It Takes a Missionary Team

I often get called upon to help run logistics (lodging, meals, and transportation, mostly) for meetings and events that don't involve volunteers in any way. Doing so falls squarely within my wheelhouse, but the emphasis was on the "help" most recently. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a missionary team to pull off a Venezuela FORO followed by a conference for our seminary's distance learning (FPH, or Formación Pastoral Hispana) students immediately after the Christmas/New Year's/Epiphany holiday. I think we all wanted the undertaking to NOT become a mini-Symposium...buuuuuut it was a bit of a mini-Symposium. 

Although distinct, the two events bled into one another in many ways and merged into one in my mind, which is why I'm choosing to make them a single post. First things first, though: a Venezuela FORO. We've done this before: bring all or most of the ILV pastorate to the Dominican for a day or a couple days of strategic plan and budget talk, studying the Word together, and respite. As Regional Director Rev. Ted Krey put it, "they deserve our best while they're here." 

"Here" was a haul, as it turns out. The flight from Caracas to the capital is easy, but their hired shuttle bus broke down multiple times and by the time they waited for a second shuttle to rescue them, they got in at almost midnight and missed the welcome BBQ we'd planned. Things could only go uphill from there, and did. I had no part in the meeting but heard it was marked by open ears, minds, hearts, and wallets. I did have the privilege of taking them to the mall on a shopping spree that night, though. 

ILV president Eduardo Flores letting his brother Rafa and wife Jamielynn know we were on our way. 

I'd get veeeeeeery used to driving the Fritsches' 12-passenger van in the near future, as merely days later I found myself on bus station pick-up duty for our FPH guests. These are men studying in the Spanish equivalent of the US seminaries' SMP program. A vast majority didn't know each other and had never set foot on the seminary campus; some had never left their home countries before. To be frank, arrival day was long and tiring for me. Twice I showed up at the opposite bus station from where the guests were, and twice I tried to drop them off at the seminary only to find the parking lot gate closed. It was almost 10:00 pm by the time I got home. 

I can't even tell you what was on the conference schedule until Wednesday afternoon when I played Uber-driver again, in my own car this time. The group split up for some practical, pavement-pounding field experience; I accompanied the half that went to Villa Dura, one of my church's mission sites. 

We started at church member Rosa's house, but she wasn't in a position to receive guests. 

Sweeping leaves and debris out of the club (next door to Rosa's house) before welcoming the kids in. 

Getting the 411 on the Acompañamiento para el cuidado pastoral (Pastoral Care Companion). 

A loop around the neighborhood (to see it and so kids wouldn't be too intimidated by all of the black to come in!). 

The visitors got to help with the beginning of the kids' Bible lesson before we had to leave. 

It was nice not needing to be there from start to finish every day but desiring to experience worship with the group at least once, I went for Matins Thursday morning. 

Later, I was in my usual hiding spot, the library, when the whole group stopped by for a tour. In the foreground are the seminary's two newest students, Felipe/Darlo (not sure what he wants to go by yet) and Edvard, from Haiti, because, you know, the week wasn't crazy enough.

And before I knew it, I was at Friday's closing Vespers.

It was fun watching timidity turn to familiarity and even camaraderie by the end of the conference. This year's bunch adhered fairly tightly to the schedule, but I'm betting next year they'll be a little more difficult to wrangle as everyone chats like the old friends they are now. As they come back one-by-one or a few at a time to graduate alongside their residential classmates, they'll do so not as strangers but as those who've been there, done that, and have a connection to the institution. 

A handful of the Venezuelans who attended the FPH conference after the FORO stuck around over the weekend, and someone had to entertain them. If it makes a very not rough job seem a little rougher, it was Dominican cold (the high was 81). Aire polar has been all over our news outlets' social media: frigid temps have been breaking records left and right in the mountains, and here in the city, it's been in the 50s in the mornings. Brrrrrrr!

How are we less than 3 weeks into January? My next thing is mere days away: a short-term team from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis that arrives at 3:21 pm on Saturday. I've been putting finishing touches on their schedule since the last of the Venezuelans (that don't have family here) left, and I'm honestly really excited about everything they'll get to see/do/experience - you, too, vicariously through them in a future post(s). 

Until next time, blessings in Christ!