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