CARACAS, Venezuela — Pastor César Mermejo, President of the Evangelical Council of Venezuela, has reported that while official figures place the confirmed death toll from the country's twin earthquakes at around 1,700, unofficial estimates currently put the number closer to 10,000. Speaking during a Zoom call convened by the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and the Latin American Alliance (AEL), Pastor Mermejo described entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble and thousands of families left without electricity amid extreme heat while grieving loved ones. "All these cannot be done by a single man or a single organisation or a single church, but by the Global Church," he told fellow evangelicals worldwide.
The Evangelical Council of Venezuela, which represents the country's growing evangelical community, has moved quickly to coordinate the local church response. Churches have been transformed into makeshift places of refuge, with pastors helping to transport injured people to mobile hospitals and clinics, and congregations providing food for displaced families. Pastor Juan Cruz, President of the Latin American Alliance, said assistance is urgently needed across all affected areas and that the alliance plans to work closely with local churches and support responders on the ground. The WEA, which serves as a global voice for some 600 million evangelicals across 143 national alliances, is helping to channel the international response.
Pastor Mermejo and leaders from the Evangelical Council visited the devastated areas on 28 June and reported directly on the disaster's impact. Their account underscored both the scale of the destruction and the strategic role of local congregations as first responders. For the global free evangelical movement, the crisis in Venezuela highlights the importance of church-to-church solidarity networks — a model long championed by the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (IFFEC) and its member bodies, which prioritise direct partnership between national church movements rather than reliance on large institutional intermediaries. The WEA has called for prayer and practical support from its member alliances worldwide.
Source: World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) — worldea.org
