Rites of passage

July 2022 was a time of transitions for us. We closed our first school of in-person classes since 2020 and saw two former preschool students graduate from high school. Luz Maria and I took our first road trip together since 2019 for the graduation of 35 women who Luz Maria mentored for three years as deaconesses.

We were able to reopen the preschool in October 2021 under a number of restrictions. Our 25 students were split into four groups of five, each one attending two days a week. Strict sanitary procedures were required, including wearing of masks. Getting two- to three-year-old children to wear masks at all times was as easy as you might expect. This situation lasted through the fall, but after the Christmas/New Year break, all of the children were able to gather in one group each day. On July 6, we celebrated the end of the 2021/2022 school year with the children and their parents.

Our high school graduates were Yaneth Torres and Daiyamar Aranguran. Daiyamar attended our preschool until 2010, when she graduated to Virginia de Contreras Elementary School. Yaneth not only attended our preschool, but was one of the first children baptized at our mission, was later confirmed and remains a communicant member. She graduated third in her class. Yaneth’s younger sister, Diana, also attended our preschool, was baptized at our mission, and on October 31, 2021, became a communicant member.

The Torres sisters both received scholarships to continue their education from LeadaChild, an Olathe, Kansas-based mission society which promotes Christian education around the world. LeadaChild has supported children in our mission since 2006.

Also, Anyi Garrido, Luz Maria’s granddaughter, graduated from Virginia de Contreras and will begin high school this fall.

Deaconess formation at the end of a long road

Luz Maria and I set out across the country of Venezuela on July 7, from La Caramuca, which is closer to the Colombian border than to the capital city of Caracas, to Maturin in Monagas state, which is a nearly equal distance to the east of Caracas. We stayed the night in Caracas, then arrived in Maturin for the beginning of a final seminar for the women who had been studying to become deaconesses for three years. Together with Pastor Ángel Eliezer Montoya, director of the Juan de Frías Theological Institute, Luz Maria had guided these women in their studies, mostly online during the COVID-19 crisis. This was despite frequent lapses in electrical power and Internet service. Their graduation service was on Friday, July 22, at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, with preaching by Pastor Sergio Fritzler of Seminario Concordia El Reformador, the Dominican Republic.

The diaconate, or “helping ministry” has its origin in the ancient church. In Acts 6 we find the apostles delegating tasks essential to the life of the church, but not to the pastoral office, to trusted laypeople. The seven men mentioned in that chapter are the first to be called “deacons”, a word which means servant. In Romans 16:1-2, St. Paul describes Phoebe of Cenchrea as a “deacon”. The word is masculine in form, but since it refers to a woman, some English translations render it as “deaconess”. Phoebe is the only woman to explicitly receive this designation, but we read of other women who held responsible positions of service in the New Testament church, including Dorcas (Acts 9:39-41), Lydia (Acts 16:14, 40) and Priscilla (Acts 18:2,18,26).

In later centuries of the church, both deacon and deaconess became formal titles. The earliest reference to deaconesses outside of the New Testament is the infamous letter by Pliny the Younger, a Roman magistrate of the second century A.D., to the Emperor Trajan. In his effort to investigate the new Christian religion, Pliny mentions that he had two deaconesses tortured to find out what it was really about, but they would give no answers that satisfied Pliny. After the end of Roman persecution in the early fourth century, deaconesses would play an important role in assisting pastors and bishops. Among the classics of post-apostolic Christian literature are the 17 letters that John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople from the late fourth to early fifth centuries, wrote from exile to his chief deaconess, Olympias. The letters typically begin in this way: “To the most reverend and divinely favored deaconess Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the Lord.”

While deaconesses were excluded from the pastoral office of public preaching and administration of the sacraments, their works of mercy and spiritual were was considered equal with the male diaconate. The diaconate was at first a lay ministry, but as the church developed more of a hierarchy, male deacons were elevated from the equivalent of modern lay elders to the lowest rank of the ordained clergy. The role of deaconesses was taken over by nuns, and use of the word eventually stopped.

But as early as the tenth century there flourished in Germany and Belgium the Beguine Sisterhoods, founded on the principle of fellowship and consisting of widows and unmarried girls who, without vowing perpetual chastity, led lives of prayer, meditation, and charitable ministrations. These sisters cared for orphans and the aged, went out to nurse the sick, to attend deathbeds.

The modern deaconess movement began in Kaiserswerth, Germany, in 1836, revived by Theodore Fliedner, a Lutheran pastor. Fliedner opened a hospital and a deaconess motherhouse. The Kaiserswerth-based institution of also purchased and staffed hospitals, homes, orphanages, and schools in other parts of Germany and around the world.

In 1853, Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe opened a school for deaconesses in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, on stricter Lutheran principles. Loehe’s school had a strong impact on deaconess programs within the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS).

Laying groundwork in Venezuela

Before the 2000s, the Lutheran Church of Venezuela’s Juan de Frias Theological Institute did not offer a deaconess program distinct from its training of both male and female lay leaders. Two women who achieved the highest level of theological training offered by the institute, Luz Maria and Elsy Valladares de Machado, eventually were given the title “deaconess” by the national church and named co-coordinators of a national deaconess program.

From 2002 to 2003, Mireya Johnson, who received her deaconess certificate is from Concordia University Chicago, and an MA in Religious Studies from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, laid the groundwork for a deaconess program in Venezuela. Her husband, Dr. Ross Johnson, now director of LCMS Disaster Response and another Fort Wayne graduate, served his vicarage at La Fortaleza Lutheran Church in Maracay, Venezuela, during that time. Thanks to Mireya’s hard work and example, many young women in Maracay were moved to consider becoming deaconesses.

Deaconess Rosie Gilbert Adle in 2007 served her deaconess internship in Venezuela. She had earned a BA in Spanish from Valparaiso University in Indiana in 2003, and graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 2006 with an MA in deaconess studies and systematic theology. She worked with Luz Maria, Elsy and Pastor Ted Krey, now region director for Latin America and the Caribbean for LCMS World Missions, on a training program for deaconesses in Venezuela.

In May, 2009, Luz Maria and Elsy traveled to Seminario Concordia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the first-ever conference of deaconesses throughout Latin America. In 2016, Luz Maria and I traveled with Elsy, Pastor Mendoza and his wife, Ginnatriz, to the second conference of Latin American deaconesses at the newly established Seminario Concordia El Reformador in the Dominican Republic. Although Venezuelan by birth, Ginnatriz was trained as a deaconess at the Buenos Aires seminary.

Seminario Concordia El Reformador has committed a great deal of resources to this program. Congratulations also are in order for deaconesses Danelle Putnam and Caitlin Ramírez, who provided online instruction from the Dominican Republic.

Meaningful memorabilia

Of the women who completed the coursework, 31 were able to attend the graduation ceremony in Maturín and four were recognized despite their absence. Those present received their certificate and several gifts, including a copy of “Un Siglo de Consagración”, collection of sermons preached at the consecration or installation of deaconesses from 1924 to 2017. The book is the excellent work of Deaconess Cheryl Dorothy Naumann from the Dominican Republic, filled with the sermons of well-known preachers in the history of the Missouri Synod. However, the most recent entries have special meaning for Luz María and me. The 30th sermon was preached on Matthew 25:31-46, October 3, 2015, by Pastor Bruce Keseman at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Freeburg, Illinois, on the occasion of the commissioning of Deaconess Dorothy E.A.C. Glenn Nauman. This congregation is my mother's church and has faithfully supported our mission in La Caramuca. Pastor Keseman preached at my father's funeral in 2000 and at the funeral of my sister, Deborah, on February 26, 2022. The thirty-first sermon was preached by Pastor Theodore Krey on October 1, 2017 at the “Concordia” Lutheran Church in Palmar Arriba, the Dominican Republic, for the consecration of deaconesses Confesora Cabrera, Xiomara Cruz Pería, Carmen Helena de Santos and Elizabeth Hernández Toribio. Pastor Krey officiated the wedding of Luz María and I, on July 25, 2004, at the “La Fortaleza” Lutheran Church, in Maracay, Edo. Aragua, Venezuela. He was also one of the pastors who laid hands on me at my ordination, on December 13, 2008, in the “El Salvador” Lutheran Church, Caracas, Venezuela. Prior to my ordination, Pastor Krey preached and administered the sacraments at La Epiphany Lutheran Mission in La Caramuca.

Introduction to new Spanish hymnal

While Luz Maria and the other women were summing up what they had learned over the last three years, Pastor Fritzler was giving me and the other pastors of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela an introduction to Himnario Luterano, the new Spanish hymnal which is the fruit of 14 years of work by churches throughout Latin America with quia subscription to the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1530. This really deserves a newsletter to itself, but here are some preliminary observations:

• Himnario Luterano looks a lot like the Lutheran Service Book: same typography, illustrations, organizational structure and numbering format. Unlike the LSB, it combines many more liturgical and devotional resources into just one book. It is intended as a multi-use volume for the home as well as public worship.

• Why even a printed volume? I will not now discuss why I do not think electronic screens belong in the sanctuary in principle, but only note with the publishers of the hymnal that only about 20 percent of Lutheran congregations in Latin America even have access to screens. Certainly in La Caramuca, our Sunday service cannot depend on a constant flow of electricity.

• The musical notation is written for guitar and piano. There are many who say the pipe organ is the best instrument to accompany congregational song, but pipe organs are expensive here, and it is difficult to find people who know how to play, maintain and repair them.

One too many potholes

Our journey to Maturín was without incident. However, we discovered that the roads in eastern Venezuela are in worse condition than the west, and we failed to avoid one to many potholes. A shock absorber blew out while we were only an hour’s drive west of Caracas. Thanks be to God, we were able to find a tow truck that would take us into the city and one of the women riding with us had a son who is a mechanic.

Our mission-mobile is a Volkswagen Parati Crossover, a station wagon (or “small SUV”, if you will) that was sold in North America as the VW Fox Wagon. It is named after Paraty, a city on the southern coast of Rio de Janeiro state. Volkwagen is the largest auto manufacturer in Brazil. Autoweek thinks the Parati is not up to U.S. standards, but it works for us.

Deaconesses to gather in the Dominican Republic

English: Dominican Republic (orthographic projection). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Next week deaconess students from Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela will travel to the Dominican Republic for a three-day course on the letters of St. Paul. Deaconess Ginnatriz Mendoza will teach the course. She is the wife of Ángel Eliezer Mendoza, pastor of Nueva Vida (New Life) Lutheran mission in Yaritagua, the capital of the Peña Municipality of Venezuela's state of Yaracuy. She is a native of Argentina and trained as a deaconess at Concordia Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina, where her husband, a Venezuelan, recently graduated. They met while he was studying at the seminary.

Luz Maria and I also will travel to the Dominican Republic. Luz Maria trained as a deaconess by taking theological courses by extension and has worked with the Lutheran Church of Venezuela to train more deaconesses. 

Some may ask, what is a deaconess? One might also ask, what is a deacon? The two words have a ong history within the church. Both are derived from the Greek work, διάκονος (diakonos), which in a broad sense means "servant" or "one who runs an errand". The apostle Paul refers to himself as a "deacon" or servant of Jesus Christ in Colossians 1:23. However, the word also is used in the New Testament in a special sense to mean trusted laity in positions of responsibility. The first example of this is found in Acts, chapter six, where the Apostle delegated the oversight of the distribution of food to the widows to seven men "of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom."

Unlike the pastoral office of public preaching, teaching and administration of the sacraments, the office of "deacon" was not created by God's command. The apostles did not receive a divine order in a vision or a dream, but used their own judgement. This is similar to what happened in Exodus 18 when Moses, exhausted after trying to deal with all of the Israelites' problems himself, took the advice of his father-in-law and appointed "able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe" as his helpers.

Because the responsibilities of the "diaconate" or auxiliary offices are not fixed by divine mandate, they can change according to the needs of the local church. There is evidence within the New Testament that women as well as men were able to serve in auxiliary offices within the early church. The primary passage is Romans 16:1-2, in which St. Paul refers to a woman named Phoebe as a  "servant of the church at Cenchreae" The word translated "servant" is διάκονον, the feminine form of  διάκονος. 

Other women in the New Testament, while not specifically named as deaconesses, are described as devoting themselves to the service of the church. Outstanding examples are Lydia, a woman who who housed many Christians in her home; Priscilla, who with her husband, Aquila, helped Apollos to teach more accurately the way of God; and Dorcas who made clothes for the needy.

Some interpreters argue that the mention of "women" in 1 Timothy 3:8-13 means the wives of deacons. However, in verses 1-7, Paul speaks of the requirements to be a bishop (pastor) without mentioning their wives, ( only that a bishop must be the husband of only one wife). On the other hand, Paul makes a parallel list of requirements for deacons and "women". The word, γυναῖκας, "gunaikas" could mean a woman of any age or marital status, and thus could mean deaconesses. This was the interpretation of John Chrysostom (347-407), a great theologian of the early church.

An early reference to deaconesses outside the Holy Scriptures is found in a letter written to the Emperor Trajan by the Roman magistrate, Pliny the Younger, in the second century A.D.He mentions torturing two deaconesses to find out more about what Christians really believed.

The office of deaconess was formally recognized at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, and the Apostolic Constitutions, a Christian work of the fourth century mentions deaconess as an official position in the church. The work of the deaconess work in the post-apostolic church was to help the poor and sick; instruct catechumens; help in the baptism of women; and attend to the needs of woman in circumstances where a male deacon did not have access or could not be sent.

After the fifth century A.D., however, the office of deaconess was discontinued. As the church as an institution became more powerful within late Roman and early medieval society, it became more hierarchical in structure. The word "deacon" came to mean a rank within the clergy, not a lay office. Thus, deacons could not have female counterparts. The work performed by deaconesses did not disappear, but was taken over by orders of nuns. 

The modern revival of the office of deaconess began when Theodor Fliedner, a Lutheran pastor, and his wife, Friedericke Munster, opened the first modern Lutheran deaconess mother house in Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. Germany, in 1836. Fliedner saw a pressing need, demand for nurses with religious formation to attend the wounded as the Napoleonic Wars had created devastation and great misery.  By 1864, year of his death, some 1,600 women had received training as deaconesses in Kaiserswerth. One of them was Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse of the Crimean War.

In the village of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872) also became interested in the restoration of the office of deaconess. He established a school for deaconesses in 1849, where women trained to care for the sick, teach school, and work in other fields of service to the church.

Rosie Adle with Luz Maria and Elsy Valladares
de Machado in 2007.

The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod began training deaconesses in 1919 and today both Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and Concordia Theological Seminary, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, provide deaconess training program. 

Deaconess Rosie Adle, an instructor at the Fort Wayne seminary, worked in Venezuela to recruit and train deaconesses in 2007. She explained the role of the deaconess in a recent Issues Etc. interview.

Related articles

• Disaster Response Conference in South America for Pastors and Seminarians (blogs.lcms.org)

Deaconess program takes off with Zoom

 

On September 25, 2020, Deaconess Danelle Putnam, coordinator of the deaconess program, presented a study of the Gospel according to Luke.
at Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic. Luz Maria will work with Pastor Ángel Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, in facilitating the expansion of the program in Venezuela by mentoring about 50 women.

Danelle Putnam

Severe travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed Internet videoconferencing to the fore as a replacement for cancelled events, regular meetings (including worship services) and social contacts. The technology already had seen considerable development since 2003, when the now venerable Skype software appeared. Skype set worldwide usage records throughout the 2010s, and in March 2020 posted a 70 percent increase in the number of daily users from the previous month, because of the response to the pandemic.

But Skype is not the only videoconferencing alternative. There is both Facebook and Google voice chat. However, the one that has rapidly advanced to the front of the pack, based on ease of use and innovative features, is the aptly named Zoom software. Introduced in 2013, Zoom software also saw a significant global increase in usage following the introduction of COVID-19 quarantine measures.

Luz Maria and I were introduced to Zoom through our affiliation with Global Lutheran Outreach two years ago. Since then, we have used the software for online meetings with other organizations, including LeadaChild last month.

With Rosie and Elsy.

In Lutheran tradition, deaconesses are women dedicated to the service of the church in various ways with the theological formation to provide as spiritual as well as physical comfort to suffering and needy people. Because of their level of theological study and record of service, Luz Maria and Elsy Valladares de Machado of Caracas were the first women formally recognized as deaconesses by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in 2007. That same year they helped Deaconess Rosie Adle of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, conduct a seminar for other women seeking to become deaconesses. Luz Maria and Elsy traveled to a Latin American Deaconess conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2009, sponsored by Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod World Missions.

In the Dominican Republic.

In 2016, Luz Maria and I traveled to the Dominican Republic for the kickoff of the Concordia El Reformador deaconess program. Deaconess students from Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela attended a three-day course on the letters of St. Paul. Deaconess Ginnatriz de Mendoza, Pastor Ángel Eliezer’s wife, taught the course. She trained as a deaconess at Concordia Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina, where her husband graduated. The Dominican seminary’s program now involves 140 women in five countries.

Still stones in the road

But the deaconess program in Venezuela has faced the increasing risks and uncertainty of travel to, from and within the country, even before the pandemic. DSL and fiber-optic lines are hard to obtain and more people have to rely on wireless Internet. But wireless Internet connections in Venezuela are among the slowest and most unstable in Latin America.

For several years we have relied on 4G wireless Internet service from Movistar, a cellphone company. This worked well in the beginning, especially because during the power blackouts, the wireless service would last up to six hours after the power went down (in comparsion, the DSL line we use to have would go down as soon as the electricity. Then DSL service disappeared altogether).

However, with the imposition of COVID-19 restrictions, Movistar's data load tripled in one month and has deteriorated accordingly. The main reason why Movistar's data load tripled, I believe, is because all schools, from preschool to university level, were closed for the remainder of the school year and students were directed to complete their studies online. The situation is unlikely to improve because the schools have been opened "online" for the new school year and will not physically open their doors until January.

Now we only have service for an hour and a half after the power goes down, which it does every day for at least four hours. Even when we have the signal, transmission often becomes very slow, which makes videoconferencing difficult.
Over the past two weeks, however we have been unable to participate in live Zoom conferences and have had to listen to the recorded sessions instead. We are not the only ones with this problem.

For some time we have investigated the possibility of a direct uplink to the Internet though satellite antenna. We know that there are people here who have this service, but it has proven difficult to find someone whil will install the equipment for us. We currenlty are working on a lead that just might accomplish the installation within a week or two.

Raise the song of harvest home!

Meanwhile, 30% of Venezuelan children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition. The coronavirus pandemic has aggravated the hunger problem in many countries and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned that the crisis could lead to an increase from 83 million to 132 million in the number of malnourished people in the world in 2020. One of the countries most seriously affected is Venezuela. But, thanks be to God, we are able to continue the distribution of food from our small plot of land. Currently we are sharing eggs from our chicken coop, cassava and plantains (alternatives to potatoes in Venezuela), auyama (giant squash) and peppers.

Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin;
God our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

The Lutheran Hymnal 574

Henry Alford, 1844 

St. George, George J. Elvey, 1853  

Isaiah 9:3

Sharing the peace anew

During the COVID-19 crisis in Venezuela, we temporarily changed our practice of “sharing the peace”. People stood at a distance from each other, waved and said, “The peace of the Lord be with you.” This may sound how it’s typically done in North American congregations, but in the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, the sharing of the peace meant shaking hands, embracing and perhaps a kiss on the cheek for everyone present. Now that the panic has passed and most restrictions lifted, we have returned to the previous custom.

The sharing of the peace is an act of reconciliation that serves as a transition between the service of the Word and the service of the Lord’s Supper in the liturgy. It is not to be understood as a moment of informality in which everyone shares a sociable greeting. United in holy Baptism, confession and abolution of sins, the congregation prays for unity in the church and just peace in the world, and. Then the members of the congregation offer forgiveness and reconciliation to one another before approaching the altar for holy Communion.

The sharing of the peace fulfills the admonition to “greet one another with a holy kiss” repeated in Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12: and 1 Thessalonians 5:26, and “Greet one another with a kiss of love” (1 Peter 5:26). It was the widespread custom in the ancient Mediterranean world for men and women to greet each other with a kiss. (Judas, of course, betrayed Jesus with a kiss.) As the epistles from the beginning were read in the context of public worship, the sharing of the peace also was incorporated in to the liturgy (although the form may have changed from a kiss to a handshake over the centuries), after prayer and before the sacrament, on the basis of Matthew 5:23-24: “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you; Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

The word translated as “gift” is δῶρον (dóron) which also means “offering” or “sacrifice”. The sacrament of the altar is sacrificial in this sense: We present ourselves as living sacrifices in gratitude for the Lord’s gift of His body and blood. That the early church understood both the sharing of the peace and the sacrament in this way is affirmed in the Didache, an early Christian catechism, the sermons of St. Augustine and other post-apostolic writings.

Nury de Milian.

Looking forward with LeadaChild

Although the COVID-19 panic is over, the country continues to feel the impact of school closures due to the pandemic and subsequent threats of teacher’s strikes. Because of low pay and poor working conditions,, 68,000 teachers from elementary, middle and high schools left the country. between 2018 and 202. In January 2023, hundreds of Venezuelan teachers took to the streets to demand higher wages and the restoration of collective bargaining rights, including social and medical insurance. Because of these problems, many schools in the last academic year, were open for classes only two to three days per week.

Victoria and Victor.

We have been able to keep our preschool open thanks to donations from groups and individuals in the United States, such as LeadaChild, a mission society based in Olathe, Kansas. Since 2006, LeadaChild has provided scholarships that have enabled children of our mission not only to remain in our preschool, but also to advance to the elementary school and high school in La Caramuca. LeadaChild also has supplemented the salaries of our teachers. In anticipation of the new school year, which begins October 2, we participated in a September 20 videoconference with Nury de Milian, director of Latin American projects for LeadaChild. Together with the coordinators of other Christian educational projects that LeadaChild supports in Venezuela, we were able to talk with her about our successes and the challenges that we face because of the economic crisis and the growing influence of “gender ideology”. This summer many Lutheran Church of Venezuela congregations sponsored a vacation Bible school program emphasizing Biblical teachings on marriage, family and sexuality.

We have 22 children enrolled in our preschool for the 2023/2024 school year. Two of them from last year visited us this week, Victoria Sofía and her younger brother, Victor. Victoria, who is hearing-impaired, was one of our special needs students. Victor will be attending the preschool again this year.

Luz Maria already has started her afterschool tutoring with five students. We have 15 young people attending our youth Bible study on Sunday afternoon. They have been memorizing the books of the Old Testament and looking for examples of both Law and Gospel in the Old Testament. Before begnning the New Testament, we had a study focused on the doctrine of justification and how it relates to both Law and Gospel.

On the evening of September 21, we met in videoconference with representatives of Concordia El Reformador Seminary, pastors and deaconess students from across Latin America as we began the online course, “Diaconal Practice 2”. The seminary has 84 women in the entire region of Latin America and the Caribbean enrolled in the new fall cohort of its deaconess training program, 25 of them from Venezuela. The three-year program includes in-person intensive courses, online classes, readings, projects, exams and practical application of the classroom material with supervision and guidance from the local pastor and deaconess mentor in the home country. Luz Maria is a deaconess mentor for Venezuela. Also directing the program in Venezuela are Pastor Eliezer Ángel Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frías Theological Institute; Ginnatriz, his wife who is also a deaconess; and deaconess Elsy Valladares de Machado.

Deaconess Danelle Putnam.

Each year of the diaconal practicum has a different focus and builds on classroom learning and the experiences that the student has had in her courses each year. Diaconal practice includes elements of the three pillars of service diaconal: teaching of faith, spiritual care and works of mercy. Diaconal Practice 2 focuses on spiritual care and the teaching of the Christian faith. An important part of diaconal practice is the development of the working relationship between the future deaconess and her pastor, so the videoconference with pastors and students was preceded by one with pastors the week before.

Merry Michaelmas!

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, also known as Michaelmas, is celebrated on September 29. Philip Melanchthon wrote a hymn for the day that is still sung in Lutheran churches: "Lord God, We All to Thee Give Praise". St. Michael’s Lutheran Church of Bloomington, Minnesota, was my sending church when I first arrived in Venezuela as a volunteer and still supports our mission. St. Michael was the guardian angel of Israel in the Old Testament, and now is understood as the protector of the new Israel, Christ’s church. Although we believe that both angels and the church triumphant pray for the church on earth (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXI), the souls of the departed do not communicate with us directly and the holy angels only do and say what God directs of them. So we do not invoke them as mediators, for there is only the one Mediator between God and men, Jesus.

“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” Daniel 12:1-3

Oh everlasting God, who has ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order, mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve you in heaven, so by your divine appointment may they help and defend us on earth. Amen.

My wife, the deaconess

"I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well." Romans 16:1-2

The word translated as servant in the verse above is the Greek word diakonos, from which is derived deacon and deaconess. The Apostle Paul refers to himself and Timothy as "deacons" or servants of Jesus Christ in Philippians 1:11. However, Acts 6 records the establishment of the diaconate as a special ministry of service within the Church, distinct from the pastoral ministry and intended to allow the apostles to concentrate on preaching and prayer. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was a deacon. The requirements to serve in this ministry are described in Paul's first letter to Timothy, chapter 3.

Romans 16:1-2 is regarded as evidence that women served in this ministry in the early Church. In addition to this Scriptural reference, Christian deaconesses are mentioned by Pliny the Younger in a early second-century letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan.

The office of deaconess was formally recognized at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. The responsibilities of deaconesses in the post-apostolic to medieval periods included assisting in the baptism of adult women, leading prayer services for women, instruction of catechumens, caring for the sick, and, in some areas, administering the sacrament of Holy Communion to women who were ill, to nuns, and to young children when a pastor was not available.

The female diakonate had gradually disappeared as a distinct ministry within Western Christendom by the 6th Century and within the Eastern Orthodox Church by the 11th Century. However, interest was renewed as a spiritual revival and rapid social change swept Europe and the United States in the 19th Century, prompting women to seek ways of dedicating themselves to the Lord's service. Theodor Fliedner and his wife, Friedericke Munster, opened the first Lutheran deaconess motherhouse in Kaiserwerth on the Rhine in 1836. Fifty years later, there were over 5,000 deaconesses in Europe.

Within the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, deaconesses have served in a variety of roles since the 1830s. In 1919, the Lutheran Deaconess Association was formed and assumed responsibility for the formation of deaconesses wishing to serve in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Deaconesses were trained at the Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they received training as nurses. Later, in 1943, the program moved
to Valparaiso University.

As time went on, the training of deaconesses evolved and deaconesses no longer needed to be trained as nurses or social workers. Those wanting to serve in parish settings were trained in spiritual care and were educated in the scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, so they could teach and assist the pastors by providing both spiritual and human care to those in need. Both LCMS seminaries (Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne) offer a master’s degree-level deaconess track for women with undergraduate "pre-deaconess" courses offered at universities within the LCMS "Concordia" system.

So why am I telling you this? Because the Lutheran Church of Venezuela has a similar training program for deaconesses. In fact, it is the largest deaconess program of any of the LCMS partner-churches in Latin America. Currently there are 65 women studying to be deaconesses through extension courses offered by the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and nine Venezuelan women actively serving as deaconesses. Much of the rapid development of this program is due to the work of Fort Wayne deaconess-missionaries Mireya Johnson and Rosie Gilbert, who although no longer serving in Venezuela, remain consultants to the program.

The two most highly trained deaconesses within the Lutheran Church of Venezuela are my wife, Luz Maria, and her friend from Caracas, Elsy de Machada. In fact, since these two have completed all of the four levels of theological education by extension offered by the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, there is no one here with a higher level of theological education than Luz Maria and Elsy.

Luz Maria is actively serving as a deaconess through her involvement with our preschool and mission project in La Caramuca. Elsy, a member of La Paz Lutheran Church, Caracas, is involved with Katerina Lutero (Katherine Luther) Preschool.

Because of their qualifications, Luz Maria and Elsy have been named coordinators of the deaconess program in Venezuela. They met February 27 with Olga Groh, director of deaconess programs in Latin America for LCMS World Missions. Olga is the wife of Dr. Jorge Groh, Latin America region director for LCMS World Missions. The meeting went very well and Mrs. Groh was favorably impressed with the work that has been done in Venezuela.

Afterward Luz Maria returned to Barinas, but I and the other men studying in Caracas traveled with the Grohs to Colonia Tovar, an ethnic German community in the mountains north of the city. The Grohs are natives of Argentina and descendants of German-Russians who settled there.

Colonia Tovar was founded in 1843. Agustin Codazzi, an Italian explorer, geographer and close friend of Simon Bolivar, raised the money to transplant farmers from the Black Forest in Venezuela. The idea was that the highly efficient family-farming practices of the Germans would greatly improve Venezuela's agricultural economy. Unfortunately the plan did not work as intended because the Germans made themselves at home in a remote valley and did not mix with the general population.

For more than 100 years, Colonia Tovar's only connection with the outside world was a steep, rugged dirt road up into the mountains. Because of the Germans' farming expertise, their community remained largely self-sufficient during this time, and because of their isolation, their German language and culture was preserved.

Then in the 1970s, a blacktop highway was built from Caracas to Colonia Tovar and the community has become a tourist attraction. In Colonia Tovar today, you can enjoy a plate of German sausage and potato salad in an outdoor restaurant while "oompa oompa" music plays in the background. We talked to a young woman running a strudel stand. She had natural blonde hair and blue eyes, both extremely rare in Venezuela. Her parents could speak German, she said, but the only language she knew was Spanish. The old ways are gradually disappearing despite the incentive of the tourist trade.

The Roman Catholic Church of St. Martin of Tours remains at the center of Colonia Tovar. The street leading to the church actually is a "via crucis", with the stations of the Cross at various points along the way. The town cemetery is up on a hill with every grave facing toward the church visible below. The church has a large parish school attached, something you do not often see in Venezuela.

I could not help but think of the last time I was in a similar setting, especially when I saw a sign for a travel agency called "Regenwald Tours". In contemporary German, "regenwald" means "rainforest", but many years ago it was the name of the village on the Rega River where my great-great-grandfather was born (in other words, "the wood by the Rega River"). My ancestors on my father's side lived in Pomerania, which lies along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It was once the home of Goths (with a capital "G"), then Slavs, then Germans, and was ruled at various times by the kings of Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Poland. Today Germany claims Pomerania west of the Oder River while the territory east of the Oder, including the Rega River, is considered part of Poland. The largest city, once known as Danzig, is now called Gdansk.

In the early 1800s, Pomerania was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was the will of the King Frederick Wilhelm III that all the Protestant churches in his realm merge into one state-controlled church. My ancestors were among the "Old Lutherans", who remained faithful to the Lutheran Confessions and refused fellowship not based on doctrinal unity. As their resistance grew, the king stepped up persecution of the Old Lutherans, confiscating their property and sending soldiers to hunt down people worshipping in the traditional Lutheran way on Sunday mornings, and carry them off to prison. (There were populations of Roman Catholics, Jews and Mennonites within Prussia at this time and the king had set up agencies to control their affairs. However, these groups were apparently not large enough to worry the king. It was the Lutherans who really put the bee in his bonnet.)

The persecution resulted in thousands fleeing to the United States of America. My great-great-grandparents eventually became part of a group that settled on the western shore of Lake Michigan and named their community Freistadt. (The geography of eastern Wisconsin is similar to that of Pomerania with Lake Michigan substituting for the Baltic Sea.) Their leader was Heinrich von Rohr, who had served with distinction as a captain in the Prussian army. He was of noble blood, with a pedigree that reached back to German knights of the Crusades. But von Rohr had been stripped of his rank and medals for having his firstborn child baptized by a Lutheran pastor rather than a minister of the king's state church. In time the former Captain von Rohr became Pastor von Rohr, and the church my great-great-grandparents helped found, Trinity Lutheran Church of Freistadt, remains the oldest existing Lutheran congregation in Wisconsin.

Freistadt is now part of the Milwaukee suburb of Mequon. When I lived in the Milwaukee area, I used to go to Freistadt every July 4 when the community would have an all-day celebration of their cultural heritage and the religious freedom they have enjoyed for generations as U.S. citizens. A group called the Pommersche Tanzdeel (roughly "Pomeranian Dance Company") would perform traditional folk dances with the women dressed in cone-shaped hats and flowing gowns, and the men in the tunics and pantaloons typical of Pomerania in the 1800s.

The Independence Day festivities would culminate with the raising of the U.S. flag in the the town square and a 21-gun salute by local members of the VFW and American Legion.

In 1989 I attended Trinity-Freistadt's 150th anniversary (founded in 1839, the congregation has been part of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod since 1848). There was a large wall completely covered with photos of the children of the congregation who had become LCMS pastors and teachers. Among them I found a picture of my great-grandfather, Louis Ernst, who left Wisconsin to become the pastor of congregations in Iowa, Texas and Nebraska.

The point of this digression being, that although the language and customs of my great-great-grandparents are, like the language and customs of Venezuela, foreign to me, I am grateful that previous generations of my family were able to pass on the most precious part of our heritage, a common confession of faith. Also it is clear, as I study the Lutheran Confessions in yet another language, that the enemies of truth and freedom are always with us, and if one is not willing to suffer all, even death, for what one believes to be the truth, one will not enjoy freedom for very long, either. And I give thanks to God that His Word and His Spirit abides with us always.

Out of Egypt have I called my Son

We talked about the birth of Jesus and sang Christmas carols with the preschool children during the Advent season. The national holiday break lasts from December 15 to January 6. While all the families were invited to celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas and Epiphany with us in our chapel, for those who did not, we presented the story of the Magi in the week following January 6. And the week after that we dealt with the flight to Egypt, which on the historic church calendar is remembered on December 28.

There are reasons why the historic church calendar does not follow all of the events surrounding the Nativity in strictly chronological order, but I will not go into all that right now. It makes a certain amount of sense to follow the story of the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12) with the flight to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-23), although the topic is rather difficult to present to young children. Rather than dwell on the massacre of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, I explained that there was a bad king named Herod who wanted to kill the baby Jesus. But God looked after Joseph, Mary and Jesus, even during their stay in a foreign land.

The other reason that this of interest to the children is because so many of their relatives have fled Venezuela for neighboring countries and even other corners of the world. The United Nations refugee agency estimates that the number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela has surpassed 7 million globally, according to data from governments receiving them. People continue to leave Venezuela to escape violence, insecurity and threats as well as lack of food, medicine and essential services.See the Global Lutheran Outreach (GLO) Web site for details on the GLO campaign to send medicine to Venezuela.

We also took up this theme and how God can use evil for good with older children in our Sunday afternoon Bible class. The reading was from 2 Kings, chapter 5, the story of the prophet Elisha and Naaman the leper. There is a lot to talk about in that story, but for our your the important point was Naaman, a general in the king of Syria’s army and an otherwise successful man, learned of Elisha and the power of the God of Israel from a young Israelite who had not forgotten her faith, even though captured by the Syrians and made a slave in Naaman’s household. So the Lord not only watches over those who trust in Him, even if they are separated from family and homeland, but turn even the worst circumstances into opportunities to testify of His power and mercy in Jesus Christ.

Praise be to God that we have been able to resume classes in the preschool, because other educational institutions have remain closed as teachers’unions demand a new collective bargaining contract that restores social benefits and adjusts salaries to current living costs. The government has not adjusted the salaries of public-sector employees since March of last year, part of efforts to reduce spending and increase taxes which allowed Venezuela to emerge from hyper-inflation. But in the second half of last year demand for foreign currency outstripped the weekly supply of dollars made available by the central bank and the bolivar depreciated further. Meanwhile, our enrollment stands at 22 students, three have special needs. One is autistic, one is hearing impaired and one is partially paralyzed. Luz Maria’s daughter, Sarai, has her teaching degree in special education, but these children need constant attention, which is difficult for one teacher to provide, even with two teacher’s aides. So, again thanks be to God, we have gained an additional teacher, Maria Perez.

New cycle of deaconess training

Luz Maria once again will serve as mentor to women in another three-year round of deaconess formation. The program is offered by our national church’s Juan de Frias Theological Institute in partnership with Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic. The training consists of both online study, in-person seminars and fieldwork assignments.

The office of deaconess is an auxiliary office of the church in which women may dedicate themselves to the material and spiritual needs of others in support of the pastoral office preaching and administration of the sacraments. The origin of the diaconal ministry can be traced to Acts 6:1-7, where the apostle delegate the distribution food to widows to “seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” that they might dedicate themselves to “prayer and the ministry of the word”. This was originally a lay ministry and there is evidence in the New Testament that it was open to women as well as men. Several women are mentioned as holding prominent and responsible positions within the early church, such as Dorcas, Lydia and Priscilla. St. Paul refers to Phoebe of Cenchrea as a deacon (διάκονον) of the church in Romans 16:1. There is some debate as to whether “women” in 1 Timothy 3:11 refers to deaconesses or the wives of male deacons. The word is γυναῖκας (gynaikas), which may mean a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow. In favor of the interpretation that it refers to deaconesses is the fact that 1 Timothy 3:1-7 lists requisites for the pastoral office, but does not mention any duties of pastor’s wives.

In any event, the proceedings of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD deal with deaconesses as a specific office within the church. With the development of a more complex hierarchy within the church, male deacons came to be considered part of the ordained clergy and deaconess as a distinct office had disappeared by the 12 Century. But the work of deaconesses was taken over by nuns. One of the most moving legacies of this post-apostolic period in church history is the correspondence between John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople at the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries, and Olympias, his chief deaconess. His letters from exile (long story) would begin in this fashion: “To my lady, the most reverend and divinely favored deaconess Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the Lord.”

The restoration of the office of deaconess within the Lutheran church was begun in the early 19th Century by pastors Theodor Fliedner and Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe, who both established schools for deaconesses in Germany, and continues to this day.

Here is a translation of a prayer for deaconesses from our 1964 Spanish Lutheran hymnal, “Culto Cristiano”.

Oh God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in times past called consecrated women to serve you in your church: Bless all women who dedicate themselves to Christian service as deaconesses. Increase their knowledge of the Gospel, give them a sincere, true purpose, diligence in their work, and the beauty of life that Christ offers, so that through their work many souls may be blessed, and your name may be glorified. Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and with the Holy Spirit, always one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain

 

Spiritual warfare is a recurring theme in Lent, beginning on the first Sunday with the confrontation between Jesus and Satan (Matthew 4:1-11) after 40 days of fasting in Judean desert, an episode from which we derive the 40 days of Lent. This followed on the second Sunday by the story of Jesus casting out the demon which afflicted a Canaanite woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:21-28) and on the third Sunday by an accusation by the Pharisees that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub (originally identified as a god of the Philistines in the first chapter of 2 Kings, but by the first century another name for Satan) and Jesus’ rebuke of that accusation in Luke 11:14-28. On the fifth Sunday, the last before Holy Week, the Pharisees accuse Jesus Himself of being possessed by a demon as well as not having a genuinely Jewish ancestry (John 8:42-59). Jesus replies that not only is He the Lamb that “the Lord will provide” and the true son of Abraham chosen for sacrifice (Genesis 22:1-14), but “before Abraham was, I am”, revealing His divine and human natures.

The fourth Sunday would seem to offer relief from all the talk of demonic activity with the story of a feast, the feeding of the five thousand as described in John 6:1-15. Jesus once again sought a retreat into the wilderness, this time a remote region on the northeastern shore of the sea of Galilee, but a great crowd followed Him. They were full of eager desire to witness His healing miracles. There is no word concerning any eagerness for the words of eternal life, but nevertheless Jesus healed their illnesses and preached to them. He also multiplied the loaves and fishes, not simply that their material needs would be satisfied, but that they might continue listening to the Gospel and believe. But when Jesus perceived that a great many wanted to take him by force to make Him a king, He left them to pray alone on a mountain. In this way, He again resisted the temptations to use His divine power to gain material prosperity, popularity and an earthly kingdom. It was another victory in the spiritual battle, pointing to His ultimate victory over the power of sin, death and the Devil on the cross.

More medicine from Chile

On March 5, 2023, we began distribution of another shipment of non-prescription medicines made possible by Global Lutheran Outreach (GLO). During the initial years (2017-2020) of the GLO Venezuela Relief Project, many pharmaceutical companies had ceased operations in Venezuela, and local pharmacies had bare shelves. Today, medicine may be once again available but at high prices and in dollars! Medicines are purchased by Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile volunteers, many of them immigrants from Venezuela. Volunteers collate the orders and prepare each shipment according to lists of needed prepared by participating Lutheran congregations in Venezuela. In addition to La Caramuca, medicines have been distributed in other locations, such as the cities of Barinas and Barquisimeto.

According to a report by the Wilson Center, more than 82 percent of people in Venezuela have incomes below the poverty line and 53 percent live in extreme poverty. Even after correcting for the income that some households receive from friends and relatives abroad, the level of extreme poverty is estimated to be 34 percent. More than 78 percent of households experience food insecurity. In addition, according to the Global Hunger Index, more than 23 percent of Venezuelans suffer from high levels of malnutrition, the highest in South America. Furthermore, Venezuela’s restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid are as high as in Ethiopia and higher than in Haiti, Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan. So GLO’s success in placing these medications in the hands of our people is quite an accomplishment.

New cycle of deaconess formation begins

Once again Luz Maria is mentoring women who aspire to be deaconesses in our national church. Many of them have served the church for years in works of mercy and Christian education. The three-year program, developed by Concordia The Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic and administered in Venezuela by the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, offers them the theological training to assist their pastors in meeting the spiritual as well as material needs of the congregation and the community. The seminary has extended its deaconess training program to nine Latin American countries, but Venezuela continues to have the largest enrollment with 28 women.

Each year of the program is a combination on in-person seminars and online classes. The students complete assigned readings and projects and put their new skills into practice with the supervision of the local pastor and deaconess mentor. Once they pass their final written and practical exams, they graduate and are commissioned as deaconesses.

Luz Maria and I traveled to Caracas to attend the first seminar from March 8 to 10. The women and pastors who attended were from congregations in the central zone (the cities of Caracas and Maracay) of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela. The previous week the same seminar was held at Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life) Lutheran Church in Puerto Ordaz for women and pastors in the eastern and southeastern zones (the cities of Barcelona, Maturin, San Felix de Guayana and Puerto Ordaz). There are no women enrolled from our western zone (Barinas and Barquisimeto) this time around. The instructors were Pastor Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute, and deaconesses Luz Maria and Elsy Valladares de Machado, with assistance from Deaconess Ginnatriz Vera de Mendoza.

I participated in the discussions and led the opening devotion one morning. I read 1 Timothy 3:8-13. “Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Women likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

The first word in verse 11 is gynaikas, literally “women” without a possessive article. So to render it “their wives” (meaning the wives of male deacons) is not justifiable, especially since verses 1-7 list the qualifications of a bishop or pastor without mention of the wives of pastors (and no vow of celibacy was required for the pastoral office at that time). There is other evidence in the New Testament that the diaconate, or helping ministry, was open to women as well as men, so the best interpretation of verse 11 is that the women to which it refers are deaconesses. As a historical example of a faithful deaconess, I used Olympias, the chief deaconess to John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century AD. Chrysostom, by the way, interpreted 1 Timothy 3:11 as referring to deaconesses. When the archbishop was exiled for preaching against the luxurious living of the upper classes and their indifference to the poor, Olympias acted as his advocate in his absence and wrote to him regularly. Chrysostom’s 17 letters in reply to “the most reverend and divinely favored deaconess Olympias” may still be read.

Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us!

Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us!

Oh Christ, Thou Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us Thy peace!

Face to face for the first time since 2019

 

It has been a month of seminars about the Augsburg Confession for Venezuelan deaconesses in training. Luz Maria, who has already been formally commissioned as a deaconess by the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, has mentored 40 women entirely online for the past two years, under the supervision of Pastor Eliezer Mendoza, director of the Juan de Frias Theological Institute and using course content provided by Concordia Seminary El Reformador in the Dominican Republic. The seminars, the first in-person classes since the COVID-19 crisis began in 2020, were held in three locations across Venezuela. Graduation from the current cycle of deaconess formation is scheduled in June.

Pastor Mendoza led the seminars at all locations. The first seminar was held from February 24 to 26 at La Ascensión (Ascension) Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana for women from the southeastern zone of the national church. The second seminar was from March 3 to 5 at Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturín for women from the eastern zone.

Luz Maria traveled with women from the western cities of Barinas and Barquisimeto to attend the third seminar in Caracas from March 10 to 12. There were two other deaconesses in attendance, Ginnatriz de Mendoza (Pastor Eliezer’s wife) from Barquisimeto, and Elsy de Machado from Caracas.

With Elsy and Pastor Abel Garcia, who was then director of the Juan de Frias Institute, Luz Maria attended the first Latin American deaconess conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 30 to May 4, 2009. Together, Luz Maria and I attended another deaconess conference in the Dominican Republic in 2016, along with Elsy, and Pastor Eliezer and Ginnatriz.

The deaconess candidates already have initiated practical service projects. Most have to do with Christian education, such as teaching Sunday school or after-school tutoring. Others are visiting the sick and the elderly confined to rest homes.

From rags to rag dolls

After Luz Maria returned from  Caracas, her mother, Carmen, and sister, Rosaura, visited our preschool and presented a seminar on the making of rag dolls for the children and their representatives on March 14.

Using scraps of clothing to make an inexpensive children’s toy is a practice known around the world. Rag dolls, or muñecas de trapo, have a long tradition in Venezuela. Before Spanish colonization, indigenous peoples made dolls not only from corn husks, cattails and other plants, but also used animal skins, such as those of rabbits and alpacas, bird feathers, tree bark and roots. The dolls were not simply gifts; they taught children survival skills through play. The Spaniards brought European fabrics and forms of dress, and dolls began to be made with the hands, legs, chest and face made of papier-mâché or ceramics. Rag dolls today allow the reuse of old shirts and clothes and often are used to decorate the home as well as for children’s play.

Luz Maria’s mother is 92 years old and active for her age. She likes to tell the story of how she made a doll to the exact, and exacting, specifications of an Italian tourist. Luz Maria and I try to visit her once a week, though this was difficult when COVID-19 restrictions on travel were tighter.

Preparing for Holy Week

Although many cities in Venezuela permitted Carnaval parades this year (see my last newsletter), we decided to postpone our Palm Sunday procession in the street one more time. The sanctuary still will be adorned with palms (this is easy when you have palm trees on the patio). Preschool devotions have had a Lenten theme, for this fifth week in Lent we previewed Holy Week for the children and prepared them to celebrate both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus.

We pray: Lord, bring us close to Your cross that we might know how You loved us and gave Yourself for us. As we follow you from Gethsemane to Calvary, do not let us follow afar off, lest we deny You. Help us watch and pray with You that we may not fall into temptation. Lord Jesus, through it all help us hear in Your prayer the single purpose for which You endured pain and death: Father, forgive them, for they know what they do. Amen.

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