MANAGUA, Nicaragua – About 400 men and women gathered in a vast cult corridor, praying through a mask with arms held high for the health of friends and the circle of relatives suffering from the new coronavirus.
The congregation of the Bethel Restoration Church in Managua affected by the pandemic: two of its pastors were among the more than 40 evangelical leaders who have died in Nicaragua since March.
Throughout Latin America, a historically Catholic region with a developing evangelical presence in almost every country, evangelical churches have continued to spread the gospel despite government measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. In many countries, evangelical churches have disobeyed the rules of public fitness by organizing services in person, or have exercised their ministry to church members in homes and other settings.
In at least two countries, evangelical herders died in alarming numbers from the pandemic.
In Bolivia, where nearly a hundred evangelical pastors died, they maintained close contact with their congregations, offering ministry and people in poor health even though the churches were closed early by government decree.
In Nicaragua, where the government downplayed the epidemic and avoided enforcing restrictions, evangelical facilities continued in some churches even when the most hierarchical Roman Catholic churches stopped holding mass in person.
“There was too much misinformation,” said Rael Valladares, who took over Bethel’s congregation after the death of his father and some other pastor on June 5. “In our denomination, about 20 shepherds have died. And in Betel, we have a pastor, my father, and about 2 five brothers (members) who died of COVID-19,” though he said that the church had followed the instances and not that they came from the services.
In Brazil, the Conference of Catholic Bishops interrupted Mass and indoor celebrations after the pandemic hit the country in mid-March, but the maximum of evangelicals continued to hold services. The government began to loosen restrictions in June and some Catholic churches reopened with more precautions.
Meanwhile, some evangelical leaders in Brazil have advocated for miraculous remedies or called the disease a scourge that kills those with little religion and have promised to continue services. They received strong support through President Jair Bolsonaro, who has many evangelicals among his highest and fervent followers. The president said in March that devoted activities were essential during the pandemic, allowing churches to open up and devoted staff to move. But some states have imposed their own restrictions.
Beto Marubo, an indigenous leader in the Javary Valley, a remote region of Brazil on the border with Peru, said the assets have greater dangers to his people.
“Some attended evangelicals in the village of Atalaia do Norte and then brought the virus to our land,” he said.
Long after the outbreak of the virus in Nicaragua in March, the government of President Daniel Ortega continued to organize and publicitate mass events. Schools remained open, baseball season continued. Ortega, like Bolsonaro, said it is possible that the country simply does not stop working.
In Nicaragua, evangelical churches, and small ones, also remained open, at least at first.
Betel remained open until the Conference of Assemblies of God in Nicaragua, to which Betel belongs, told most of its churches to close without delay from May 12 to June 1 due to the spread of the pandemic. After June 1, church leaders were allowed to reopen.
Ovidio Valladares, patriarch of the circle of relatives and director of radio catering at Betel, was hospitalized on 26 May and never recovered.
Betel remained closed until August 2, when it reopened with the required masks, hand sanitizer at the entrances and a space between chairs in a giant worship corridor containing a fraction of its previous capacity of 1500.
According to the Nicaraguan Evangelical Alliance, which includes up to one of the country’s more than one hundred Christian denominations, at least 44 pastors have died since March. All of these deaths have not been shown as COVID-19 due to lack of evidence.
Evangelical pastors in Bolivia have tried to stay in touch with parishioners even though churches in most of the country have remained closed.
“They went to pray, to the sick; In this work, they died,” said Pastor Luis Aruquipa of the Christian National Council, who said that more than a hundred evangelical herders died in the pandemic.
Among them the Reverend Roberto Arismendi, founder of the Evangelical Churches of Bolivia. Pastor Aymara, 79, died on 20 July of COVID-19-like headaches, his son Javier Arismendi said.
“My father never stopped helping the people, he was close to his congregation, giving them faith, but also food and peace,” said young Arismendi, who has taken over the church since his father’s death. “We don’t know when it got infected, yet it took the virus into the total circle of relatives.” Eight circles of family members have become ill, but all have recovered.
The church, in a working-class community in La Paz, saw its congregation badly affected. “Thirty percent of our congregation of nearly a hundred other people have been affected,” he said.
Overall, the country’s approximately 11.5 million other people have recorded more than 108,000 reported infections and nearly 5,000 government-confirmed deaths.
Back in Nicaragua, many evangelical churches have reopened, some with sanitary precautions, such as Betel, where the faithful are invited to bring their own hand sanitizer. The measures were through director Valladares before his death.
But the churches continue as usual.
At Oasis of Peace Church in Masaya, south of the capital, about 70 unmasked worshippers piled up under an open pavilion singing and screaming as a Christian rock band played the pastor. There was a water thermos on the front to wash his hands, but no one seemed to use it.
“We live in difficult times, times when only our country is flogged, but globally,” said the faithful Maynor Campos. “It’s time to seek the presence of God.”
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AP directors Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia and Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo, Brazil, contributed to the report.
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