VIETNAM
PUERTO RICO*
INDIA
In Vietnam, Covid has been serious since mid-January. Students of all ages have to stay home to study online until March 7, when we will wait for the next government announcement. We have not had a good or easy time of spreading the Gospel for Christ in the past 12 months. However, we still distributed LHF books to children around the country. Thanks be to God, we have given out more than 8,000 copies so far. After I sent the Bible Stories in Pictures to the countryside, I got touching feedback: “The stories are very moving,” one pastor said. “They help not only children, but also their parents when they read for those who can’t. Parents are reminded of what they learned from the early ages. We give thanks for those who have helped make a complete book for us.”
As in most of the rest of the world, most of our work went virtual during Covid. We held a virtual VBS in July, where each child received the Spanish A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories through the mail. Now we continue going through the stories, month by month on Zoom. It’s been something consistent in their lives during a time of consistent inconsistency! Our team also started ESL and art classes online, which have brought in a lot of new people to meet and share with. We are now starting monthly art events in person at both church locations (Mayaguez and Ponce) to meet in person those who have attended our classes online. We use the Spanish Bible with Small Catechism for all of our Bible studies.
Recently, Covid cases have started rising for unknown reasons. Not all churches hold Sunday worship services, but a few do. People have taken salary cuts and some have lost their jobs. Hence, church giving has come down, which affects the ministry and maintenance of church facilities. Printing LHF books was also affected, as many workers at the printing presses left the cities to go back to their native places. In spite of this, two catechism translations (Zou and Punjabi) are being printed, and “Jesus Never Fails” has been printed in 3 languages. We look forward to 2021, with hope that we will publish the Hindi Book of Concord, “Jesus Never Fails” in Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada, and more.
- Hai Au Dinh LHF project coordinator in Vietnam
- Christel Neuendorf LCMS missionary in Puerto Rico
*Photo credit: Johanna Heidorn LCMS Latin American Region
During this Covid time, The Ingrian Lutheran Church in Russia has actually been adding congregations! Several free-standing Protestant churches and Lutheran churches from both the German and the Church of the Augsburg Confession have come to know of us through online work and have asked to join. Their pastors all have to be re-educated (many even confirmed). These congregations and their pastors are sent LHF books to begin their learning of the Confessions (so of course, they receive the Book of Concord, the Lutheran Study Bible, any of Luther’s Works we have, etc.). We now have work going on in Kaliningrad, Kirov, Novorossiysk, Yakutsk, Yalta and several other places. In all of this work, LHF translations are a huge help! We have confessional material we can trust, which we can send to those congregations to begin their learning on the road to becoming Confessional Lutheran Christians.
- Cherub Sundaram LHF project coordinator in India
RUSSIA
- Rev. Leif Camp Missionary, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria in Russia
3
