Peace to this house and all who dwell here

 

On August 29, I blessed the new house of Adonay and Ludy Tarazona, members of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church, our sister congregation in the city of Barinas. Corpus Christi currently does not have a regular pastor and since I have known the Tarazonas for 21 years, they invited me to do it. Adonay and Ludy first met in Sunday school at Corpus Christi. They have three children who all still live with them.

The Rev. Ross Johnson, a former missionary to Venezuela, points out that the speaking of a blessing, or benediction, conveys the message of God's mercy and grace in private situations as well and the Divine Service. The blessing of a home as a Christian ritual has a long history. It is often done during the Epiphany season, with customs associate with Epiphany, because of Matthew 2:11. "And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary, His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him." As the Gospel lesson for the blessing of Adonay and Ludy's new home, I read Matthew 7:24-29, which is the parable of the house built on rock versus that built on sand.

More medicines from GLO, Lutherans in Chile

On Sunday, August 11, 2024, we distributed the 12th shipment of over-the-counter medications sent as part of Global Lutheran Outreach’s Venezuela Relief Project. During the project’s initial years (2017-2020), many pharmaceutical companies ceased operations in Venezuela, and medicine had almost ceased to be available at local pharmacies. We still live in an inflationary economy with chronic shortages, but medicine is more readily available although at high prices. Many Venezuelans must decide on a monthly basis between medicine and food for the family.

Since 2017, the base of operations for the Venezuela Relief Project has been Divina Providencia (Divine Providence) Lutheran Church in Santiago, Chile. This congregation is affiliated with the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile. Medicines are purchased in Chile with the cooperation of a local pharmacy. Then volunteers at the congregation, many of them Venezuelan immigrants to Chile, collate the orders and prepare them for shipment.We give thanks to God for this ministry and also pray that it might continue. As the Rev. James Tino, director of Global Lutheran Outreach (GLO), explained in a recent newsletter, the congregation rents its facilities for around US $2,000 per month, or about double the average monthly wage in Chile).

The congregation has been struggling to meet rent payments and their current rental contract will soon expire. At this point, a suitable property in Santiago will cost around US $450,000 for a basic building, or US $850,000 for one that can house the church and the pastor's family, while also having space for some income-producing activity.

The Rev. Adrian Ventura is the current pastor of Divina Providencia. I first met him in 2002 when he was the pastor of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturín, Venezuela. In 2004, he began a second term as president of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. He commissioned Luz Maria as a deaconess on the national level in 2004; in 2008 he ordained me as a pastor of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. Since 2018, Pastor Adrian has served as a fellow GLO missionary in Chile.

The lights went out in Venezuela

For years we have to live with local and regional power outages. Typically, lights may go out at any moment of the day for perhaps 10 to 15 minutes, but sometimes for an hour or two. The country's power grid is in a poor state of maintenance and is more than 80 percent depended on a single power station. The Guri reservoir and hydroelectric facility was built on the Caroni River, near what had been the mouth of the Guri River and the village of Guri. The first stage of the facility was completed in 1969 and was designed to be enlarged in two additional stages, whose scheduling would be determined by national power needs. However, electrical demand in Venezuela grew so fast that stage two, begun in 1976, encompassed both later stages, and final work was completed in 1986. In its day the Guri power station was a marvel of engineering, but has had difficulty meeting the continually growing demand for electricity.