It Ain't Over Til It's Over

9:30AM

Well we are on our last day, so I thought I would give a bit more insight on some of the special experiences of Cuba.  The water is of particular interest.  You get in the shower for the morning and before you realize it, you have taken a big refreshing gulp of water to help you wake up and cleanse your pallet.  What you don’t realize though is that you will also get a colonic thrown in at absolutely no extra cost.  The only down side to this colonic is that it occurs at a random time while traveling the bumpy highways and biways of Cuba (see previous post regarding road conditions).  Moral of the story - Don’t drink the water - EVER! (In case you are wondering why the water does this to you, I must be honest and tell you I don’t have a definitive answer, but my best understanding is that there are little animals in the water that do no like being inside of Americans).

I have obtained more statements from the guys.  They are brief, yet powerful -

George - “Are you sure those are scrambled eggs?”

Mike - “Manny how do you say ______ ?”

Steve - I have learned not to be so congealed in my conservatism

So far, I have not been able to get Jayson to speak into the microphone

As our van is being beat to death on the roads, rattling like a blender full of bolts, we wondered how you would advertise to sell it in the newspaper.  We decided to say “Gently used Mercedes van” and Mike added “only driven to church”.

2PM

This morning we met at a church with many of the local church leaders.  A little insight into one of these leaders - Jorge.  He was previously called before the director of housing for the province who intended to stop him from building a church.  The director had much power, including the ability to put Jorge in prison.  Jorge had been complying with all the codes but the director did not want him to build the church.  Jorge told this director that he did not have legal cause to stop the project and he further said to the director, “you can do whatever you want to me, but you need to know that the the only authority you have over me is given to you by the Lord Jesus Christ.  You can put me in prison if you want and you will intend it for bad but whatever happens to me God will use it for my good.”  Ultimately the director reversed his decision and allowed the building of the church.  The rest of the story, which must be told another day, resulted in the director (who had been trying to stop the building of the church) eventually doing a 180 and committing his life to Christ.  These are the kind of things that are happening regularly down here.  Just as God exploded his church in Europe and later in the United States, He is now, obviously moving in a big way in Cuba.  During our daily meetings with the various churches approximately 200 people have accepted Christ.

Jayson gave the message this morning.  He was last but he wasn’t least.  He followed Chris’ lead and decided to deviate from his original talk, but you wouldn’t know it from his delivery.  I gave my testimony and Manny enjoyed working me over a little after I told the congregation that the only reason they brought me on this trip was they wanted to have a handsome guy in the group (that little comment has continued to haunt me - the non-blogmasters tend to have less developed sense of humors).

8PM

We are on our way to our last church meeting.  We just finished a little tour of Havana.  Felix and Manny drove us through “old Havana” and we got out and saw some of the sites.  We also drove up to a lookout point over the city which is home to about two million people.  The city has some areas that are beautifully preserved, some areas that are reasonably modern and some areas that are badly run down.  Many years ago, the city was considered to be the Paris of the Caribbean, but that can no longer be said.  The explosion of Christianity is set in juxtaposition to the extortion, voodoo and secularism that is prevalent.  It will be interesting to see what God does in Cuba and how World Link will serve that end over the next decade.

10:40PM

We just left our final church visit.  This church physically looked much more traditional than any of the others and it was a bit larger.  The musicians leading the worship were incredible.  In particular the man who played the piano and later sang in a quartet was world-class in both.  We were told he is the professor of piano and voice for the national conservatory of Cuba.

Well it looks like it’s gonna be another late night and early morning.  My brain is almost fry’d but I think we aren’t gonna be in bed til 1AM and we will need to get up by 5AM.

Everyone will draw their own conclusions about this trip, but I’m pretty sure from my observations that every person in our group feels that this trip was time well spent.  It has been enlightening to see how God is moving in the people of Cuba and inspiring to see so many people who are so committed to the mission.  I think all of us on the trip have become much better friends and we have had the joy of meeting new friends in Cuba that we will see in heaven.

Blogmaster - over and out

Sunday Rainy Sunday

10AM

Today has started in a bit more relaxed way.  We were able to sleep til 8 this morning because our church service today begins a little later.  Several of us are waiting in the lobby for Felix to arrive with the van.  It has been raining lightly this morning but nothing too bad.

I have been asking (nicely) for each of the guys to give a thought to put in the blog.  Here is what I was able to extract from them.

Mike - I can neither confirm nor deny that I am in Cuba

Steve - I’ve learned that besides religion and politics, down here also don’t debate sports (especially baseball)

Chris - 

Jayson - 

Don - Do not challenge Jayson to a golf game.  One of the great truths that Manny has reiterated at each service is that Jayson is a great golfer.  Jayson keeps telling him so.

George - 

3:45PM

We went to a great church service this morning.  At this service they had us sitting facing the congregation and it was inspiring seeing the faces of everyone during the service.  They had several of the children up at the front dancing and playing tambourines during the worship.  They were so cute.  Kids are the same everywhere.  When they sat down, they were on the front row facing us.  We had a good time smiling and making faces at them during the service.  One little girl was especially dear.  She had a smile that lit up the room.

Steve gave his testimony this morning explaining some of the difficulties he faced as a boy when his parents divorced and how God later broke into his life.  Don gave the message, sharing how he has come to understand that a man (David) who committed adultery and murder could be a “man after God’s own heart”.

One thing all of us regret is that we cannot speak Spanish.  The people at the churches want to communicate with us just as we want to communicate with them.  There are lots of handshakes and hugs, but it would be great if we could talk.  It is interesting that, especially the older ladies, want to hug and kiss us as though we are their brothers or perhaps, sons.  Their faces are so telling.  They have deep lines in their cheeks and foreheads showing lives lived with many challenges, but their eyes and smiles shine bright revealing the light they have inside them.  We will not soon forget their faces.

Manny has explained much about the work that is going on in Cuba.  Of course, at it’s root, its about following Jesus’ command of taking the Good News to all of the world, in this case, Cuba.  But specifically what is so compelling here is that God has raised up so many men and women who are ready and willing to give their entire lives and energies to making God known in their homeland.  Unfortunately the process is greatly hampered because there is so little money available to support the effort.  The great thing is that just a little money goes a long way here.  Currently they support about 500 pastors and there are 1500 more ready to take up the call but they need support.  Are you ready for this?  One pastor can be supported in full time ministry for $25 per month.  And each pastor starts and runs 3 churches.  These are the churches that we have been visiting, which have typically 50 to 250 people in their congregation.  As Manny shared with us last night, he sees his role with the Cuban church, not primarily as any “touchy-feely” support: rather, he wants to help provide the financial support these committed believers need and then get out of their way and let God use them to change the eternal destiny of the people of Cuba.  I have often heard the thought “look where God is at work and join in”.  It looks to me like God is at work in Cuba.

7PM

We just left our second service.  This church held a special interest for us as it has been directly sponsored by McKinney to help complete the building.  As you can imagine, it is not like a church in Fort Worth, but they have finished it out very functionally, and of course, it was packed tonight.  As we have seen at our other stops, the church was filled with young and old, mom’s and dad’s with little children, in many ways not much different from what you might see in America.  George gave his testimony tonight.  As always, he speaks with great clarity and engaging humor.  Chris gave the message.  As we do for all of us, we had been praying for him that he would have peace and clarity (since it can be a bit disconcerting for those of us who don’t regularly speak in front of an audience to find ourselves standing in front of 100 people).  Well, Chris gets up there and says, “I had a talk prepared, but I’m gonna go in a different direction.”  I’m thinking “Uh Oh, Houston we have a problem”, but he pulled it off very well.  All said, it was another great visit.

We have a very interesting little situation in front of us.  We are currently heading back toward Havana to have dinner.  We are in an 11 passenger van and there are 9 of us.  On our way back we are picking up a local pastor and his wife and also Fx’s wife and two (large) sons.  I am but a simple engineer, but by my count that is going to be a few people over the limit.  Add to that my bladder which is currently the size of two people and we have the makings for an interesting trip :)  I’ll let ya know how it turns out.

11:30PM

Dinner was great!  We had alot of fun with both families.  More on that later cause I am sleeepy.  I made one mistake on the van ride.  Fx has three boys, not two.  Okay, so now it is a 15 passenger van.

Nite Nite - BM

First Day You, Next Day Me

Saturday 9AM

Things are starting to fall into a rhythm down here.  Our days start with breakfast in bed, then a 30 minute massage, then some guys go down and tan at the pool, while others gather in the lounge and smoke a cigar.  Oh wait a minute....I just woke up from a dream.  Sorry, I cant talk long.  Only time to grab a quick shower, meet for breakfast and head to the van.  Ahh, reality.

Everything has gone very smoothly so far.  Last night (Friday night) we met with our second church.  The people were all so friendly.  They save us seats right at the front, but it takes a couple of minutes to make our way through the packed crowd to get to them.  This church is actually the garage of a 1 car garage apartment.  Some quick counting revealed there were about 150 people there (50 of them overflowing outside of the garage).  We were told that this church is exploding in population.  On Sunday they have five services with hundreds of people attending.  The pastor, Jorge, is a young man (early 20’s) who has taken over for his father.  Jayson gave a great testimony and then Mike gave the message.  At the end of the evening a lady approached Mike and (translated by Manny) told him that his message and his vocation (apologetics evangelism) really meant a lot to her.

Speaking of Manny, let me speak of Manny.  For those of you who don’t know him, Manny is the head of an outreach organization that is involved in 14 countries around the world.  Manny has been sponsored by McKinney Church for many years.  He visits there often, when he is not somewhere else in the world - like Cuba.  Manny is fluent in Spanish (and several other languages).  He is an incredible preacher, his life story is amazing and he knows all the good places to eat.

Since we are traveling in the van as I write this, I will take a minute to describe our hotel.  It is quite nice, with a big, open lobby, a very large pool and a good restaurant.  I enjoy looking at the pool every morning as we walk by it on the way out to the van :).  One other really cool feature is in our rooms.  Picture, a granite counter that is six feet long and five feet wide.  Now picture putting a sheet on top of it and sleeping on it.  That is our bed!  If you like a firm mattress, you won’t be disappointed at the Occidental Miramar. 

We probably won’t be back to the hotel until late tonight (Saturday night), so if I have the energy, I will add to this post with the events of the day, otherwise, we will catch you up later.

I will close with this snippet about Steve.  I used to think that I was a techie, but I must bow to Steve’s tech trinkets.  He pulled out a power converter that must have come from another planet far more advanced than ours.  We finally figured out how to make it do what we needed, but I’m pretty sure it will also convert matter into energy, warp the time-space continuum and shine shoes - but we will probably need the manual to activate those features.  I’ve gotta find out where Steve shops :)

Saturday 1PM

We just left our first church of the day.  This church was much larger than either of the previous churches.  The main seating area had seating for about 200 people and they could probably squeeze 300 or 400 people in when needed.  We felt sorry for the pastor, Rueben, as we found out that they had paid for transportation and food for 200 people that could not come because of rain in the mountains.  Never-the-less, there were at least 100 people there.  The worship time included several songs in Spanish that we regularly sing in English back home.  Staying true to form, the people sing and worship with much commitment.

Don’s testimony was very good and entertaining to all of us as he cleverly disguised his potentially sensitive former life as an air force pilot with statements like “I used to work for an organization the put a high value on commitment”.  After he finished Steve gave a message on Legend vs Legacy which was saturated with Bible verses.  If it is true that when God’s word goes out, it never comes back void, then Steve’s message should have much eternal significance.

We were told that because of the short nature of our trip, we would not have the opportunity to have a “fun” day of touring, but riding in the back of this van from place to place feels like we are Six Flags all day long :)  Much of our driving is on the highways, but they are a tad bit rougher than we are used to.  Think of the roughest road you have driven on in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alabama.  Now combine them. Okay, thats Cuba’s roads.  Oh cool.  We just had to slow down to allow some cows to cross the road.  Which reminds me of a joke.  Do you know why the cows crossed the road?....

Saturday 7:30PM

We have just left our second church visit for the day.  This was another long trip out to the church - about 2 hours of driving.  It is pitch black and Fx (Let me explain who Fx is - 1) He is the guy who is driving us all over this island, 2) He works for the work with Manny, but he is a Cuba native, 3)He is the point man for half (about 200) of the pastors in Cuba who are associated with the work and 4) He is the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.  He doesn’t speak hardly any English and we all speak even less Spanish, but his care for us shines through even without words.)  Like I said, Fx is driving us back to Havana for the night.

The church service went well.  This was another relatively large church which probably had about 150 people in attendance.  Chris gave a very moving testimony which included some significant hardships he has walked through, particularly the last two years.  After the service, someone gave us a note about a man who didn’t normally go to church but was visiting tonight for the first time to try to find comfort in a major difficulty he is currently going through.  It “so happens” that this is the very difficulty that Chris has been walking through and talked about tonight.  Needless to say it was a “God thing”.  I gave my message tonight which was about loving God more than we love His gifts.  I am definitely not a public speaker, but hopefully Manny cleaned it up in the translation.

To all concerned family members, all of us are healthy and happy - but we do miss you!  

Tomorrow is Sunday, so I guess we will go to church....get it?

Peace Out - BM

Great Start

Our first visit for the day was at LC.  This was a church filled with smiling faces on young and old people who had made a special effort to gather on a Friday to meet with us.  This was a humbling experience.  The church was a simple wood room with a concrete floor.  The small room was packed.  The people worshipped like Jesus was standing there.  Mike gave his testimony and it almost made me cry (seriously).  George did a great job teaching and after we finished our worship time, several people wanted to go down to the pond and be baptized.  

One dear older lady, with a patch on her eye also wanted to be baptized as a demonstration of her acceptance of Christ.  She was carefully helped down into the pond and George cupped water in his hand and gently poured it over her head being careful not to get any near her eye.  Everyone clapped.  It was a special moment.

In the midst of all of these spiritual moments, there is also plenty of light hearted entertainment.  For example, the whole time George is baptizing in the pond, there is a pig swimming in the background.  Yes, God does have a sense of humor.

Right now we are traveling in our mobile home, an eleven passenger van, on our way to our next stop - which happens to be lunch - YES!

Over the course of the days, I will try to give some insight into each of the guys.  Here is a little snippet about George.  He told me that he tends to be a people pleaser.  This was a great revelation to me because now I just ask him to do everything for me :)

This evening we will head out again to another church.  We get three hours this afternoon to catch up on the sleep we are missing.

More later - your friendly neighborhood blogmaster.

Travel Travel Travel

Wow! What a day! Left Church at 10:30AM.  Left DFW at 1:30PM.  Left Cancun at 11:30PM.  Arrived at hotel at 3:30AM (ouch).  It would seem like a wasted day, but actually it was a great day.  Guys getting to know each other.  Group conversations, one-on-one conversations, talk of family, jobs, other mission trips, jet fighter stories.  A couple of good meals.

God was gracious!  Ray (not thinking) ate the ice in Mexico and DIDN’T get sick.  Everyone in the group made it through customs in Cuba without getting “controlled”. All bags made it through without incident.  Planes had no malfunctions and pilots hit all the runways.

Today we start of tired, but excited.  We will let you know what happens next.

(from the office)

got a text from the guys in cancun so at least they were halfway there.  here's how they looked the last time we saw them...

The Time is Getting Near

Hola!  Ray speaking here.  I have been elected as the official “blogmaster”!  I just made that title up, but I REALLY like the ring of it.  In reality, the team leadership knew I couldn’t handle logistics, was pretty sure I couldn’t frame a photo and certainly wasn’t going to trust me with the money, so here I am - blogmaster.  So.... as blogmaster, let me tell you how I think this is going to work.  We will be on our trek for six days.  Hopefully I, or one of our other peeps (I like to refer to them as NON-blogmasters), will blog each day.  Some days the blog entries might be very big with lots of content (we’ll call these Megablogs) and other days they might just be quick little entries to let you know we are still around (bloglets).  Whatever they are, we hope you will find them Entertaining, Enlightening and Encouraging - when I went to blogging school, they taught me to always  use these three E’s of blogging.

Well we are at T minus 4 days and counting until we leave on our Cuba adventure.  Our team has met together on several occasions to get to know each other better, come to understand the purpose(s) of our visit and to get familiarized with some of the logistics.  We are now all ready to go and all that is left to do is pack our underwear and electric tooth brushes and make our way to the aeropuerto (hopefully I won’t scare you away with my heady command of Spanish).  

But on the serious side, to all who are taking the time to read this, we love and appreciate you and we ask that you keep our group in your prayers.  Here are some things you could specifically pray for. 1- That God would be honored by this trip - that we would represent Him well and that people we meet would sense God’s love through us. 2 - That the lives of those we interact with and the lives of our team would be drawn closer to Christ and to each other through this trip and 3 - that distractions and roadblocks during our trip would be minimal and our travels would culminate in safe return to our families.

We are glad you are joining in with us.  Talk to you soon.  Adios!