evangelical 360°

Ep. 54 / Shepherding Hope Amidst Hardship in Venezuela with Samuel Olson

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 54

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A crowded sanctuary in downtown Caracas. A song of praise rising over a weary city. And a pastor who refuses to leave. In this episode Brian sits down with Rev. Samuel Olson, Senior Pastor of Las Acacias Evangelical Pentecostal Church, to trace how this Venezuelan church keeps growing while the surrounding economy buckles and millions migrate. The stories that are shared are raw, yet practical: pallets of medicine carried into barrios, dentists and doctors setting up pop-up clinics, lawyers helping neighbors find a way forward. Apparently, scarcity doesn’t shrink mission - it sharpens it. 

Pastor Samuel goes on to explain why the church won’t trade its witness for political favour, even as members serve across parties, schools, courts, and the military. We explore how interfaith friendships with Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim leaders reduce suspicion and help protect ministry in tense seasons. You’ll hear a gripping account of a near-confiscation of the church property that was turned back through fasting, quiet conversations, and clear evidence of social impact. Through it all, worship fuels perseverance and baptisms multiple, as people find hope money can’t buy. 

For younger leaders, Pastor Sam offers a steady word: calling is not a contract. Stay long enough to love a place, to train successors, and to watch God multiply small beginnings into schools, seminaries, and transformed neighborhoods. If you care about faith under pressure, ethical engagement with politics, and how churches can serve cities without compromise, this conversation will stir your imagination and your courage.

If you'd like to learn more about Las Acacias Evangelical Pentecostal Church and Pastor Samuel Olson, you can go to the website and follow them on Facebook. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. I stood in the largest church in downtown Caracas, Venezuela. A church located in a tough neighborhood of a tough country. Pastor Sam Olson looked out over this crowded church and knew so many were hurting, upset, confused, anxiety-ridden. Venezuela was demoralized. Millions were fleeing to other countries. The nation's valuable resources were being squandered. Its currency was in the gutter. Its people were looking at their beloved country out on the edge. Pastor Olson raised his hand and prayed. Then we began to sing. The band took over. We stood and listened as this trumpeter moved all of us with his creative jazz interpretation of a favorite hymn. We joined in an ascending triumph of faith. I looked out over this people, hands raised, eyes unashamed to their tears. The next day, amazingly, while meeting with a Catholic bishop and then with the Jewish community, I saw these groups were looking to Pastor Sam Olson, a Pentecostal pastor, for affirmation, hope, and counsel. Born in Venezuela of Swedish parents, Sam Olson has spent his life loving and caring for people, leading them in faith, lifting them up in sorrow, and giving witness to the power of the gospel. If you feel your life is being dragged down by those in charge, or if your faith is called into question by those in power around you, I suggest you listen to Pastor Olson. And my visits with churches and ministers in dozens of countries, often seeing the effect of opposition and even persecution. My time with Pastor Olson has been a highlight. And thank you for joining me. Please consider sharing this episode with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, just hit the subscribe button. That really matters. You can also join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. But now to my guest, Pastor Sam Olson. Pastor Sam Olson, thanks for joining me on Evangelical 360.

Samuel Olson:

It's so good to be with you, Brian.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, I've been with you in Venezuela a few times and was always amazed at here you are Pentecostal pastor of a large downtown church in Caracas. And we would we would, after our meetings, we would go off and see the Jewish community and then the Catholic community. And they had such regard for you and the kind of the pastoral leadership that you brought. But over these last few years, there's been challenges, of course, in your country. We listen to the stories, we watch the videos from afar, and we realize that your church has been in the midst of a an enormous kind of social upheaval as many people have left your country for elsewhere. What is it like to pastor a center church in the city, the capital city of Venezuela during these days?

Samuel Olson:

It has been a constant walk of faith, of trusting the Lord, of knowing that He's going to respond, knowing that He will follow along with us, and yet always figuring out what is happening. The church has been so blessed during this period of time that we cannot look backwards and say that we've been hurt. We have been blessed, even though we have also had to come through profound changes in our walk and in the work that we do and how we see the future. But we see a city that has been so decimated, a city that is now impoverished by what has happened, not because of COVID, but what has produced the migration, which means that the country has become an impoverished nation. We're no longer producing what we need to produce in the country to make it a wealthy nation again. We've come into a very sad time which does not give a good prognosis for the future. But even though those are circumstances that we are facing, we cannot say that the Lord has been absent. We've seen how our church services or the people who come are coming so hungrily to receive the word, to be able to worship the Lord, and to be in his presence, and to know that they have been fed and that they can go out throughout this vast city of Caracas, which you know, and into the other towns that surround the city, and they're working for the Lord, besides the work that they're doing to support themselves. I want to give that sense of where we're awed by the presence and the faithfulness of the Lord, but we are very sad at what we have to look at and what we have to respond to. The calling of the Lord in Luke 4 is still our motto. We've come to serve those who are captivated, those who are blind, those who cannot hear with a message that brings them to liberty and to freedom again. So we're picking up what a society has left behind. But we're seeing a transformation of the slums, people who live in the slums, and whose lives are being transformed in a social sense, in an economic sense, and in an educational sense. Our school is burgeoning, the seminary is burgeoning, the schools that we're have to train leaders is burgeoning. So there's no sense of disappointment. There's a sense of work that has to be done, and that we must help each other and come alongside each other. I've been too long in giving that word to you, but that's that's my scene, my feeling.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, can you paint a picture for for us outside of Venezuela of the country that I had known some years ago, and that most of us outside of Venezuela, we have a certain impression, but we understand that there has been difficulty over the last few years. Can you give us a sense of what that looks like?

Samuel Olson:

Well, if you see children going into the trash heaps to get a parcel of food to stay overnight, when you see children who are growing up alone because their parents are not there, old people, the elderly people who have been abandoned to their future because their people have left the country, and we are coming in in some way to help them. As we see poverty and the people who are not able to buy what they used to buy because of the incredible inflation, and at the same time the lack of the skills or the possibility of purchasing the food that they have to eat. When you don't have gasoline to get around, or the prices of the gasoline are going so high that you must be careful and wait long lines at night into the early morning to buy your gasoline, unless you're able to pay for the expense of gasoline. If you see them walking blocks and blocks and blocks to get to church on Sunday morning because they do not have the car or they cannot pay the bus fare, that's one item. But as we have people who have so kindly sent provisions in pallets of medicines to the country, and we're able to spread that throughout different towns and areas of the city through people who are giving their time and lives to that. Our hearts are turned over with love to the Lord, thankfulness that we can do that, but it's such a sad reality that we're living in.

Brian Stiller:

How is the evangelical church surviving or thriving in Venezuela today?

Samuel Olson:

It's surviving. If I can be very frank, every penny that comes in in our meager offerings now goes out. And so there's no surplus, so to speak, to be able to pay for different programs and to support programs. Some churches are beholden to the government, which gives them some type of an offering or gift for them, and they are so happy to receive it, but they are compromising their faith in the Lord for that. And of course, we cannot possibly break our basic principles of being able to minister the gospel without having any other type of a compromise. But a church like ours, and of course the very poor people, are surviving because their leaders in some way or another are being able to bring the funds to survive as a church. But it also means that the people who are coming to the church are very, very lost economically in their foodstuffs, their medicines. But the church is incredible how it's going out throughout the country, planting churches, discipling people, and forming churches across the nation. And they are doing that out of the meager offerings that they do have or their meager capacities that they have. So it's not a disappointed church, it's not a sad church, it's not a church that is failing, it's a church that is growing as ever before, and seeing the realities as a chance or an opportunity to spread a gospel of hope, a gospel of salvation, a gospel of a transformation of a life. And so in our church, we're going into the slums and working with our medical capacities and medical schools, medical doctors, our dentists, our educators, our lawyers who are helping the people come out and to be able to face their future, but at the same time, they're giving their hearts to the Lord and becoming new, faithful believers in the Lord. We're seeing hundreds being baptized in the past few years. Last year was 400 people. The year before that it was another 400 people. This year, because we've kind of caught up with the past, we're talking about already 200 people who have been baptized in water this year because the people are searching for the truth and they're searching for the Lord and they're searching to live a life of hope.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, your church in Caracas, as you've been describing, how would you describe then the other evangelical churches throughout the country? Even with the financial deprivation that you're experiencing?

Samuel Olson:

They are growing and they are multiplying throughout the country. This is an opportunity that the Lord has given to us in order to teach and to preach hope to change and transformation. And I can say that.

Brian Stiller:

Now, Sam, you know that in other countries, uh evangelicals have engaged with the with the with public life, with civic life, with politics. I'm wondering in your country uh how do you relate to the to the political life of your nation as a church? Now, traditionally, evangelicals we were quite separate, we were hands-off, we kept our distance. Uh, but as you know, in in America and in uh in uh uh Brazil and other places, there is more of an engagement, there's more of a of a attempt to try and influence. How does that operate within Venezuela?

Samuel Olson:

I am surprised by the fact that we have a good number of people, not only in Las Acasias, but in the whole body of Christ, as individuals, they are working within the different political parties which are serving different emphasis politically speaking and somewhat different ideologies. As I look into the audience of Las Acacias, even though I don't know them specifically, I know that there are a number of people in the church who are political activists within the different political parties of the nation. And so they are fulfilling their desire to serve the Lord by serving the nation through the different political systems that are operating in the country. We have the Social Christian Party, we have the Social Action Party, we have the present governing system, we have the president of the Supreme Court comes to church here. We have generals, we have judges, all of these people who are very, very much involved in the educational systems of the country and in the political systems of the country and the legal systems of the country. We cannot separate ourselves from the fact. What we need to do is that the church, as the ark that has the gospel, cannot commit itself to anyone but to serve the Lord, to teach the gospel, so that the people can become servants of the people and therefore serve the Lord. It's very active.

Brian Stiller:

Do you have any kind of pressure to, as a church, uh as a as a congregation or as a denomination to support one political party or another? Is there any kind of thing?

Samuel Olson:

We would not do that. We would not do that. One might have a personal preference, but that would not be part of the picture of the church, nor of our teaching in the church. That would that would absolutely annihilate the church as a body of Christ.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, what what are you learning as you you I mean, you're you're obviously navigating your way through some really political storms. And uh I understand from my vantage point, by way of news and reports uh uh from various sources as as to the as to the chaos and the difficulty that you've had these few years. Uh so for you as a as a senior uh religious Christian leader in in Venezuela, uh for you to navigate your way through those difficult seas, what have you learned from that uh that you you didn't know earlier?

Samuel Olson:

Uh let me let me go into something that you said at the beginning. Do you know that I was very, very akin, uh close to the Jewish people and the Roman Catholic Church and the rest of the evangelical body. What happened next was that I went to the nuncio apostolico, the apostle nuncio, and I said, we need to involve the Muslim people in this. And we had four incredible lunches with the Jews being together, the Muslims or the Arabs being together, I should say that, and the Roman Catholics being together, and the evangelical people. And we had a wonderful time. That was a step forward in bringing us together as a people. Of course, the present system kind of bots that, but the nuncio apostolico became the the secret, the present secretary of state in the Vatican. So, in some way, we were very, very much involved, and we had to step forward to see if we could bring a sense of a relationship with the people. Now, let me go to a different type of a story. That that I that's just a picture. But at one point, a few years ago, we were told that this church building, which you know, was going to be confiscated, and that there was a document upon us on the desk of one of the functionaries of the of the government. I had to pray, and we were going through 30 days of fasting and prayer. When that happened, I added another 10, and I asked the Lord to direct me step by step as to how to deal with this. So I asked the Lord, where do I go now? I went to the proper military person outside of the city. He said, That can't be. Talk with such and such a person. I spoke with such and such a person. That person said, that document should be at such and such a place. I said, Well, you go find it. And he did in the middle of the night. And the document there was waiting for a signature by one of the leaders of the country. And we got that. And now I said, Now where do I go? Well, you have to go to such and such a place. I won't mention it. And I said, now where do I go? I said, You go to the patriarch of the political party. I said, Well, I know who he is. He knows me, and I can get that through a friend of his. We went to him and I sat down with the patriarch of the political party that is in power now, and I said, This is happening. He said, Are you owners of the property? Yes, of course I'm we're owners of the property. And what are your social projects that prove that you are actively working within the whole community that you're in? I said, Here you are, 30 projects that we're involved in. He said, send me the coordinators of the property that you're in, and I'll let you know. I said, you know, I don't have to go to the newspaper to do this. I don't have to go to the public. You know me, and you know that the 300 pastors were in the city in my church yesterday. He said, I know, I know. He said, I'll get back to you in a week. He said, it's all bluff. I said, thank you. That was it. My answer to your question is, I have learned to trust him and to ask him to guide me at every turn of the way. He has led me, but I also keep my friendships open, I keep my relationships open, I keep my good relations, which does not mean a compromise in my religious and spiritual ideals and principles. But we must communicate, we must be open, and we must be forthright, and we must be valiant, brave. No, we must trust the Lord to guide us and know that he will help us work through different problems. There are times when the story is a bit different, but the results are better. At the turn of this century, the defunct president of the country, who died in 2013, expelled the new tribe's mission out of the country. Everyone was shocked. But what has happened is that that made a turning point in the Venezuelan church. The Venezuelan church is now training its people to go into the different uh tribes and ethnical groups that know that have not heard about the Lord. That gives you an idea of how one must learn to trust and know that we can go forward. I don't know if that helps you, but it's part of my story.

Brian Stiller:

It's a great part of the story, Sam. The question uh that comes to mind as I listen to you is what will the next generation look like of leaders in the church? They're they're living through a very difficult social political upheaval. Uh in which you're in which I suppose that you've been challenged as to your legitimacy as a church, even as they attempted to take away your property. What will this next generation of leaders living in this time become?

Samuel Olson:

Um I do not want to draw attention to myself as a person, but my answer is this. The new generation is watching what the elder generation does. They may not have the same training or the same experience, but they will be trained and they will go through the experiences, but they do have certain people in their reference mind or in their references who, in some way, are a pillar for their decisions, and they're being able to trust the Lord as they guide the church into the future. We are training them. The seminary is now offering a doctorate in ministries through Fuller and through other seminaries. That's the academic side. But the actual living out of the gospel in the presence and in the view of the leaders across the nation will be a reference point for their ministry and their churches as they come forth into the future of the Venezuelan church. That's what I'm trusting for. I'm trusting my leaders in the church to be able to do that as I transition out of this church. And we're searching for that. And we know that the Lord will providing and training the future leadership of Las Acasas Church as He's doing in Maracaibo, in Puerto Razz, in Barquisimeto, in Maracai, in San Cristobal. We know that the Lord is bringing up that future leadership. And we've had a remarkable president of the Evangelical Alliance who has come to know the entire body of Christ across the nation through huge convocations of thousands of people and hundreds and hundreds of leaders in each one, and they're seeing what their president of the Evangelical Alliance is doing. So I'm trusting. We had to trust for ourselves in the past. We can certainly trust the Lord for the future.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, are there are the restrictions that you experience in pastoring or in leading your congregation?

Samuel Olson:

There aren't restrictions, as so to speak, visible, felt restrictions. But every now and then new requirements are placed. And those requirements in several moments kind of reduce our scope of leadership or the legal side of our leadership. But we are dealing with them. And one way that we deal with them is to really be up front with the people. And they are up front with us, and we send the right people in. So are we limited? There are limitations that happen. Now and then we're caught off guard. For example, you know what they're requiring, and we've gotten by that, that they know every name and the identification of the people who give an offering in the church. So we had to say, no, we will not do that. But that's what the government wanted. As you can see and hear, that means that there's a slow knowledge of who is giving in every church in the country if the pastors allow that.

Brian Stiller:

And what is creeping in? Control?

Samuel Olson:

What I'm saying is suddenly you cannot do this. And we have to struggle with that. Suddenly they want to know who is doing what. And we decide if we can let the people know that or not. Or we have to go to the proper. Some of these people are requiring things they know nothing about. And we have to clarify those issues with. And I'm not trying to be negative, but these are facts that we're living in, and there are limitations. They want to know how much money comes in. They want to know what the legal structure of the church is being. They want a new legal structure, which in the States would be the incorporation of a local church. And they want to know exactly how many people are there, and they've reduced it to five people who can be part of that new corporation of the church. So that those when when I say creeping in, I'm saying that this is a very slow process that we have to deal with every time something comes up.

Brian Stiller:

And yet, in spite of that, you're saying that the that the witness of the gospel has been has been pushing its way across your country.

Samuel Olson:

Yes. Yes. So we have to be visible with the gospel, and we have to trust the Lord for the future of the gospel, but we also know what the legal systems can do and change. But we we're we're willing to face that, and we're willing to live with that. We're not willing to cower or to to be or or to be fearful of different ideas and different situations to come. What happened a week ago, two weeks ago? A number of uh Dutch people came to preach in the streets of the city. Well, someone allowed them to come in and they were preaching and they were hauled off to prison. They were nearly imprisoned when someone came by and said, no, they can't. They lose used a political, they knew the person in charge who could change that. But these people were going to be put in prison because they came in without the right visa to do religious affairs, and they thought they could get by with that. Uh that those are items as people go, as people uh as we live through the facts of our life here.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, last time I was with you, wherever I went, you had me surrounded with your own uh your own uh, I guess, police force uh because you're fearful of us being kidnapped. Is that a continuing concern with you?

Samuel Olson:

Not presently. At that time it was because Because uh there were certain situations uh that that that I won't go into, but we were all very fearful of different things that could take place at that time. But that somehow or another that was undone, and those people were taken off to jail and and done away with, so to speak. That no longer happens, but we have to be careful and we have to be very knowledgeable of the places that we're driving through uh or who is near us. We're not scared. It's not a problem of being paranoiac about it, but we do have to be uh prudent in our ways.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, how long have you pastored in Venezuela?

Samuel Olson:

Well, I started out in 71 as the co-pastor, and I became the full senior pastor in 1979.

Brian Stiller:

So since 1971 uh to 1925, that's the number of years. As you as you look back on that, those years, did you ever come to a point as you were going through these social and political difficulties that you thought you would leave the country as well?

Samuel Olson:

That never crossed my mind. Let me let me put it this way. I was I thought between 1971 and 79 that I was simply there to help my to help the church because my father was ill. Dad passed away, and I became the senior pastor through the voting, the voting system of the church, and I required that, but I did not sense that I was actually a pastor until about 1987. 1987 it suddenly dawned on me, yes, I am a pastor. I am the senior pastor. And it's not just the game or something of being uh uh uh selected as such. This is a calling of the Lord. And Nancy and I have never, never thought of the idea that we might leave Caracas. Uh the call the Lord called us here, not because of our parents, but because of ourselves and the calling upon his life. I never felt that in the States while I was studying and working in the States. It came as a gift. And I can never say, now and then I say, wow, I could have been living in this type of a situation in a certain type of a city where I used to work and teach in Princeton, but I could be living there, I could be living elsewhere in Brittlebury, Vermont, or, or, or, or. But no, no, that's not where I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be here.

Brian Stiller:

What constitutes a call for ministry?

Samuel Olson:

First of all, I could see what the Lord was doing through my work as the co-pastor of the church. I was not filling shoes. I was seeing what was happening. For example, the church was growing. I added elders to the church, and they assumed that work as elders. We started building huts, complete houses for the people who were living in the dirt. The church was growing numerically and spiritually. And I saw that, and I could not say that the Lord wasn't blessing. And then I fell in love with the church again, and then it's I sensed yes, the Lord is using me as a shepherd of the church, as nothing else. Not as teacher, not as evangelist, not as an apostle, not as a prophet, as a shepherd of the church. I do teach, but I'm a shepherd. And that's been part of my uh what can I say? That's a sense, a powerful sense, to for which I'm thankful to the Lord. I could never deny that again.

Brian Stiller:

Well, I've been to a few countries in in the world and I've I meet a lot of people. But I I must say that that I have been both attracted and fascinated by you and Nancy and your presence in a Pentecostal church in Caracas, and you are not in the wealthy area of the city, you're in the poorer area. And you've lived there during enormous political and social and economic upheaval, and yet you continue to nurture this idea that you're a shepherd and you find your joy there with your people, even though you have all kinds of opportunities to leave. So here's my question then, coming out of that observation to a younger person who is maybe in a difficult place or maybe in a place of enormous ease and uh and provision. Um what should they in their mind look to as a call of the Lord and an affirmation of his call?

Samuel Olson:

I would say what I said, told uh a few people I'm not going to mention. Do you want to stick it out? Do you think you're going to stick it out, or do you just think this is a five-year term in a contract? If it's just a contract, well, okay, fine. Live it through and fulfill your contract. But do you want to stick it out and see what the Lord is going to do with your life and the ministry that you have? I know that I stuck it out, but I didn't suffer sticking it out. I wanted to see, and I've seen how the Lord has worked enormous miracles and provisions as we go through. Just the fact that we now have a full-fledged school from kindergarten or preschool to the finishing high school. And now the people want to start university. I can't believe it. Just to see that the seminary has 200 students from 50 different churches in the city and that they're working toward their masters and towards their doctrine. Whoa, whoa, that it just tells me that the church is being multiplied and that in some way one was used a particular way to get something going. What can I say? Uh stick it out. The Lord will bless you if there's a calling upon your life. If you give up after five or ten years, you'll always wonder, did I do the right thing? The call is a call, and it is not a contract. A call is a catch that binds your soul to the Lord and to what he wants to do through your life.

Brian Stiller:

Sam, it's been so wonderful in conversing with you today. I have this one last request. The rest of the world knows what's going on in Venezuela. We hear the reports, we see the pictures, we understand the I guess millions now people who have who have emigrated. What eight million out of how many? Sam, what would you what would you have to say to church leaders of the world from where you sit as we come to our last few minutes of conversation?

Samuel Olson:

I I'm surprised by the question, and not bec because it's a terribly meaningful question or or or request. It's worth uh serving the Lord. It's not about money, it's not about buildings, it's not about relationships, it's about serving Him. One goes back to Peter and and Jesus. It's not the same thing, but it's at least it's a suggestion. Feed my sheep. The people are longing to be fed, whether they're ten people or a thousand people, each one has a call upon his or her life that the Lord is going to work out over the years. Serve him and he will bless you. Serve him and he will multiply the works of your hand and of your mind and of your soul. Serve him and he will bless you.

Brian Stiller:

Pastor Sam Olson, thank you for joining us from Caracas, Venezuela on Evangelical 360.

Samuel Olson:

Thank you. It's been a pleasure, it's been a blessing.

Brian Stiller:

Thanks, Sam, for walking us through your world in Venezuela and helping us see what service to our Lord is all about. And thank you, faithful friend, for being a part of the podcast. Remember, you can share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guests, check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already, just hit the subscribe button. That would be really appreciated. Thanks again for joining me today. Until next time.