<\/p>\n
On June 24, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a pair of earthquakes in northern Venezuela that totaled 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude. The earthquakes occurred 40 seconds apart and caused widespread damage throughout Venezuela. More than 6,500 people have been reported dead, more than 225,000 were injured, and tens of thousands are still missing many months later.<\/p>\n
WELS\u2019 One Latin America Team sent Missionary Luis Acosta to the affected area in July to provide gospel comfort and to deliver funds from WELS Christian Aid and Relief to the Christians that the team is working with there. Here is the report from Acosta following that trip:<\/p>\n
We finally got in Venezuela. The entrance into the country was not trouble free but nothing that the Lord couldn\u2019t solve. The same day we went to Puerto Cabello to visit Nimia Fuentes and her group. We had a devotional\/Bible study focused on answering with God\u2019s Word why the earthquake happened and I encouraged them to spread the gospel with a sense of urgency. We also prayed thanking God for the protection and blessings received, along with our petitions for the country and all people affected. The manifestations of deep thankfulness toward God for the humanitarian aid received were overwhelming, not a dry eye in the room. . . .<\/em><\/p>\n From Puerto Cabello we traveled to Acarigua and visited Maireli and Jose Toyo\u2019s group. As happened before, we shared God\u2019s Word to the group and provided his much needed encouragement. Here we saw also how timely and needed was the humanitarian aid they received.<\/em><\/p>\n The week ended in Guarenas, 40 minutes east from Caracas, with the visit and worship with Jos\u00e9 Rolando\u2019s group.<\/em><\/p>\n WELS Christian Aid and Relief provided $10,000 in aid to help those in Venezuela. Throughout the summer WELS Christian Aid and Relief also helped congregations in the United States that were affected by flooding, tornadoes, and wildfires as well as those in Colombia following a major earthquake and the Hmong Evangelical Lutheran Church in Vietnam following severe flooding. Christian Aid and Relief is also closely monitoring the needs following the deadly flooding in Nepal.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery disaster is hard and painful,\u201d notes Dan Sims, director of WELS Christian Aid and Relief, \u201cbut each one is also an opportunity to show hurting people the compassionate love of our Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n Learn more about WELS\u2019 outreach in Latin America at wels.net\/latin-america. Learn more about WELS Christian Aid and Relief at wels.net\/relief.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On June 24, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a pair of earthquakes in northern Venezuela that totaled 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude. The earthquakes occurred 40 seconds apart and caused widespread damage throughout Venezuela. More than 6,500 people have been reported dead, more than 225,000 were injured, and tens of thousands are still missing many months<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[524,10624,186,2199,290],"class_list":["post-31867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-daily-verse","tag-aid","tag-distributes","tag-missionary","tag-venezuela","tag-wels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}