Project Catalogue Web - international.staupitz.org · expanding circle of people. The Venezuelan sister church has partnered with OIM to provide a pastor for two missions in Santiago,

PROJECT CATALOGUE

2020-21

LCMS LATIN AMERICA &

CARIBBEAN REGION

1. Plant, sustain and revitalize Lutheran churches.

2. Support and expand theological education through seminaries.

3. Perform Human Care in close proximity to Word and Sacrament ministry.

4. Collaborate with the Synod’s members and partners to enhance mission effectiveness.

5. Nurture pastors, missionaries and professional workers to promote spiritual, emotional and physical well-being.

6. Enhance elementary and secondary education and youth ministry.

7. Strengthen and support the Lutheran family in living out God’s design

By the power of the Spirit, work in

pastoral formation, strengthen the

pastorate and plant Lutheran missions

that lead to Lutheran churches which are

merciful and give witness to Christ

through Word and Sacrament.

REGIONAL STRATEGY

Strategic Priorities

Strategy Statement

1. Alliance Missionary Obot Ite 2. Alliance Missionary Sergio Maita 3. Alliance Missionary Sergio Fritzler 4. Belize Mission 5. Castillo Fuerte 6. Cayman Islands Mission 7. Chile Mission 8. Deaconess Formation 9. Dominican Republic Lutheran Mission 10. Honduras Mission 11. Jamaica Mission 12. Luther Academy

Table of Contents13. Mercy Center 14. Mexico Mission 15. New Seminary Support 16. Panama Mission 17. Peru Mission 18. Puerto Rico Mission 19. Seminary Scholarships 20. Spain Mission 21. Uruguay Mission 22. VDMA - Translation Team 23. Venezuela Mission

• Provides for a pastor from the Lutheran Church of Nigeria

• Pastoral support for two mission congregations and a preaching station in Jamaica

• Pastoral support for a new Lutheran school in Kingston, Jamaica

Alliance Missionary Obot Ite

Project ID: JM0001-66303

Pastor Obot Ite has served for over eleven years in Kingston Jamaica. Pastor Ite is a third generation Lutheran from our partner church in Nigeria. LCMS began church planting in Nigeria in 1936. Ite, himself, grew up with an LCMS missionary as his pastor. Now, he has come across the sea with his wife, Abas, and little daughter, Goodness, to the Caribbean to bring the precious Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jamaican people.

Pastor Ite assumed the congregation of St. Andrews from missionaries before him and has since founded, two years ago, the congregation of Faith Lutheran in inner city Kingston. Only six months ago, a new preaching station has opened an hour

outside of the capital. Even now, deaconesses are partnering with the Jamaican Lutheran church to give diaconal formation to Jamaican women to care for their neighbors in works of mercy. Thus far, 11 Jamaican women have had four separate intensive classes led by visiting missionary deaconesses.

Kingston continues to be ranked as one of the more violent cities in the world, and the work of missionaries such as the Ites is critical. Pray that the Good News of the Gospel would bring peace to Jamaicans, not only as they live their lives out as neighbors one to another, but also that they might have peace towards their heavenly Father by faith in Jesus Christ.

Checks should be made out to Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod or LCMS The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Mission Advancement

P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

FORO Contact: [email protected]

Alliance Missionary Obot Ite - Project ID: JM0001-66303

Summary

Alliance Missionary Sergio Maita

Project ID:DR0003-65046

• Church planter in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

• Church Planting Professor for the Dominican Seminary

• Teaches pastoral formation twice a year in Venezuela

https://international.lcms.org/wp-admin/edit.php?tag=project-dr0003-65046


The Lord has blessed our young, growing Dominican Republic Lutheran Mission (DRLM) with three congregations in the Santiago area, the country’s second largest city. In the past, the mission has had to juggle a schedule of often-traveling missionaries and guest pastors to lead Word and Sacrament ministry. We did not have a pastor dedicated to nurture these congregations through the preaching of the Gospel to an ever expanding circle of people.

The Venezuelan sister church has partnered with OIM to provide a pastor for two missions in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Through the LCMS partnership with the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, the DRLM Called mission pastor Rev. Sergio Maita as a long-term church planter.

Pastor Maita is church planting two missions. One of those missions is dedicating a new church and school in February 2018. He is also, as of August 2017, serving as seminary professor in our new seminary, teaching both residential and online students. In this way he is helping to form future

church leaders, as we look forward to one day having a fully indigenous Dominican pastoral Staff.

Pastor Maita not only spends his time as an evangelist in making visits, teaching the Bible and catechism but also regularly mentors his seminary students, accompanying them to the field to teach them to be evangelists and to bring the Good News of Jesus and His forgiveness to an ever growing circle of witnesses.

Pastor Maita lives in Santiago with his wife, Yoxandris, daughter, Irene, and son, Andrés.

As an alliance missionary, Rev. Maita’s ministry is sustained through direct project funds rather than the North American Network Supported Missionary Model. Support is needed to continue to provide for the Maita missionary family as they serve alongside OIM missionaries in the Dominican Republic.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Alliance Missionary Sergio Maita - Project ID:DR0003-65046

Summary



Alliance Missionary Sergio Fritzler

Project ID: DR0001-65019

• Church planting pastor for the mission in Licey, Dominican Republic

• Church planting professor and Provost for Concordia Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic



The Lord has blessed our young, growing Dominican Republic Lutheran Mission (DRLM) with three congregations in the Santiago area, the country’s second largest city. As we seek to raise up national pastors to serve these mission plants, missionary pastors are needed to preach the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ and administer his life-giving Sacraments to an ever-expanding circle of people.

The Lord has blessed the DRLM by providing not only missionary pastors from the LCMS, but also native Spanish-speaking pastors from our sister churches throughout Latin America.Pastor Sergio Fritzler comes to the Dominican Republic from Argentina with 18 years of experience as a church planting pastor, professor and seminary director. He currently serves in the DRLM as Pastor of our church plant in Licey, Santiago, Dominican Republic and as a Professor and Provost of Concordia Reformer Seminary. The Licey congregation recently dedicated its new facility which includes a sanctuary and Lutheran pre-school of over 70 students. Pastor Fritzler’s work there includes

weekly preaching and Bible studies as well as an emphasis on evangelistic visitation.

As Professor of Theology at Concordia Reformer Seminary, Pastor Fritzler teaches classes on Pastoral Theology, Liturgy, Homiletics and Evangelism. As Provost he oversees the educational affairs and activities of the institution for residential pastoral formation. In partnership with our sister seminary, Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Pastor Fritzler oversees our SMP online pastoral formation program which serves more than 20 students throughout Latin America.

Pastor Fritzler lives in Santiago with his wife, Lillian, and their two teenage sons, Enzo and Martín. As an alliance missionary, Rev. Fritzler’s ministry is sustained through direct project funds rather than the North American Network Supported Missionary Model. Support is needed to continue to provide for the Fritzler missionary family as they serve alongside OIM missionaries in the Dominican Republic.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Alliance Missionary Sergio Fritzler - Project ID: DR0001-65019

Summary



Belize Mission

Project ID: BZ0001-65032

• First permanent LCMS church planting efforts in Belize

• Bible study, Catechesis, Word and Sacrament Ministry

• Pastoral follow-up to contacts made by LCMS members

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has had presence in Belize since 2002 when short term teams blessed a small fishing village on the Placencia peninsula in Southern Belize. The Belize Mission Society formed around these short term teams and continued to serve this diverse area through school scholarships, Bible schools, nutrition programs and mercy outreach. In response to requests from the Belize Mission Society, LCMS missionaries established a permanent presence in the country in June 2016, first working with contacts and relationships established by the Belize Mission Society.

Through the guidance of the Belize FORO, the permanent LCMS team established a hub and spoke strategy to reach the whole country. Belmopan, the capital and hub lies in the center and team members can reach any destination in Belize in three hours

or less. Today Missionary Pastor Herb Burch and his wife Markie along with Alliance missionary Benjamin Flores from Bolivia and his wife Karina from Norway, work from this hub. The Belize mission team now serves six different preaching and teaching points in the country. The team also acts as mentor for one Belizean and one Mexican SMP pastoral candidate.

The Belize Mission Society and the LCMS team join hands to coordinate the efforts of short term teams that now serve not only in Seine Bight in the Placencia Peninsula, but also find new opportunities to serve in other communities throughout the country. This type of teamwork helps us to better share the gospel, plant Lutheran churches and show mercy to the people of this small Central American Country.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Belize Mission - Project ID: BZ0001-65032

Summary

Mercy house: Castillo fuerte

Project ID: PE0002-65605

• Mercy arm of the Peruvian Lutheran Church

• Provides children’s ministry for at-risk youth

• Serves as a launching place for church plants

Having been begun by previous missionaries to address the economic, educational and especially spiritual needs of the most needy in Lima, Castillo Fuerte is dedicated to aiding the communities around our mission sites in Word and deed while preaching the Good News of Salvation that Christ has so freely given us.

One area where we work is a heavily-trafficked marketplace, known to be particularly dangerous, but is a prime location for outreach and mercy projects. The opportunity in this area is immense and afford us the opportunity to be in the daily lives of those around us.

The structure of the day at the mission is primarily built around improving the education of the children, who come from families without the resources to provide them the education and mentorship

they need. Each day is organized around chapel services, daily catechesis and Bible study. We also have a program to address hunger, which is a serious issue around our churches, as well as programs for health and disaster relief. We have approximately 70 children enrolled in La Victoria of Lima Peru, learning not just the things they need vocationally, but even more, they are learning the Scriptures, the catechism and what Our Lord has done for them in Jesus Christ. This then provides us an invaluable connection to the family for further work and evangelism. Thanks to this invaluable mercy to these families a number of the children have been baptized and brought their parents to hear the Gospel and learn of Jesus and be incorporated into the mission.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Mercy House: Castillo Fuerte - Project ID: PE0002-65605

Summary

Cayman Islands mission

Project ID: KY0001-65027

• Support Safe Harbour Lutheran Church

• Facilitate the work of volunteer pastors

• Expand ministry to native Caymanians

The work of showing Christ’s mercy, spreading the Gospel and planting churches in the Cayman Islands dates to the early 2000s for the LCMS. As of the summer of 2019, the congregation established on Grand Cayman island, Safe Harbour Lutheran Church, is being served by supply missionary pastors. Plans are underway to return a permanent missionary presence to the Caymans.

The congregation meets for worship at 10 AM at the South Sound Community Centre, south of the downtown area of George Town. Members are a blend of local Caymanians and foreigner workers, and worshippers are often a mix of permanent inhabitants of the island, tourists and visitors. Language of worship is English, although some regular members are Spanish speaking.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

FORO Contact: [email protected] http://www.safeharbourlc.com/

Cayman Islands Mission - Project ID: KY0001-65027

Summary

http://www.safeharbourlc.com/

http://www.safeharbourlc.com/

Chile mission

Project ID: CL0001-65301

• Provides for additional Lutheran pastors in Chile

• Supports church planting efforts in one of the fastest growing Lutheran churches in Latin America

In the past 4 years the Chilean church has almost doubled in size from 5 churches to 9. A new church plant in Santiago is currently building a sanctuary and working towards putting a school for people with disabilities on the same property. Santiago itself is a city of over 6 million people, and multiple other opportunities exist for planting even more churches there. More pastors are needed.

Four years ago, a tsunami in southern Chile hit the coast with devastating effects, and Lutheran World Relief responded. This led to pleas from local residents that we would send pastors. Today, Pastor Omar Kinas has plantedtwo churches in the communities of Talca and Constitucion. In both of these church plants a community centre serves people in a variety of

fashions such as language classes, crafts and of course with the Gospel and the Lord’s gifts.

In Valparaiso a fire in the hills burned down 12,000 homes over a two day period. Thousands of people were instantly homeless. A new local Lutheran church and its community center gathered foodstuffs, assisted in local soup kitchens and had its pastor visit on a daily basis. A community center is serving the community and a church plant was dedicated in December 2017. A local pastor and deacon are serving this needy population that has lost everything, but found that in Jesus there is a certain anchor.

Your support helps OIM to assist the Lutheran Church in Chile in providing pastors and resources for their continuing growth.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

Chile Mission - Project ID: CL0001-65301

Summary

Deaconess formation

Project ID: LM0006-65011

• Ten courses per year in 5 countries

• Teaches Mercy Theology to over 140 students across Latin America

• Trains women to lead the mercy efforts of their congregations

We are blessed with many women throughout our Lutheran Latin American church who are eager to be hands and feet of mercy for the marginalized. It is a privilege to bring to these faithful women rich, in depth studies which prepare them to tell others of Jesus and also be the hands and feet of Him in bringing mercy to those who struggle, are marginalized and rejoice at even a glass of water given in His name.

Our diaconal focus aims to prepare women to head mercy efforts vocationally in the congregation, and also be in front

of our Christian institutions whether they be schools, or orphanages. The program itself consists of offering three years of courses offered intensively to Lutheran women inVenezuela, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Your support of deaconess formation has a wide reaching effect, as Christ’s love is carried out from the congregations of Latin America into some of the worlds most difficult places.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

Deaconess Formation - Project ID: LM0006-65011

Summary

Dominican Republic mission

Project ID: DR0002-65026

• Supports 5 church plants in the Dominican Republic

• Pastoral training for Dominican students

• Training of deaconesses and leaders

The mission in the Dominican Republic is 11 years old. Five missions have been planted in Santo Domingo and Santiago which are the two largest cities. Two Lutheran schools are functioning alongside churches. A seminary is being established in order to raise up a new generation of Dominicans who might serve their church as pastors and deaconesses.

A foundation called Good Shepherd Lutheran Homes also serves people with disabilities throughout the country. Pray for ambitious plans which call for planting another 5 missions this coming year.

Several career OIM missionaries are actively serving in the Dominican Republic as church planters, deaconesses and more.

Two Dominican pastors, a vicar and our seminarians work alongside of missionaries. There is also a pre-seminary program of 11 individuals who meet on a regular basis. this gives these men a familiarity with the whole of the Bible and prepares the men for their further studies.

An additional 20 women are preparing to be deaconesses in the area of mercy, and already serve people through visitations, prayers and offerings from the local missions.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Dominican Republic Mission - Project ID: DR0002-65026

Summary

Good shepherd lutheran homes

Project ID: A10897-65019

• Provides for a group home for children with disabilities

• Assists the Dominican Lutheran Church to serve a marginalized community

Hogares Luteranos el Buen Pastor” or Good Shepherd Lutheran Homes (HLBP) serves people with disabilities in the Dominican Republic. Too often people with disabilities are marginalized in Dominican society, sometimes with individuals being hidden in the homes of their family for their entire lives, and even more often given over to government wards that are often underfunded and understaffed. This leads to people with disabilities in situations that are miserable, and places where the church and the foundation enter, in order to bring the mercy of Christ to shine on those who most need this attention.

In the last 10 years HLBP has worked in three government wards, where intervention through visitation, staff training, working with leadership and advocating has led to two of these wards of 300 individuals being significantly changed. Another institution is currently being addressed where they have hired our director, and

allowed us to make institutional changes including better training for staff, and radically improving care for our people with disabilities, all the while advocating with the government for sweeping instrumental changes that uphold the least of these as His dear children. This is being done while bringing alongside Dominican Lutherans to tell them of Jesus and His love. Physical restraints are no longer used, jail cells have been removed, millions of dollars have been invested, and people’s lives have been changed forever.

HLBP maintains a group home of 6 individuals alongside a congregation, as a showcase to the government, of what care for folks with disabilities looks like. All six of the youth are fully integrated in church, school, work and community life.

The work of HLBP is a crucial component to the growth and identity of the Dominican Lutheran Church as it continues to be established by OIM missionaries.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Good Shepherd Lutheran Homes - Project ID: A10897-65019

Summary

Honduras mission

Project ID: HN0001-65006

• Supports Nicaraguan Missionary efforts in 3 Honduran cities

• Provides for feeding programs and mercy ministries

• Provides for Bible Education and evangelism

The Confessional Lutheran Church in Honduras finds her roots in mission work that began through the Lutheran Church in Canada and the Lutheran Church of Nicaragua. Supported by various LCMS congregations in the U.S., the LCMS has assumed the lead in promoting the growth and expansion of this mission outreach. The Honduras FORO coordinates the support to the ministries there. Working with LeadaChild and MOST Ministries, they have become a powerful force to share the Gospel, plant further Lutheran churches and show mercy.

Nicaraguan missionary pastor Rev. Junior Martinez serves in LaPaz, Honduras where he supports an LCMS founded and supported orphanage. The orphanage has been served by several Lutheran congregations and Pr. Martinez serves as the chaplain at the orphanage. He also hosts Bible classes and catechetical instruction from his home as well as hosting word and sacrament ministry in his garage. Members of several LCMS congregations have joined hands

to plan, purchase land and build a parsonage, school and church in a growing part of La Paz. Pastor Martinez also travels regularly to Comayaguela, Honduras to provide word and sacrament ministry to the congregation there.

In Comayaguela, twin city to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, one finds Deacon Tulio Meza and members of the congregation telling people about Jesus Christ and his plan for salvation. Deacon Tulio leads a Christian education program, teaching the faith using a curriculum that uses Luther’s Small Catechism. Children invite their friends and neighbors to participate in these weekly activities.

The church also has property in Los Chaguites close to Choluteca in Southern Honduras. Future plans include expansion of the mission into this area as well as cooperation with other LCMS congregations that work throughout Honduras to form a strong Lutheran presence in that country.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Honduras Mission - Project ID: HN0001-65006

Summary

Jamaica mission

Project ID: JM0003-66302

• Helps to acquire and renovate a new ministry center for the congregation of St. Andrew’s Lutheran in Kingston

• Provides support for a second alliance missionary

The work of showing Christ’s mercy, spreading the Gospel and planting churches in Jamaica dates to the 1990s for the LCMS. As of the summer of 2019, there is one alliance missionary, Rev. Obot Ite of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria, serving in Kingston.

There are currently two worshipping communities in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital and largest city. St. Andrew Lutheran Church, established in the 1990s, gathers on Sunday mornings at the Kingston Ministry Centre in the Halfway Tree neighborhood. Faith Lutheran Church, established in 2014, also meets Sunday morning for worship in downtown Kingston. There are also preaching points in

Bois Content, a rural community west of Kingston, and at Bath Mountain in Westmoreland Parish.

The Kingston Ministry Center, currently being renovated, has housing for short term teams and is home to Jamaica’s Lutheran Hour Ministries office as well as the home base of Lutheran Ministries in Jamaica, the umbrella organization for all LCMS work on the island.

In September of 2019 Parade Gardens Lutheran School in downtown Kingston opened, serving around 40 preschool children.

Jamaica has an active FORO partner group that supports this work of the Lord


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Jamaica Mission - Project ID: JM0003-66302

Summary

Luther Academy


• Theological Conferences in our partner churches

• Encourages and strengthens serving pastors

• Provides continuing education to pastors

Many of our pastors find themselves serving several congregations at the same time. The nearest neighboring pastor might be more than 5 hours away. As our pastors serve multi-point parishes, it becomes essential to offer them the opportunity to be fed by Jesus in the hearing of His Word through study, and having evenings to enjoy much needed fellowship with pastors.

A recent conference hosted by the Luther Academy in Argentina saw more than 75 pastors receive recently translated and published Pastoral Care Companions with prayers and Scripture readings for the sick, the depressed, those suffering the recent death of a loved one and many other moments ofcrisis in one’s life. In addition to this, each pastor received a communion kit from the LWML and were led through the

teaching and practice of visiting those in need of the Lord’s presence through bread and wine, His body and blood. Many of these pastors were overjoyed at this teaching and encouraged to have both the means (kits) and the teaching brought to them again in being provided the tools to properly serve the Lord’s people.

Through the offering of more than 50 theological conferences in the past 5 years, Luther Academy encourages national pastors throughout Latin America. Each year ten conferences, taught by pastors and professors from Latin America and the U.S., are held in countries like Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama and Paraguay that cover a variety of topics depending on the needs of the local pastors.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

Luther Academy - Project ID: LM0002-65013

Summary

mercy center

Project: LM0011-65024

• Facilitates disaster response training across the region

• Provides conferences on witnessing, reconciliation, community health and life issues

• Serves as collection and organization point for disaster response supplies

The Mercy Center was dedicated in the Dominican Republic in October 2017, to assist LCMS missions in the Latin America Caribbean (LAC) region in the goal to train and encourage all members of the church – whether laity or church workers – to show love and mercy to one another and to their neighbors in close proximity to Word and Sacrament Ministry. The Mercy Center provides a spectrum of educational conferences, from personal witnessing and Christian reconciliation to family and community health and

life issues. The Center facilitates disaster response training throughout the LAC region, working with LCMS Disaster Response to provide conferences led by volunteer educators and trainers from our missions and church partners in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. When necessary, the Mercy Center serves as a collection and organization point for the distribution of essential supplies needed by families affected by seasonal hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

Contact: [email protected]

Mercy Center - Project: LM0011-65024

Summary

mexico mission

Project ID: MX0001-65707

• Provides Theological Education for pre-seminarians

• Lays the groundwork for ongoing church-plants

• Strengthens the relationship with the national church

The Sinodo Luterano Mexico (SLM) is over 75 years old and is a partner church of the LCMS founded by LCMS missionaries in 1940. While the SLM is an active and self supporting church-body, developments over the last few decades have left them without a route to ordination in Mexico, and with stalled church-planting efforts.

Currently, there are only 3 ordained pastors serving the congregations of the SLM, with the first newly ordained Lutheran pastor ordained last year, the first in 15 years. Vacancies in congregations are a serious and ongoing problem.

The Office of International Mission, in collaboration with the SLM president, Rev. Isaac Garcia, has identified a route to the ministry for

Mexican students, and at present there are 7 men studying to be pastors online with the seminary in Ft. Wayne, and 2 at the new seminary in the Dominican Republic.

Additionally, it is expected that another 7 will begin this coming year.Two LCMS professors are now serving in Mexico and teaching 10 other men who are not members of SLM but of other Lutheran church-bodies and confessions, as well as temporarily assisting with the congregational vacancies until Mexican pastors can be ordained and placed.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Mexico Mission - Project ID: MX0001-65707

Summary

New seminary support


• Deaconess formation

• Pastoral Formation for the Americas and the Caribbean

• Emphasis on preparing evangelists and showing mercy

With Latin American Seminaries at their fullest residential capacity, and with a burgeoning deaconess program taking off in the region, an additional seminary and mercy training center in Latin America was identified by Regional LCMS leadership as a critical need.

The new seminary facility is the newly constructed top floor of the existing Lutheran elementary school and church. The campus supports a full residential seminary program for pastors, and a distance education program for deaconesses. It consists of several classrooms, offices for professors, dormitory space for about 20 students, a conference space for use in regional gatherings and a modern library ,which when completed will be on track to being the largest Spanish Lutheran Theological Library in the world.

Young men who attend the new seminary, located in the Dominican Republic, receive a formation which prepares them for a lifetime of pastoral ministry in Central America and the Caribbean. The presence of the Hogares Luteranos el Buen Pastor group home for children with developmental disabilities, on the campus of the seminary, is an

opportunity for students to learn how to integrate the merciful role of the church in its community, with Word and Sacrament ministry. In addition, pastoral students work closely with missionary church planters throughout the country of the Dominican Republic, in order to gain vital hands on experience planting churches and sharing the Gospel with those who don’t know Christ.

For the young women who are studying to be deaconesses, the rich theological depth offered in classes, and the intensive practical experience which comes from the surrounding mercy institutions serves to form capable and effective deaconesses to support the work of Pastors throughout the region.

The large conference room is known as our Mercy Center and Lord willing will soon partner and teach on a whole range of mercy issues. Issues such as affirming life, reconciliation, working with people with disabilities, the deaf, and giving lay people and church workers alike a sturdy witness of Jesus while also being hands and feet of mercy to those in need.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


New Seminary Support - Project ID: LM0012-65211

Summary

panama mission

Project ID: PA0001-65804

• Provides Theological Education for pre-seminarians

• Lays the groundwork for ongoing church-plants

• Strengthens the relationship with the national church

The Lutheran Church of Panama (IELPA) bears vestiges of congregations founded during the U.S. ownership and operation of the Panama Canal as well as congregations planted by LCMS missionaries working throughout the country. It consists of five congregations sprinkled throughout the populous areas of the country served by a number of national pastors and deaconesses. However, the church has not established a clear route to the ministry for its young men and women. Congregations thirst for Bible teaching.

In 2016 an LCMS missionary and his family deployed to Panama. There he conducts classes in the congregations of the IELPA as a teacher, educator and mentor to bolster the teaching in the churches. He travels weekly to the congregations and offers basic Bible classes as well as assisting national pastors. Working with the leadership of

the national church, he has opened the doors to Bible teaching that will help to identify future candidates for pre-seminary and seminary training at one of our Latin American seminaries.

One of the historic LCMS church buildings in Balboa, Panama offers a central site for future classes and provides a place where students could be housed at low cost while attending classes. The roof needs to be replaced before thisfacility can be fully used to bring people together for training in one central location.

Funds for this project will provide for the replacement of the roof as well as support expenses of the pre-seminary program. Leaders will have a means to pass the baton to future generations of Panamanians who thirst to hear and know the Gospel of Jesus Christ.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Panama Mission - Project ID: PA0001-65804

Summary

Peru mission

Project ID: PE0001-65611

• Supports 3 worship facilities for new church plants

• Seminary Scholarships for Peruvian Leadership

The Lutheran Mission in Peru seeks to plant a Peruvian led Lutheran church body in the country. Formed after LCMS response to an earthquake in Southern Peru in 2007, outreach continues in that area. Since then, missionaries have established Word and Sacrament or teaching ministry in five key locations in the capital city of Lima. Manpower and mobility limits expanding those five locations until additional missionaries and local nationals can be raised up.

Missionaries seek to find sustainable ministry sites and outreach that can be supported in the future by the Peruvian church. One Peruvian asked us frankly to “not establish something that they cannot sustain in the future.” We currently rent three locations for worship and have access to one other site through collaboration with the community. We gather in private homes for Bible study and catechesis, and in a hotel in our other outreach site.

Working with leadership that emerges within the outreach programs in Lima, we introduce preparatory and on-line theological education to interested students. One Peruvian student is currently participating in resident pastoral training. Additional men study with our pastors to learn the confessions and establish a sound background that will enable them to attend resident programs in the

future. Additionally, recent seminary graduates are being evaluated for colloquy into the mission’s program.

Mercy house projects in some of the poorest parts of the city, under the NGO Castillo Fuerte banner, bring the Word of God to some 200 underprivileged and mentally disabled children. Additionally, a hot-lunch program at our original site in La Victoria provides nutritious meals for children whose parents live and work in the garment district of Lima. We also work hand in hand with another NGO whose mission reaches single mothers to provide child care and spiritual enrichment for their children. Short term mission teams and educational teams from the U.S. have multiplied the work being done by the mission team. We also have teamed with Lutheran World Relief to set up emergency supplies and train for disaster response in the country.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Peru Mission - Project ID: PE0001-65611

Summary

Puerto Rico mission

Project ID: A10897-66400

• Expand the ministry in Mayaguez

• Lease and furnish a worship space in Ponce

• Support a third church plant in the northwest

The work of showing Christ’s mercy, spreading the Gospel and planting churches in Puerto Rico is both a national and international effort of our Synod. As of the summer of 2019, there are seven LCMS and alliance missionaries serving in the cities of Mayaguez and Ponce. Both Principe de Paz (Prince of Peace), the congregation in Mayaguez, and Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life) in Ponce have regular Sunday services.

The congregation in Mayaguez was established in the 1990s through work begun by the Ohio District. The addition of a mercy house containing short term team housing space is

allowing for an expansion of mercy and evangelism work throughout Puerto Rico’s third largest city. The Gospel is shared through English and music classes, health programs, and post-Hurricane Maria disaster response work.

The congregation in Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city, started formal services in 2018. Work there is also focused on evangelism and post-Hurricane Maria mercy care.

Puerto Rico has an active FORO partner group that supports this work of the Lord in establishing a confessional Lutheran church in this island commonwealth of the United States.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Puerto Rico Mission - Project ID: A10897-66400

Summary

Seminary scholarships


• 20 students currently receive scholarships

• 6 countries have students studying abroad

• Serves churches across Latin America

In the past ten years, missionary efforts have led to planting 50 churches across 10 Latin American countries. As the Lord blesses the planting of churches through the preaching of the Gospel, there is a need to prepare pastors. Take Elvis Carrera for example. Elvis Carrera of Lima, Peru is from a new church plant in Los Olivos. As there was no seminary for him to study in Lima, he stepped out in faith to contemplate studying at Concordia Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The decision was not easy. It meant that he and his young wife and daughter needed to leave Peru for the first time ever in order to go and study to become a pastor in a foreign country and culture.

Elvis and others like him have been offered scholarships to study abroad, having no residential seminary in their respective countries. The Lord of the Harvest has blessed this effort.

Even with the enormous progress being made through current scholarships, the need for additional scholarships to support seminary students is critical. Even now the new residential seminary in the Dominican Republic is preparing men throughout the Caribbean, Central, and South America so that the Gospel might continue to be carried to even more of Latin America.

Not only is a need for more scholarships to meet the needs of students a factor, but the need for well-trained pastors is overwhelming. In Paraguay alone, some 65 congregations are served by only 12 pastors! In Mexico, the largest Spanish speaking country in the world, until recently, no pastor had been ordained for more than 15 years. Through seminary scholarships, the Lord has blessed the Lutheran Synod of Mexico with 2 new pastors and 2 more soon to be ordained and 10 more currently enrolled in pastoral formation programs.

Today the LCMS Office of International Mission intentionally partners with Lutheran churches through the seminary in Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Chile in order to provide scholarships to assist in expenses such as residence, tuition and food. The scholarships enable the seminaries to support larger class sizes and professors in order to further enrich the value of the theological education being offered. The students’ home churches provide the costs of transportation and a monthly stipend for each student.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Seminary Scholarships - Project ID: LM0009-65044

Summary

Spain mission

Project ID: ES0001-65031

• Church Planting and Word and Sacrament throughout Spain

• Lutherans return after 500 years of Reformation History

• Two Spanish Lutheran Pastors, three more in training

With the 500th Anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses, the Lutheran Mission in Spain pursues a unique second chance to bring the truth, freedom and joy of the pure Gospel to Spain, five centuries after the first Lutheran Reformation in Spain was snuffed out by the Spanish Inquisition.

The writings of Luther and other reformers arrived quickly in Spain, and the Reformation teaching convinced many Spaniards. Significant support for Luther’s teachings grew in several cities, including Valladolid and Seville, but in the 1540’s and 50’s the Spanish crown and the Inquisition crushed the reformation movement. Dozens of confessors were burned at the stake in Spain, and many more were imprisoned or fled the kingdom. With varying degrees of severity, Roman Catholicism was maintained as the only approved faith in Spain until the 1980’s, when the law against other confessions proselytizing was replaced with religious freedom.

The joint mission work started by the LCMS and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina in 2000 soon discovered that a strong but spiritually empty cultural Roman Catholicism and a rapidly secularizing society made for a very difficult mission field. Hard work and good Lutheran teaching by a series of three hard working Argentine pastors bore fruit in a church body of faithful and well catechized 70+ members.

As we enter 2018, the missionaries are now two LCMS pastors, David Warner and Adam Lehman. They, along with two Spanish pastors, three other men seeking to serve in the pastoral office, and a core of dedicated lay leaders, are building on the foundation built since 2000. In 2016 worship frequency was increased by more than double. They have since established the first permanent church building of the Spanish Evangelical Lutheran Church, (IELE), in Seville, one of the cities where the original Spanish Lutheran Reformation began. A suitable space has been located and rented, and work is underway to prepare it for use, both for worship and as office and study space. Better worship facilities and more visibility are also being sought in Madrid and Cartagena, the other two cities where we have small congregations.

In the meantime, the missionaries continue to travel and use internet teleconferencing to serve and teach the members scattered across 17 cities in Spain. The mission also benefits tremendously from occasional ministry tours by U.S. based Spanish speaking pastors, who expand our Word and Sacrament ministry and relieve pressure on our missionaries.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Spain Mission - Project ID: ES0001-65031

Summary

Uruguay mission

Project ID: UY0001-66001

• Supports church-planting in Montevideo, Uruguay

• Lays groundwork for future Lutheran University

• Supports a downtown mission center

The South American nation of Uruguay is an important mission field, being the most atheist nation in the western hemisphere, and home to one of the highest depression and suicide rates in the world. The extremely secular nation has been the home of a single Lutheran congregation for nearly 100 years, and joint mission efforts between Brazilian, Uruguayan, and American Lutherans are working to reach the population of this country.

The LCMS works together with partners at a FORO in order to accomplish the joint mission goals of the Lutheran Church of Uruguay. Efforts are underway to establish a Lutheran

University in Montevideo, connected with the already enormously successful St. Paul’s Lutheran School. Meanwhile, LCMS missionaries are both engaged in the school and in church planting efforts in the downtown area of Montevideo, working hand in hand with Lutheran Hour Ministries and the Lutheran Church of Uruguay.

This project is to help cover the expenses of a mission center in the downtown Montevideo area. The center is used both for worship and for outreach activities.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Uruguay Mission - Project ID: UY0001-66001

Summary

VDMA - Translation Team


• Translates core Lutheran works into Spanish for delivery

• Uses Digital Delivery to overcome classic logistical challenges

• Partners with Lutheran content providers like CPH, Luther Academy, etc.

https://international.lcms.org/tag/project-lm0004-65048/


The VDMA Project provides Lutheran pastors, seminary students, and indigenous church workers in the Latin America Caribbean (LAC) region with a digital library of theological resources in Spanish, to aid them in carrying out their vocations in conformity with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. Before the Project was initiated, church leaders in the LAC region had little or no access to Lutheran biblical and theological resources in their mother tongue, including

books or magazines that many Lutheran families in North America have in their homes. The books, journals, Bible studies, educational resources and daily devotions that will be of great benefit to Spanish speakers through the VDMA digital library are currently available only in English. Funds are needed to engage a team of skilled linguists to translate these valuable resources into Spanish.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


VDMA Translation Team - Project ID: LM0004-65048

Summary



Venezuela mission

Project ID: VE0004-66101

• Supports ongoing theological education in Venezuela

• Protects historic investments in the Venezuelan Church

The Venezuelan Lutheran Church faces many challenges due to that country’s continued socio-political crisis. For the fifteen Lutheran pastors in Venezuela who serve their countrymen, life is “complicated.” Millions have migrated to other Latin countries, including many well-educated and professional Lutherans. The church remains as a bulwark to encourage those who remain and struggle to feed, clothe, educate and care for their families. They continue to work to form new pastors, deaconesses, teachers and church leaders through their Bible institute, Juan de Frias, in cooperation with Concordia Seminary the Reformer in Dominican Republic.

LCMS World Relief and Human Care working with the LCMS Office of International Missions assists in the following ways:

• The Lutheran Church of Chile works to secure the most needed medicines and transport them to the local congregations in Venezuela. A grant in the amount of $40,000 from LCMS World Relief and Human Care is the funding source for this crucial and life preserving support. That grant provides for four shipments per year, with a goal of benefitting 500 Venezuelans. The most recent shipment actually brought medicines to 630 Venezuelans.

• Additional funds are made available to our OIM nurses, who work to secure medicines for church workers and members, which are not included in the Lutheran Church of Chile program.

• Lutheran pastors receive economic assistance to enable them to minister full time to their flocks.

• Venezuelan ex patriots in Chile, Perú, Dominican Republic and Spain have received help through local Lutheran mercy houses funded by OIM. These mercy houses reach out with Christ’s mercy arm, to refugees in need of assistance.

The Venezuela Lutheran Church contributes to the efforts of the Latin American and Caribbean Region and presently provides three missionary pastors serving in Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Spain. They provide valuable service to the Kingdom of God and to the overall mission in the LAC region, as they work to share the Gospel, plant Lutheran Churches, and show mercy to all. We thank the Lord for their service.


P.O. Box 66861 St. Louis, MO 63166-6861


Venezuela Mission - Project ID: VE0004-66101

Summary

Documents

Project Catalogue Web - international.staupitz.org · expanding circle of people. The Venezuelan sister church has partnered with OIM to provide a pastor for two missions in Santiago,