Conducting a wedding in Venezuela

In just a few weeks, our family will be in Venezuela to conduct a marriage ceremony for our friends.

We were honored to be invited by the bride and groom to officiate. 

The groom traveled 12 hours on a bus to get to the international airport in Caracas, flew to Panama, and then isited us personally to give us that invitation.  We are deeply honored.

The ceremony will be on October 4.  On the 5th, I’ll be preaching in a couple of churches for a love offering, casting the vision of our ministry in Latin America. 

Barquisimeto Venezuela

We will be visiting the city of Barquisimeto, population about 1.5 million.  It is a university town about halfway between Caracas and the Columbian border and built on a plateau along a river valley.

From Wikipedia:  Two well-known landmarks in Barquisimeto are the obelisk, called El Obelisco (which is actually flat on top not making it a true obelisk), raised to commemorate Barquisimeto’s 400th anniversary of foundation, and the Cathedral, which looks like an inverted orchid; this style of construction is very rare in Latin America since it consists of a cross-like tinted glass dome, designed in 1959 by Jan Bergkamp and finished in 1969.

I have preached in a little church just outside the Cathedral.  The Cathedral is where the Mary statue is carried once a year on January 14.  Over 2 million people join the procession.  Some barefoot, some holding a cross.

Visiting some family friends

This is the first time since the year 2000 that the whole family will come.

We will get to see some former members of our church, the missionary in Venezuela who continues to serve there and has been a family friend nearly 16 years now. 

He still considers me his pastor and in the many trips that I have been there, we have spent a lot of time together.  He mentored me in discerning our call to Latin America.

How can you pray?

• 1.  Sermon Preparation — I’m doing this in Spanish and certainly don’t want to commit accidental heresy or say something offensive.
• 2.  Provision — airfare is not cheap for a family of 4.  We will be using domestic ground transportation once we arrive in Caracas.  The 45 minute flight for a family of four was running close to $1000.00, so we are finding ground transportation for the 4 hour drive.
• 3.  Safety — recent tensions between Venezuela and the US continue to make it not the safest (though not the most dangerous) place in the world.