Mission and Ministry work in Latin America & the Caribbean

English Classes in Belize

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.

A Week of Intensive Pastoral Formation

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.

VDMA eBook Number 44

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.

Concordia Seminary Students Experience Missionary Life on the Field

In mid-January, a team from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis escaped the deep freeze of the mid-west for a week of mission education in the Dominican Republic, the hub of LCMS mission work in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The adventurous group included eight seminarians, a deaconess student, five spouses of students, and team leader, Tori Egger, the wife of Concordia Seminary President Thomas Egger. This trip offered students and spouses the chance to learn about the Synod’s work in Latin America, experience a taste of missionary life, interact with seminarians and faculty at Concordia the Reformer seminary, and share the Gospel with the Dominican people. They were not disappointed.

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

The VDMA project is pleased to announce the first edition of a new daily devotion booklet in Spanish: La Palabra Del Señor Permanece Para Siempre, which means The Word of the Lord Endures Forever. The quarterly publication began in January 2023.

New Books for a New Year

Pastors and seminary students across the Latin America and Caribbean region have started the new year with two new eBooks provided by the VDMA Project. Both volumes contain study documents published by the LCMS Commission of Theology and Church Relations. The first book focuses on the Life of the Christian, while the second is about the Life of the Church.

Good News for Advent!

Today the VDMA Project distributed two more electronic issues of Good News magazine in Spanish to pastors and seminary students across Latin America.

The first magazine, focusing on the topic of “Worship,” will be a great teaching tool as LAC congregations begin to receive and use their new Himario Luterano (Lutheran Hymnal).

Giving Thanks for the Lutheran Heritage Foundation

The Lutheran Heritage Foundation (LHF) is a great help for the mission work in Latin America. We are grateful for their excellent work and congratulate them on thirty years of service to the Lord’s Church worldwide.

Mercy and Gospel in Belize

On Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2, the LCMS Belize Mission group was blessed to host and help a six-person team from the Belize Mission Society (St. Louis) with a two-day eyeglass clinic at El Buen Pastor Lutheran Church in Valley of Peace, Belize.

Letters to Lutheran Pastors in Latin America

This week the VDMA Project distributed 400 digital eBooks of the second of three volumes of Rev. Dr. Hermann Sasse’s Letters to Lutheran Pastors. For more than 30 years, Sasse corresponded with Lutheran pastors in Australia, the United States, and around the world. His collection of letters offers encouraging, instructive, and Christ-filled messages for pastors and seminary students on topics as varied as the Sacraments, Scripture, the Church, mission, church history, and ecumenical issues.