The History
By Warren Lathem, President Emeritus SEMWESVEN
In 1995 Bishops Paulo Lockman of Brazil and Lloyd Knox of North Georgia met with Dr. Warren Lathem, then pastor of Mount Pisgah UMC in Johns Creek, GA and Carlos Gonzalez, Hispanic Pastor at Mount Pisgah and a native of Venezuela, to discuss our starting the United Methodist work in Venezuela. In April, 1996, Carlos Gonzalez, Ray Lathem, Roger and Dana Lane left Atlanta for our first venture into Venezuela. They traveled around the country, worked with a mission team from Norcross UMC building a church in La Marita, VZ and contacted pastors and entities who might be interested in becoming United Methodist and begin the organization of the ministry.
Unfortunately, these mission pioneers were killed in the ValuJet Crash in Miami on May 11, 1996 while returning from Venezuela. All of their records and contacts died with them. At least that is what we thought since no records were recovered from the crash scene.
However, by the grace of God, we received pictures from the Norcross team showing them at the work site in La Marita. These are the last pictures we have of these selfless servants and martyrs for the faith. We had no names to pursue the relationship and our grief blinded us to some obvious options that were available to us. But God was still at work.
In 1997, Bishop Luis Palomo, Bishop of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Venezuela, contacted Warren Lathem telling him he had received inquiries from some pastors in Venezuela asking if he would help them get the Methodist work organized in their country. He said he would visit the pastors and then share with Warren his findings.
What he discovered was the pastors did not understand why there had been no follow up after the initial contact made in May of the previous year. They had not known the fate of those who had come to them from the US. As a result of this meeting, Bishop Palomo asked Warren if Mount Pisgah UMC would sponsor a Venezuelan national missionary living in the US. He would move his family to Venezuela and start the Evangelical Methodist Church of Venezuela. As a result of this request, Mount Pisgah provided all the cost for this pastor to move back to Venezuela, provided him with a car, a house and expenses.
At the missionary’s invitation, Warren traveled to Venezuela for the first time in 1998. He was invited to preach an evangelistic crusade in Arcarigua, the city where the missionary lived. He was accompanied by Rev. Miguel Torres, a native of Maricaibo, VZ and the new Hispanic Minister at Mount Pisgah. While the crusade was effective in leading many people to faith in Christ, it was transformational for Warren. Additionally, Warren met Tito Santiago, dear friend and colleague in ministry now in Georgia. God broke Warren’s heart for the people of Venezuela. In the early morning hours of solitude and prayer in Arcarigua at the mom and pop Posada (Bed and Breakfast), God birthed the vision of a training program for the pastors of Venezuela. This soon became the dream of starting what became the Seminario Wesleyan de Venezuela.
The next year Warren was invited to return to Arcarigua to conduct another evangelistic crusade. He was accompanied by his wife, Jane , Dan and Nancy Dunn, and lay members from Mount Pisgah, along with Rev. Miguel Torres. In a meeting with potential Methodist Pastors, Dr. Lathem received their request for a Seminary to be established for them in Venezuela. In response to their request, Dr. Lathem, Mount Pisgah, the Methodist Seminary in Costa Rica and the OMS Seminary in Mexico partnered together to found the Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela.
It was on this trip that God broke Dan Dunn’s heart for missions, especially in Venezuela. This began a pilgrimage for the Dunn’s that led to Dan being the co-founder of the Seminary and his own journey back to Seminary at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY where he earned a PhD. in Evangelism to enable him to teach in theological schools in Latin America and serve as Academic Dean at Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela.
Subsequently, successive trips led to an October 2002 Evangelistic Crusade in Barquisimeto with 10,000 in attendance, the beginning of construction of the Lugar Altissimo Church in memory of Ray Lathem and honor of Jared Lathem, and the inaugural session of the Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela (SEMWESVEN) with Bishop Palomo and Dean Dr. David Cosby teaching. (Never try to do that much in one week!) Dr. Warren Lathem was the founding President and Dr. David Cosby, Academic Dean, Dr.Dan Dunn, Dean of Students. Our classes have been offered in one-week intensives making the education accessible and affordable for the students and allows the administration to recruit an excellent volunteer faculty.
SEMWESVEN began its first session in rented space at the Assembly of God Bible Institute in Barquisimeto where it continued to meet even though it had outgrown the space available. In subsequent years, many mission teams from Mount Pisgah returned to build relationships and churches. Many people were involved in these early stages, too many to mention.
Then trouble began to dawn. It became apparent to Dan and Warren that the relationship with the Missionary Mount Pisgah had been sponsoring was untenable. However, they did not want to injure the work of the pastors or seminary and did not know how to proceed. In the grace of God, some of the Methodist pastors asked to meet with Dan and Warren without the presence of the Missionary. At that meeting, they informed us that they could no longer work with this person due to serious problems, especially related to integrity and leadership. As this was resolved, the relationship with the missionary was terminated, most of the pastors and churches pulled out of the fledgling organization and began to work to form a new association. Warren and Dan traveled to Costa Rica to discuss this decision with Bishop Palomo and discovered he had independently reached the same conclusion.
Virgil and Jo Almond, members of Mount Pisgah, became our first US missionaries spending 3 months in Venezuela securing a house in Cabudare and looking for a potential permanent location for the seminary. After their time, they came back to the US, moved to Suches, GA and discovered their pastor, Jon and Jeanne Herren and family, was planning to go to a Latin American country as a missionary. The door closed for them and Virgil shared this with Warren. Warren invited them to consider Venezuela and they became the first long term United Methodist Missionaries to live in Venezuela.
They served there in a partnership between Venezuela Now, Inc. and The Mission Society. They were soon followed by Dr. David and Carol Cosby with One Mission Society, the second missionary family who worked primarily with the seminary. Both of these families lived in the greater Barquisimeto area and worked very closely with the pastors and churches, the seminary and US Mission Teams.
Then in August of 2005, the Bishop and Cabinet of the North Georgia Conference made an historic mission trip to Venezuela. This is the first time an entire US Cabinet has traveled to a foreign country on a mission trip. This was followed in January 2007 by Bishop Lindsey Davis returning to Venezuela to teach in the Seminary.
During the intervening years, several other United Methodist Churches began to work in Venezuela. The first one after Mount Pisgah was McEachern UMC in Marietta. Their long-term partnership with the congregation in Punto Fijo is a model for other churches. Rev. Donna Goff, Minister of Missions at McEachern and veteran missionary of Kenya, led this effort and also taught in the Seminary. Due West UMC has become very much involved in the work in Venezuela. Then several other congregations, from Florida to California and Georgia to Michigan began partnering with the work.
On August 17, 2007 the first Annual Conference of the Methodist Church of Venezuela was convened in Barquisimeto with Warren Lathem preaching the opening service and presiding until the delegates formally approved the Discipline and elected their first Bishop. Some 50 lay and clergy delegates attended this historic event. Pastor Juvenal Perez was elected the first Bishop of the church.
Our first graduation was in August of 2008 when 12 students received the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree in theology after completing the rigorous 6-year program. The Seminary offers the finest accessible, affordable theological education in Venezuela. In 2008 Venezuela Now, Inc., the US non-profit formed to support the work in Venezuela, helped the Seminary purchase a campus in La Piedad Norte, Cabudare, a suburb of Barquisimeto, Venezuela. This was provided primarily through the mission offering of the North Georgia Annual Conference and an individual donor. Classes began there in February, 2009.
In 2013 we added a Master’s of Pastoral Leadership degree program. 24 Students enrolled in the first Masters degree program, most of them having graduated from the Seminary.
SEMWESVEN has maintained the highest quality faculty of any Seminary in Venezuela. As if this writing, 139 credits have been taught by doctoral- level professors, or teaching assistants serving under doctoral-level professors-of-record; 95 credits have been taught by Master’s-level professors.
In 2014 Pastor Carlos was appointed to be the President of the Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela and Warren Lathem became the President Emeritus. Due to travel restrictions by the Venezuelan Government, most of the faculty of the Seminary is graduates of the Seminary.
SEMWESVEN has developed very beneficial partnerships with the International Leadership Institute, the World Methodist Evangelism Institute, the One Mission Society and TMS Global and is pursuing a joint- degree program with a Christian College in the U.S.
Funding for all these ministries is provided by Venezuela Now, Inc. a Georgia non-profit 501c3, formed in 2002 and organized solely to raise financial support for these ministries. Thankfully, the Venezuelan Administration of SEMWESVEN and the Wesley Medical Center are currently operating the campus facilities primarily from finances generated in Venezuela. Venezuela Now supports faculty and materials costs, tuition subsidies, food, bus purchase and maintenance, capital improvements, equipment purchases, new construction and major maintenance.
We rejoice in Christ for so many things related to Venezuela. We will be forever grateful to our Gracious Lord Jesus Christ for bringing new life out of death, joy out of tragedy and hope in the face of despair. May our voices ever praise the One who turns darkness into light, who creates something out of nothing, who defeats death with resurrected life! What a joy to be a part of what Jesus is doing in Venezuela. Thank you, Lord!
