VENEZUELA NOW, INC.
P. O. Box 1655
Duluth. GA
30096
Seminario
Wesleyano de Venezuela
Our Mission is
to reach the lost of Venezuela.
Venezuela
Now, Inc and the Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela were birthed out of the
passion for mission at the Mount Pisgah UMC in Johns Creek, GA. The work in Venezuela began in 1996 and the
Seminary was founded in 2002. Eventually, due to circumstances at Mount Pisgah,
the Non-Profit and the Seminary had to seek sustenance from other sources, even
though many individuals associated or formerly associated with the mission have
continued to
encourage
and support the work. Currently many churches support this ministry.
We
fulfill our mission primarily through equipping and training pastors,
evangelists, teachers, doctors, etc. to reach their nation for Christ. We
believe the ROI for the US mission dollar is far better when the actual
ministry is done by indigenous leaders, not foreigners. We desire to develop long term partnerships
between congregations in the US and the church in Venezuela. However, the best
investment is for the churches here to partner with the Seminary rather than
simply build a house or a church. The leaders we train can do those things far
more efficiently and more cost effectively than can US mission teams. We are investing in the future, training
pastors and ministers, some of which will continue to provide ROI for 50 years
or more. And if one applies the
principle of multiplication that exists in the Book of Acts, the impact is
exponential growth.
However,
our impact is not only solely in Venezuela.
We also spend a great deal of time teaching and modeling missional
service on a global scale, making an impact for Christ across states, nations
and continents. Hence, our students and
graduates are actively serving in a variety of capacities in Europe, Columbia,
Peru, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and the US.
One
of the by-products of this mission was the formation of the United Methodist
Church of Venezuela, organized in August, 2007 and birthed out of the
association of pastors attending the Seminary.
Our
goal is to deliver to the Methodist Church in Venezuela a Campus which is fully
developed and paid for, and a Seminary which is self-sustaining, led by
Venezuelans. In 2008 we purchased our current campus after renting space for
the first 6 years of operation. We
bought the abandoned Christian Literature Campus in La Piedad Norte, a suburb
of Cabudare, Venezuela close to the state capital city of Barquisimeto. The
purchase price was approximately $350,000 US equivalent. We currently have a mortgage of $80,000
($20,000 due by December 31, 2012). We
will then have a remaining mortgage of $60,000 left on the original $180,000
interest free loan (as long as the annual $30,000 payment is paid by the end of the year by
Venezuela Now, Inc. So far we have been able to make each annual payment). The campus now has a value
of well over $500,000 and one local real estate specialist has set the value at
just over $1million.
While we have no specific time-line to
make the complete transfer, we are making progress. We now have 6 Venezuelan
professors (all graduates) and will develop more each year. We have a Venezuelan administrative team in
place and working. We have a team of
Venezuelan advisors (students and graduates) who serve as an unofficial board
helping us design a program that is effective in their cultural setting. We have a Master’s Admission Committee made
up solely of students and graduates of the Seminary. They have determined the
admission requirements into the Master’s Degree program and will determine
which applications to accept and what an applicant will need to do in some
prerequisite Wesleyan Seminary Undergraduate courses before admission. (Such as
all must have taken the Inductive Bible Study Method only taught in our
Seminary in Venezuela, The Mission of the Church course, and others. The
maintenance and construction on the campus, including the new Medical Clinic, is
all under the direction of Venezuelans.
The Retreat Ministry is also completely in the control of Venezuelans.
The
Seminary is the highest quality and most effective theological training
currently available in Venezuela. There are many reasons for the effectiveness
and high quality of the education in the Seminary.
We
offer most of our courses in week-long settings. Students are often serving as full-time pastors
or are bi-vocational. They are able to devote
individual weeks or two weeks at the time to take courses.
We
also offer the finest theological faculty in the nation of Venezuela. Since each course lasts a week, we are able bring
in the finest professors and practitioners in the world to teach for a week or
two. No professors (foreign or Venezuelan) are paid a salary or honorarium.
Most pay their own travel expenses. They understand this is a mission and they
gladly give their time and often their money to the seminary to be able to
teach. Therefore, we have faculty
regularly coming to Venezuela from the US, Columbia, Mexico and Costa Rica, Ireland,
etc.
Since
no professor, foreign or indigenous, receives compensation, we are able to
provide a very inexpensive education.
The students pay a portion of the room and board and the materials costs
and a small tuition cost. Even this is a
real hardship in the Venezuelan economy (the cumulative inflation rate for the
last four years in Venezuela is 389%!). Yet if this were a traditional
seminary, most of our students could not attend due to cost, time commitment
and time away from their ministry. Our undergraduate degree takes at least 6
years to complete and the Masters takes 2 years, minimum. And our students are already asking when we
will start a Phd. Program. We have no
plans to do that, but this is indicative of the value they place on what they
call the finest theological education in Venezuela.
YTD Financial
Summary
Our
2012 Fiscal Year is not yet complete, but this is the data as of January 1,
2012-December 15, 2012.
Funds received
for Operations
Sustaining
$65,000
Other 18,000
Capital 6,000
Sub total $89,000
Special Projects given in 2012
Other 18,000
Capital 6,000
Sub total $89,000
Special Projects given in 2012
Motor
for Ministry Car $7,000
Urban Farming Project 5,000
Medical Clinic 80,500
Radio, Puerto Ordaz 500
Bishop's Car 11,500
Subtotal $104,500
Urban Farming Project 5,000
Medical Clinic 80,500
Radio, Puerto Ordaz 500
Bishop's Car 11,500
Subtotal $104,500
Total given YTD
2012: $193,500
Projected Designated Cash Balances to be carried into 2013
Clinic $55,000
Urban Farm Project 5,000
Sustaining 5,000
Mortgage Due 12/31/12 $20.000 - Currently not in hand, but in prayer
Projected Designated Cash Balances to be carried into 2013
Clinic $55,000
Urban Farm Project 5,000
Sustaining 5,000
Mortgage Due 12/31/12 $20.000 - Currently not in hand, but in prayer
Venezuelan
Income:
Additionally,
in 2012 we received income in Venezuelan Bolivares at the Seminary which was
used for local operations, in addition to our US contributed dollars in the
following amounts (USD exchange rates vary, but averages 10/$1 in 2012)
Tuition, Room and Board,
Materials, etc.:
77,618Bs or approximately $7,762.00
Rental Income;
85,357Bs or approximately $8,536.00
Total Received in Venezuela $16,298.00
Enrollment Data
The Seminary currently enrolls approximately 100 students during any given year. Our individual classes on the main campus average an attendance of 30 and our extension program in Nirgua averages 12 students per class.
The Seminary currently enrolls approximately 100 students during any given year. Our individual classes on the main campus average an attendance of 30 and our extension program in Nirgua averages 12 students per class.
In
the first 10 years of operation the Seminary has provided 128 individual
classes for course credit.
In
2013 the Seminary will provide 24 courses for credit in both the Bachelor and
Master Degree programs.
As we add the Masters degree program in February, 2013, We expect 20 students to enroll in the Masters of Pastoral Leadership degree.
What is the story of the ministry of our students and graduates?
Here
follows some statistical data. The story
is one only Heaven fully knows because of the scope of their ministry is beyond
the ability to capture in statistical data.
This
falls into four categories:
Churches served
by graduates
We
have had 42 graduates. 38 are serving as
lead pastors or staff. They are serving
approximately 75 churches, 110 missions and innumerable preaching places such
as small groups.
Churches served
by existing students
Of
the 100 existing students, 60 are serving churches, some multiple churches and
missions.
Churches planted
by graduates
50
churches
Churches planted
by existing students
35
Churches
Missions and
Preaching Places Started and Served by Existing Students
75
missions or preaching places
Missional Focus
of the Seminary
One
of the emphases of the Seminary is to offer effective and practical training to
pastors and mission leaders. We do this
in several missional areas:
Church Planting – this is a
major emphasis of the program and the expectation is that every pastor plant
additional churches. For example one pastor has planted 10 churches. The Bishop
not only leads the denomination, but is also a pastor and has personally
planted and oversees three congregations.
Discipleship
Groups/Cell Ministry
– Some of the churches have started as many as 20 small groups or more. Many of these will eventually become
churches. These groups generally meet in homes in surrounding communities,
often as far as 20 miles away.
Serving/Justice
ministries
– in the past, the evangelical church in Venezuela had very little involvement
in our Wesleyan tradition of inward and outward holiness, holiness of heart and
life. Therefore, they did little to reach out to the community in service. Now Seminary students and graduates regularly
create service ministries such as, Ministry in the prisons (horrible conditions
in Venezuelan prisons).
For
example: One student recently did Discipleship Training in a Men’s Prison and
134 inmates were won to Christ, completed the program and received their first
Bible. Another example is ministry with families waiting at the local
hospital. A student does this and on one
Saturday recently led 150 people to Christ. Students and graduates have started
orphanages, ministries with unwed mothers, food ministries, children’s
ministries in the poorest communities, medical ministries, educational
ministries (For example two of our students who are not Methodist lead their
denomination’s Bible training program in three states with over 100
students. Their material comes right
out of their education in the Seminary.)
Specifics on
giving opportunities to the Seminary
You
can sponsor a student: $1,200 per Year
A
week of class: $7,000
Food
for a week of Seminary: $500
Provide
books for a seminary class: $500
We
have 24 classes scheduled next year.
Give
to pay off the existing Mortgage: $80,000
Endow
an Academic Chair: $100,000 (this amount
designated in our Endowment fund for a specific Academic Chair such as
Evangelism, Church Planting, Missions, etc. would provide the expenses for a
professor to teach in the designated subject area each year.)
Additionally,
we are constantly having to raise money for special projects, like the medical
clinic, Ministry Vehicles, Capital improvements like adding classrooms, dorms,
furnishings, Security wall construction, Water Plant, etc.
We
have just this month (December) formally organized an Endowment Fund and have
our first commitments to that fund. We
hope it will provide ongoing funding.
Several donors are looking at “end of life” giving or estate giving. We
expect this to help secure the future of this ministry.
Historic Ties to
Mount Pisgah
The
connection to Venezuela began in 1994 when Mount Pisgah began its Hispanic
Ministry under the leadership of Carlos Gonzalez, a Venezuelan native. After
conversations with the North Georgia Presiding Bishop, Lloyd Knox, and
subsequently with Bishop Paulo Lockman of Brazil, Carlos was recruited to
finish his theological education in Atlanta and then return to Venezuela to
formally start the work of the UMC in Venezuela. He traveled there in May, 1996 to make the
first exploratory contacts with evangelical Christian leaders in Venezuela. His
purpose was to explore possible partnerships for the work. Traveling with him were Ray Lathem, son of
Warren and Jane Lathem, and Roger and Dana Lane. Ray was preparing for ministry and serving in
the Hispanic Worship Service at Mount Pisgah.
Roger and Dana were teachers who felt called to give at least a year to
teaching in Venezuela. They were all
killed on May 11, 1996 in the ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades. The mission and all the contact information
died with them. Or so we all at Mount Pisgah thought.
However,
the next year, Bishop Palomo of Costa Rica made contact in Venezuela with some
of the same Christian leaders the Mount Pisgah team had met. He asked Dr.
Lathem if Mount Pisgah would fund a Venezuelan missionary he wanted to send to
Venezuela to start the Methodist work there.
Mount Pisgah did fund that individual for a number of years. However, it became clear the most productive
way to advance the mission was in training pastors in Venezuela and the focus
shifted to the Seminary.
The
Seminary was founded in 2002 by Bishop Luis Palomo, Dr. Warren Lathem, current
President, and Dr. Dan Dunn, current Academic Dean, and Dr. David Cosby, Dean
of Students.
The
North Georgia Conference, the Kentucky Conference and the Red Bird Missionary
Conference have been significant in their support of the work in
Venezuela. Additionally many United
Methodist Churches and individuals have given ongoing support to the work.
Our
provision has been by the grace of God. Our trust remains sure.
