MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Some 400 men and women spaced themselves across a sprawling worship hall, praying through face masks with arms raised for the health of friends and family suffering from the coronavirus.
In Nicaragua, where the government has played down the epidemic and avoided imposing restrictions, evangelical services continued at some churches even as the more hierarchical Roman Catholic churches stopped holding in-person Mass. Beto Marubo, an Indigenous leader in the Javary Valley, a remote region of Brazil bordering Peru, said active services have created risks for his people.
Ovidio Valladares, the family patriarch and director of Bethel’s Radio Restoration, was hospitalized May 26 and never recovered. “They went to pray, to visit the sick; in that work they died,” said pastor Luis Aruquipa of the National Christian Council, who said more than than 100 evangelical pastors have died in the pandemic.
Stupid is as stupid does 🤦♀️