 |
Missionary Ronald Baerbock and his wife, Karen, spent more than 17 years serving in various Latin American fields. Karen, who passed away in 2023, recorded ministry and family activities faithfully in her daily diary. Here are some of her entries:
GUADALAJARA (1987)
9/1987 – “When we go by bus to language study at the university in the morning, our little 2-year-old is cared for by Liz, a Mexican lady, who speaks only Spanish. Within 6 weeks, Joshua is talking in his sleep in Spanish.”
9/1987 – “In the morning we walk our 2 boys down to the large traffic circle where we put them on a bus to go to school. Should I be concerned?”
10/1987 – “I love going to the large market in Guadalajara, walking through the large piles of dried peppers and seeing a few pigs’ heads hanging in some of the stalls.”
11/1987 – “3 times there was a serenade of a young lady in our apartment building at 2 a.m. with mariachis, trumpets, and other instruments. Scared me to death the first time.”
11/26/1987 – “In my small apartment kitchen, prepared Thanksgiving dinner for our entire Spanish as a second language class.”
PUERTO RICO (1987-1993)
1987-1993 – “Kind of scary, but drive our 2 boys to Guamani English School every morning.”
9/19/1989 – “Hurricane Hugo has hit. Our power will be out for days. The yard is full of fallen trees.”
4/15/1990 – “Baked my traditional frosted Easter sweet roll cross.”
12/1992 – “We went caroling.”
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC (1993-2000)
1993 – “My first Sunday School classes were on the sandy edges of a boxing ring – our first church site.”
1994 – “Today I baked a birthday cake for Chichi, as I have for other neighborhood children. Also made cookies with some of the girls in the neighborhood.”
1998 – “Our home is the place of one of the churches we started. It is quite the cleanup job on a rainy night when they drag mud in with them.”
MISSION TO THE CHILDREN, SONORA, MEXICO (2005-2010)
10/5/2007 – “Baked a big coffee cake for our visitors. Taught kid’s Bible class: 41 in San Manuel, 43 in La Sangre, 12 in San Jose. More classes in villages on the 6th with 61 more kids.”
10/7/2007 – “In Altar today I had 53 kids in Sunday School – 74 attended in all. It was a very tiring weekend, but many people heard the Word.”
2/6/2009 – “I juiced some more oranges from our 4 trees (Atil). Have 18 quarts in the freezer, but 6 big boxes left to do.”
2/12/2009 – “14 men killed in drug battles on the border near Sassabe. We’re going to try to avoid being out on the roads at night.”
MAHAHUAL, COSTA MAYA, MEXICO – COSTA MAYA MINISTRIES (2015)
1/15/2015 – “Ron had an adult Bible study in Rio Indio about 20 min. out of town. I went along. What a beautiful setting for a Bible study right along the beach! We were in a kiosk – a concrete floor with a thatched roof overhead.”
2/14/2015 – “We had 19 kids in Sunday school this morning! The attendance has been increasing every week, which is great! Two little ones came up to me afterwards and thanked me for making the special cookies. They come from a very poor family. I learned that a lot of these poor families sleep in hammocks at night – they have no beds.
2/21/2015 – “Had 10 kids in my class today – good group. Ron tells the story to the whole group, then I take the 6 yrs and younger group and he has the older ones. I review the story, sing, and color or do a simple project. They get juice and plain cookies afterwards. Many of the kids have no school, so I have been teaching them to read Spanish.”
Read more about WELS mission work in Latin America in the article Making Christ known in Latin America.
