GMN MISSION STATEMENT: The Guyana Mission Network is an effort on the part of a number of Guyanese, former missionaries to Guyana and others who seek ways of providing support for the ministry and mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana. We receive funds to support projects and/or ministries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana which are approved or requested by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana. The Guyana Mission Network is located c/o the Rev. Paul A. Tidemann, 1079 Goodrich Avenue,  Saint Paul, MN 55105-3135, USA; phone: 651-224-3799; email: Ptidemann@aol.com.

ELCG & GMN RELATIONSHIP TO WARTBURG THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: For over thirty-five years Wartburg Lutheran Seminary at Dubuque, Iowa, has played a significant role in care for and in mission with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana. Wartburg is a seminary with a long-standing commitment to global mission and multi-cultural theological education.

It is not surprising, then, that a special relationship began to be established with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana (ELCG) when the Rev. Dr. Winston D. Persaud came to Wartburg as professor of systematic theology at the end of January 1984.  He was ordained as a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Guyana in 1980 and served as pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Georgetown, Guyana until 1984 when he answered the call to teach theology.

What is remarkable about the relationship between Wartburg Theological Seminary and Guyana has been the number of Wartburg students (50+ to date) and faculty (5 to date) who have spent time in Guyana, ranging from over one week to a full year, and the number of pastors  (14 to date)  of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana who have been at Wartburg for study and renewal, from four to six months. Pastors from Guyana have come especially to gain more experience in pastoral care through the Clinical Pastoral Education program, primarily at the Lutheran and Methodist Hospitals in Des Moines, Iowa. They have also come to the seminary campus and have taken courses across the curricular offerings in Bible, History/Theology/Ethics/Mission, and Ministry and learned from the collegiality of seminary faculty and students. It should be noted that in this partnership, the seminary scholarship to the ELCG pastor/ministerial student includes coverage of all costs for room/board/travel, and the ELCG, for its part, provides housing/meals/in-country transportation for each Wartburg student/faculty member. This mutual hospitality may be unique among North-South ecclesial partnerships of this kind.

On the other hand, students from Wartburg Theological Seminary have traveled to Guyana for January-term experiences and full-year internships in that global, missional, cross-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious “third world” context through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guyana. Students each January are assigned to a parish of the ELCG to work with a pastor and lay leaders in that parish to learn how ministry is carried on in that context.

This effort of Wartburg Theological Seminary to have students learn from pastors and laity in Guyana began as far back as January 1983. In some cases, Wartburg seminarians went to Guyana prior to or after participating in the January term, returned for longer-term service as lay leaders or pastors. This was the case with Mary Rowland, who, as a layperson and after a year of MDiv studies, served as Director of Christian Education of the ELCG for one year, and with Pastor Willard Hager, who returned, with his spouse, to Guyana to serve as pastor of St. Matthew Parish for three years. Over the past twenty-plus years, Wartburg Theological Seminary students have been primary means of getting Bibles and other Christian Education resources to the ELCG.

The exchange of pastors and seminarians continues to this day with the excellent commitment and support of Wartburg Theological Seminary.

©The Rev. Paul A. Tidemann, Co-Director
Guyana Mission Network