled in the deaconess program. The seminar on the Divine Service was held at La Ascensión (Ascension) Lutheran Church. One of the oldest congregations in the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, it grew from the evangelistic work of Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod missionaries in 1964 and its current sanctuary was dedicated in 1972. Luz Maria was a member of La Ascensión when she lived in Ciudad Guayana in the 1990s. Next door to the church sits a large mosque, one of four in Ciudad Guayana, and we often had to continue our activities over daily Muslim calls to prayer. About 15 students attended the seminar, representing congregations in the cities of Ciudad Guayana, Maturin, Caracas and Maracay.

Luz Maria and I traveled to Ciudad Guyana by air, our first flight since 2019. The airline industry in Venezuela is a state of modest and tentative recovery, and ticket promotions make it more economical as well as more secure to cross the country by plane, rather than bus or car. The security advantage was demonstrated for us as, by the grace of God, we avoided the disastrous explosion of a tanker truck on the main highway into Caracas which claimed about 16 lives and damaged 17 vehicles. We are grateful to Marivick Lopez, another graduate of the deaconess program, and her husband, Oscar, both members of La Ascensión, for their hospitality during our stay in Ciudad Guayana.

With Carlos Schumann.

Course in ecclesiology.

On the church and its music

We did travel by car during the final week of November to attend a seminar for Lutheran Church of Venezuela pastors on ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church and its ministry). The course was taught by Carlos Schumann on behalf of Luther Academy. Pastor Schumann, originally of Argentina and later Chile, serves as the director of Luther Academy conferences for LCMS missions and partner churches in Latin America and the Caribbean region. The following week, we completed an online course in church music, especially related to the new Spanish hymnal, Himnario Luterano. This course was led by Gustavo Arturo Maita, who grew up as a member of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin, Venezuela. In 1996, he became the first child in Venezuela to receive a Christian education scholarship from LeadaChild, which has been one of our mission’s sponsoring organizations since 2006. Now Arturo Maita is the pastor of Príncipe de Paz (Prince of Peace) Lutheran Church in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

Prayer for the day of the Circumcision of Jesus

Lord God, heavenly Father, forgive us the sins of past, and breathe into us the Spirit of Your Son that we may serve You in the new year. On this day You placed Your Son under the Law to fulfill all righteousness for us. On this day our Lord was given His name according to Your Word. May we be known by His name. In Him, our Alpha and Omega, we find the courage to begin again. In Him this year and all things are made new because we are forgiven. For His sake, help to live as Your obedient children. Amen.

(Lutheran Book of Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, 1970.)