Several years ago, Phil Gurgel served as a vicar in Torreón (read about Phil here, here, and here).
Now in his last year at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wis., Phil took the time to compile a history of mission work in Mexico. His efforts resulted in a book titled "Cristo Te Ama: The History of WELS Missions and Outreach to Mexico."
Mike and I are thrilled with the book. It offers a nice overview of how WELS mission work in Mexico has progressed during the last decades. It also highlights the church's current activities and ongoing work.
During the coming weeks, I'll be posting portions of the book here on the blog. Today we'll start with the very beginnings of mission work in Mexico. Following is an excerpt from Chapter One of Phil's book:
Chapter 1: A New Mission (1948 - 1971)
For many years prior to officially designating the country of Mexico as a World Mission, WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) was serving Spanish speaking people along our nation's southern border. The earliest and most notable instance of this was the congregation "San Pablo" located in Tucson, Arizona. There Pastor Venus H. Winter was called as a missionary to serve Mexican immigrants beginning in 1948.
In 1960, our synod began to publically discuss the possibility of entering Mexico as a foreign mission. That year, WELS sent an exploratory committee to visit a Missouri Synod mission in the city of Monterrey, Mexico. Following the visit, the committee wrote to the district conventions, "Your committee is convinced that we should stay on this side of the border and investigate the heavily populated Spanish areas which exist in such cities as Phoenix and El Paso in our Southwest."
In 1961, the Synod convention made the effort to move the Spanish missions forward in WELS by suggesting that an effort be made to call a second Spanish speaking missionary. In 1965, the Board for World Missions took a significant step toward further outreach among Hispanics through the creation of an Executive Committee for Latin American Missions. This committee consisted of Pastor H.C. Nitz, Mr. Claude Hessee, and Pastor Harold A. Essmann.
In the following year's synod convention, this committee once again brought up the vision of one day entering Mexico. "The vast field of Mexico...that lies before us causes us to humbly pray the Lord of the harvest that He will give us laborers to enter into such a vast field."
Behind the scenes, God was already busy working on answering that prayer. A few years earlier, in 1964, Pastor O.J. Naumann had received a request for literature which expressed the doctrinal position of WELS. The request came from Dr. David Orea Luna.
Luna had a unique background. His grandfather was a Methodist minister and a man whom Luna really looked up to. On April 2, 1934, this grandfather died after a long struggle with an illness. The loss of his grandfather had a profound impact on Luna's life. He discontinued his studies in medicine, writing on the inside cover of a Bible his grandfather had given him, "My grandfather is dead. I will continue my grandfather's work."
In 1935 Luna entered a Nazarene seminary, where he received excellent grades. Following his graduation in 1939, he quickly became the chief editor of the Nazarene church's official newsletter, "The Nazarene Herald." Despite his rise in the Nazarene church, Luna struggled with doubts, especially in regard to what his church was teaching about salvation. These doubts led him to establish a friendship with a Lutheran pastor in the city of San Antonio, Texas. This pastor explained to Luna the doctrinal positions of the Lutheran church. Upon familiarizing himself with these doctrinal positions, Luna wrote to a coworker, "I have found the truth, and I have come to the conclusion that the Lutheran Church is the only church that teaches the Gospel message in all its purity."
Shortly after this realization, he entered the Lutheran Seminary of the ALC (American Lutheran Church) at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. He was ordained a Lutheran pastor on June 15, 1946, in San Antonio. At that time he was sent to Mexico to serve as a missionary.
By 1955, his magazine "El Amanecer" (The Sunrise) was reaching people throughout Latin America and even some in Spain. A few years later he joined the committee responsible for producing the Spanish hymnal, "Culto Cristiano." He also was heavily involved in the formation of the ILM (Iglesia Luterana Mexicana). He was instrumental in installing and confirming nearly every pastor involved with the synod. Yet, as the years went by, he began to grow more and more concerned with the doctrinal deviations taking place in the ALC and Missouri Synod.
In the year 1963, Luna visited the Assembly of the World Lutheran Federation in Helsinki, Finland, where his concerns only grew worse. At the assembly he began to take note of the fact that the majority of the Lutheran church bodies were giving in to rationalism and were widely deviating from Lutheran teaching.
In July 1967, Luna, now president of the ILM, led the charge in encouraging the ILM to separate itself from the ALC. This decision was originally accepted unanimously. But after the ALC threatened to take away the salaries and church buildings from the pastors, nearly all of the pastors removed their signatures, once again returning to the ALC. When Luna confronted these pastors about the change, they responded, "Mr. Luna, pure doctrine won't feed our children." Only one other pastor, David Chichia Gonzalez, stood by the earlier decision.
It was at this point that WELS made its way back into the story. After studying the doctrinal literature that President Naumann had sent in 1964, Luna responded in 1967 with a letter declaring full agreement with the WELS confessional position. In the letter he wrote that after a battle for the preservation of sound Lutheran teaching in his church, he had found himself compelled for confessional reasons to resign his positions as president and seminary professor of his church. He continued by asking for an interview for the purpose of establishing doctrinal unity with the WELS.
WELS responded by sending district president Immanuel G. Frey, Pastor Edgar Hoenecke, and Pastor Venus Winters to Mexico City to visit with Luna and Chichia during March 1968. The meeting ended with a recommendation that both Luna and Chichia go through colloquy.
Following the meeting, Luna and Chichia officially terminated their membership with the ILM. They then spent two days in colloquy in Tucson, Arizona. The discussions went very well, and were concluded with both pastors declaring "complete doctrinal agreement with the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions."
When the successful colloquy was announced to the Synodical Council later that May, there was a lot of excitement to begin work in Mexico. A spontaneous offering was gathered as a token of thanksgiving. Enough was gathered in that spontaneous offering to support the little mission for almost two months!
*we'll continue with another segment of this series next Friday
** special thanks to Phil Gurgel for his efforts on the book and his willingness to let us share portions of it here.
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