Venezuela Trip Report
May 2005
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name, which is above every name, the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. A team of 6 of us worked in the prisons near Caracas, Venezuela in May.  The team included: Alberto, a Puerto Rican brother who served as our translator, Willie, an ex-con, Constantin, Adrian and Alexandru, three Romanian brothers and myself. 
This was a somewhat different trip than many of our other trips in that our Prison Ministry Seminar was the focal point. Of course, we did visit prisons and distribute over a thousand dollars worth of Bibles like we usually do. These services in other countries are always so encouraging. The inmates are always respectful and glad to have us minister to them. There are never enough Bibles because nearly every single inmate would like to have a Bible and sometimes they even fight over them! We also bought food and distributed it in a poor village on the edge of the Amazon jungle. With grateful hearts they received the food and the Gospel message of a changed life. On Monday and Tuesday, I conducted the Training Seminar with about 65 in attendance. There are no Chaplains in Venezuela so this concept was new to many of them. They embraced the precepts of Chaplaincy and prison ministry with all their hearts. The second day was memorable. A representative from the Ministry of Justice was present and explained that the prison ministry in Venezuela was in chaos. She said that various ministries would visit the prisons with no order or consistency involved. She said that there was no coordination between the churches and the prison ministry and could I possibly help. I spent the next two hours explaining how a cohesive Chaplaincy could be developed. At the end of the day, we invited 15 people to come forward (no pastors) to be prayed for a dedicated to full-time ministry in the prison system. When we were finished, the Ministry of Justice representative thanked us for giving them direction on how to proceed and also remarked at the “coincidenceâ€. “What was that?†I asked. She said that on Thursday, an agreement for the Evangelical churches of Venezuela to provide a Chaplain to every one of the 35 prisons in the country was to be signed and could I meet with the Evangelical representative.
I met with Samuel Olson on Wednesday and told him about our seminar. He said that he wanted 5 of those dedicated to full-time prison ministry to be referred to him to become the first 5 Chaplains for the prison system. He said that they had been working on this approval for six years and that they had no other candidates for the Chaplaincy yet. God’s timing is absolutely perfect. Please pray for this breakthrough and that the 5 men we immediately notified and spoke with will become the first fruits of many Chaplains in this country. Praise God for all that He did in this place. What a remarkable opportunity it is to serve the Master in this way.
