A letter from Harry and Debbie Horne in Peru
December 7, 2009
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus. It has been a good year at the Recinto Universitario Teológico where I teach. We sent seven students to Costa Rica to finish their studies at the Universidad Bíblica Latinoamericana, the theological institution to which the Recinto is related and which grants the degrees our students earn. We have also received 34 new students. I’d like to tell you a little about two of them.
Josué, 17, is the youngest of a group of Lutheran students at the Recinto this year.
It’s a little hard for me not to think about Josué as a kid when his boyish grin breaks out around his budding mustache. At 17, he is the youngest of a group of Lutheran students who began this year when the Lutheran church in Perú made the decision to send their students to the Recinto for their theological education. In class, the comment that often follows his boyish grin reflects the seriousness with which he takes his calling.
Josué’s journey with the church began around this time of year in one of the “pueblos jovenes” of Lima. These “new towns” begin as squatter settlements and gradually become settled communities. The local Lutheran church gathered children to make Christmas chocolates. He was 8 at the time. For a while after making after the Christmas chocolates, he would stand at the door looking in on services, but was ashamed to go in. At 13, he participated in a confirmation class and liked talking about theology. At 14, he was confirmed in the church and began to participate in the music leadership of worship. At 15, he felt the Lord’s call, and began to lead worship. His first sermon happened when there was no one else to preach. They turned to him, and with 20 minutes preparation he preached on Mary and Martha. When his Carabayllo congregation opened a new mission church in San Martín de Porres, he was ordained a deacon and became pastor of the congregation under the guidance of an experienced pastor.
In this group of student leaders at the Recinto, Liliana is second from the right.
Liliana has roots in the Presbyterian church in Perú. It was in a Presbyterian church in Moyobamba where she heard and responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. After years of growing in the Lord there, she began to participate in Pentecostal worship as well. (The Presbyterian service only lasted one hour.) She ended up marrying a pastor in the Assemblies of God church. A few years and a couple of kids later, he left their home for another woman, and Liliana found herself in the situation of so many women here (and elsewhere), struggling to support herself and her children. Liliana returned to the Presbyterian church, and began again to exercise leadership there, including in a radio ministry. As a woman, though, she was not allowed to preach from the pulpit.
Liliana (center), with Harry Horne on the far right, during a class at the Recinto.
Currently she is pastor of an independent congregation in one of Lima’s many “asentamientos humanos” or “human settlements.” These are areas where people who come from other parts of Perú looking for work simply put up a shack in the sand, usually without electricity or running water. She supports herself by selling baked goods, a skill she shared with the Recinto when we celebrated our eleventh anniversary as an institution. She also shares that skill with women in the community where she pastors, teaching them a skill they can use to make a living. Things are going well in the congregation. As she says it, she simply lets the Lord know the needs of the congregation, and then coordinates the ways the Lord supplies those needs.
During student worship tonight, Liliana told us of a visit she and other students had made to a children’s hospital. Complete with puppets and a clown, the group made a presentation to ambulatory children and then visited with children confined to their beds. In this and other activities of the Recinto, her leadership is affirmed and appreciated, and she is getting the theological education that informs her ministry. In the process she is learning the many ways in which the Bible affirms the gifts of women, and to find alternative interpretations of the passages that are still being used to deny leadership roles to women. One thing that helped Liliana was participating in a workshop taught by Liebe and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza. Two other resources that have been particularly helpful are Let Wives be Submissive to the Husbands, the Household Code in I Peter, by David L. Balch (Society of Biblical Literature) 1981, and “To Keep Silent, Ask Husbands at Home, and not to Have Authority over Men: The Transition from Gathering in Private to Meeting in Public Space in Second Generation Christianity and the Exclusion of Women from Leadership of the Public Assembly” by Brian J. Kapper, in Theologische Zeitschrift, Jahrgang 61, 2005, Heft 2. These two studies bring together results of many studies over the last four decades, mostly by women.
As always, you can give scholarships to our students by contributing to ECO # 052331. You can fund a scholarship for a year with $300, $400, or $500. You can give online by using the "give" button below.
As this will probably be our last letter this year, we wish you all a wonderful Christmas. We hope that in the midst of carols and candles, of angels and shepherds, and giving and receiving, you will hear the ancient message, “Emmanuel,” and rejoice anew in the presence of the Lord. As always, thanks for all your prayers and support this year.
Debbie and Harry Horne
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 293
