Feature

A Deep Desire to Serve Christ

Concordia the Reformer Seminary’s second cohort of deaconess graduates will serve the church in nine Spanish-speaking countries.

Story by Sarah Hjulberg and Megan K. Mertz | Photography by Erik M. Lunsford and Jana Inglehart | Winter 2026

“Mi deseo es servir” — “My desire is to serve.” This motto, circling around a Luther rose, forms the emblem embroidered on the uniform for deaconesses serving in the Latin America and the Caribbean region of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS).

The phrase, which comes from a poem written by the Rev. Wilhelm Loehe called “The True Deaconess Spirit,” captures beautifully the vocation of a deaconess: to serve people in the areas of Christian education, spiritual care and works of mercy, and by this service, to point them to the Means of Grace, administered by their pastor.

Deaconesses have served the LCMS in the United States since the 1920s. For Lutheran churches in Latin America, the training for this vocation is new, but it has gained traction quickly.

The emblem embroidered on the uniform for deaconesses serving in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Deaconess Formation Takes Off

Concordia the Reformer Seminary and Mercy Center in Palmar Arriba, Dominican Republic, started its three-year deaconess program in 2019, with the first-ever cohort of deaconesses — 99 women — graduating in 2022. In 2025, a second group of deaconesses graduated.

This second cohort — 49 women in all — represented nine countries: the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Through the program, the women take two courses in person and one course online each year, along with gaining practical formation. One of the hallmarks of the program is the mentorship the students receive. In each country, a pastor and a deaconess — who model the way pastors and deaconesses work together — are assigned to mentor the deaconess students there.

Above and below: Deaconess graduates at Concordia the Reformer Seminary and Mercy Center in Palmar Arriba, Dominican Republic, in May 2025.

“[Deaconesses] are a bridge between the community and their church, and … a bridge within their own congregation, connecting people to their pastor for care,” said Deaconess Danelle Putnam Schumann, an LCMS missionary and associate coordinator of the deaconess program. They also serve as “the eyes and ears and hands of the pastor,” supporting him and his needs.

“Hospitality is [another] huge role — helping the church be a place where people are welcomed,” she continued.

These women, who all have a deep desire to serve Christ and His church, come from a wide variety of backgrounds — young mothers and grandmothers, working professionals and homemakers, women who are newer to the faith and women who have been born and raised in the church.

Mayra Moreno, who is from Mexico, was one of the four deaconesses who graduated in the Dominican Republic this past May. (Graduation ceremonies were held in each of the nine countries over the course of the summer and fall of 2025.)

The sun sets over Palmar Arriba, Dominican Republic.

Moreno, who has degrees in psychology, criminology and education, decided to become a deaconess when her husband entered seminary.

“I wanted to learn more about the Word, about the Bible, and I wanted to be able to serve my church and support my husband, who is studying to be a pastor,” said Moreno.

She is excited to serve in Mexico once her husband finishes seminary. Both she and her husband plan to serve the church bi-vocationally, meaning that they will rely on full-time secular jobs to support them as they serve the church.

This is another aspect of the tremendous service deaconesses in Latin America give to Christ’s church: their calls to their churches are not full time. Rather, they serve their church in their free time, working around their other vocations.

Agatha Elberhardt also graduated with the cohort of deaconesses in the Dominican Republic. She started the program after her husband, the Rev. Lucas Elberhardt, accepted a call to serve as an LCMS alliance missionary in the Dominican Republic.

Elberhardt, who has two young children, is excited to continue to work with children in her future call.

“I really liked learning more about the Confessions,” she said. “And I know that I’m not going to teach the Confessions in a children’s class, but when you understand something well, you can … teach it in a simple manner to them as well.”

Expanding Mercy Outreach

On Oct. 11, eight deaconesses graduated during the Spanish Evangelical Lutheran Church’s (IELE) convention.

One of those graduates was Patricia Bliss, who has lived in Spain for the past 50 years. She learned about Lutheranism through a Lutheran pastor on YouTube and later discovered that there was an IELE congregation nearby in Seville. She joined the deaconess program at the invitation of Pastor Isaac Machado, an LCMS alliance missionary serving in Spain, to learn as much as possible about Lutheran theology.

“The Word of God is like a well that the more water you draw from it, the more water it has,” she said. “This is where your thirst will be quenched.”

Deaconesses sing following their graduation during the Spanish Evangelical Lutheran Church’s (IELE) convention, held on Oct. 11, 2025, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain.

IELE Bishop Rev. Felipe Lobo presides during the Divine Service in October.

The IELE is a small church body, with just four pastors serving 13 small congregations spread throughout the country. So, having this first group of eight deaconesses is a major step for the church.

IELE Bishop Rev. Felipe Lobo said the church has a “great need for service.” He is thankful that these first deaconesses will be able to help support the work of the pastors, who are stretched thin, while also pursuing new opportunities to care for people in the communities around the congregations.

Lobo said they have a saying in Spain: “‘It is good to preach, but it is better to give wheat.’ The Spaniard believes in what he sees more than in what is preached to him, and it is one of the most important and main ways to be able to preach the Gospel to the Spaniards.”

The sun rises over the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, built in the 16th century, near where the IELE held its national convention in October.

Through the work of these deaconesses, he hopes to start new social service programs that will help the IELE share the Gospel and touch people’s lives with the mercy of Jesus Christ.

“[We want to] try to help the community in the midst of its needs and implement programs little by little from the churches, … with the interest of making the Lutheran church and the witness of the church more visible,” Lobo said.

Learn More

About deaconesses in the LCMS

About the Synod’s Latin America and the Caribbean region

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Sarah Hjulberg

Former staff writer and editor for LCMS Communications.

Megan K. Mertz

Managing editor of Lutherans Engage the World and chief copy editor for LCMS Communications.