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