Mission and Ministry work in Latin America & the Caribbean
On Sunday, September 10, Concordia the Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic celebrated the installation of her new director, Rev. Sergio Fritzler. Pastors from five countries participated in the special service, with seminarians, missionaries, deaconesses, Dominican Lutheran Church members, Concordia Lutheran school children and faculty joining in the festivities.
After years of hard work, patience, and coordination, the Spanish Lutheran hymnal, Himnario Luterano, arrived in Guatemala. The hymnals were published by a group of dedicated Lutheran pastors throughout Latin America, who considered the many cultural differences among the Spanish-speaking countries. Thanks to a generous gift from the Lutheran Heritage Foundation, a large portion of the printing and shipping costs were covered, making the hymnals affordable for our sister churches.
The history of the last five centuries of the Lutheran church throughout the world were documented in a special edition of Logia magazine (Vol. 29, 4). Now these articles are also available in Spanish thanks to the LAC VDMA Project.
One of the goals of planting Lutheran churches in developing countries is for the mission congregation to become self-sustaining. That means supporting a full-time pastor and providing and maintaining a worship space with utilities and other necessities. Since church plants, by nature, begin small, it can be a real challenge for them to cover all expenses, especially in the beginning.
Over the past two days, La Santa Trinidad became the seventh volume of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series to be electronically distributed to Pastors and seminary students in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region.
LCMS Mission Area Facilitator and missionary Pastor Herb Burch, Pastor Roldan Rios, and Communications Specialist Justin Logston recently had the opportunity to visit Cristo el Salvador (Christ the Savior) Lutheran School in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The trio met with Pastor Byron Paz for a tour of the school, which has been offering quality, Christ-based education to the city of Puerto Barrios and the surrounding communities since 2002.
For several years, church services in Orange Walk were held in the home of Roldan Rojas. Now, what was once an abandoned woodshed has become our newest church for a growing congregation in the north of Belize. Situated on a 1.5-acre lot, the church has room for expansion, and soon, there are hopes of adding running water, plumbing, and a bathroom to the church property.
After months of planning and preparing, English as a Second Language classes started the weekend of January 28-29 at El Buen Pastor Lutheran Church in Valley of Peace, Belize. The classes commence with Alliance Missionary Pastor Benjamin Flores leading a 10–15-minute devotion, then Missionary Jordan Logston teaching the two-hour long class.
Concordia the Reformer Seminary welcomed distance-learning Formación Pastoral Hispano (FPH) students and pastoral mentors from several Latin American countries to a week-long symposium in January. The FPH program is similar to the SMP program at our LCMS seminaries in the United States. This program consists of sixteen courses with the students taking four courses a year, with pastoral mentors assigned to them. The focus of the FPH program is on the pastoral acts.
Today the VDMA Project distributed its 44th eBook, Making Christian Counseling More Christ Centered (Haciendo Más Cristocéntrica La Consejería Cristiana) by Dr. Rick Marrs, professor at Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis.
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