Cuba Report – Second Trip

Greetings in the Wonderful Name of our Savior and King! We have just returned home from our trip to Cuba having left May 18 and returning June 2. I can think of only one word to summarize my reaction to this trip – stunned. This newsletter will be longer than most because I want to give a thorough report of what happened because we are anxious to share with each one of you about how your prayers and financial help made a difference.

We made arrangements so that our trip would be completely legal. We were licensed with the U.S. Treasury Department so that we could travel legally and directly from Miami to Havana by charter. We also had religious visas issued by the Cuban Government so that we could legally conduct religious activities there. Our coordinator was Rev. Hector Hunter, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God for Cuba, which is the largest Evangelical denomination in the country. Even so, we almost didn’t make it into the country at all because of some suspicious last minute requirements made by the charter airline’s Cuban office. From 1:30pm to 11:30pm the day before our scheduled flight to Havana, we worked on this problem at the travel agency in Miami. We kept hearing “It doesn’t look good” and “You won’t be able to get on the plane tomorrow” and I realized once again that we can’t do anything by our own strength and planning. (We are completely helpless to do even the smallest thing without Him.) We decided to gather for prayer and seek the heart of the Lord knowing that He is the Doorkeeper, opening and closing as He prefers. Near the end of the prayer, the phone rang with “the answer.” We were cleared for takeoff!

Once we arrived on Saturday, we confirmed our plans and itinerary. Our Chaplains for Christ team consisted of Pastor Chris Gomez and Francisco Sanchez (Mexican-Americans), Daniel Velasquez (a Venezuelan pastoring in Chicago), Peter Chvostovsky (an ethnic-Russian jail chaplain working in Florida) and myself. It was a fantastic team. On Sunday we climbed on a bus for a 15 hour ride to the other end of the island where we would begin our series of three, three-day seminars on jail and prison ministry. When we arrived in Santiago de Cuba, Daniel and I climbed aboard a jeep with seven other people heading for Guantanamo It was no surprise that halfway there in a rain storm, the jeep got a flat tire. Wrong tools and some inventiveness and about 1 ½ hours later, we were back on our way. Pastor Jorge, who was a member of the local authorities until he got saved and started preaching the Gospel, explained that his house was taken away from him. He and his wife were forced to live with his sister, but now he had to be out by June 1. Daniel has been working with this Brother for some time, providing financial support and visiting him in Guantanemo. Pastor Jorge showed us a house he wanted to buy and also a piece of property where they wanted to build the first church ever in Las Mayas. Currently, the church consists of a series of boards lined in rows with cinderblock supports in the open air. People leave for church at one in the morning coming down from the mountains walking 6 to 8 kilometers to get to church and spend the day in worship and fellowship with only these boards as their church. They had the plans and the labor to build the church which could probably hold two hundred people, but they didn’t have the funds. I asked how much it would cost to completely build the church and buy the home for the Pastor. The pastor’s house cost $150 and the church would cost $250. We immediately gave them the money to buy both and they will send reports and pictures as things progress.

That night, we preached at the only church, a house church in La Yaya, a community in Guantanamo, and the little living room was so jammed with people that it wasn’t possible to move from behind the pulpit. Many stood outside looking in because there wasn’t room for them. God moved powerfully, and during the time of individual prayer ministry, a young woman came forward and began to manifest demons. She was writhing and screaming on the floor as we prayed for her and commanded the demons to leave in Jesus name. After some time, she began to repeat my words of “Cristo (Christ), Cristo, Cristo, Cristo” and she was delivered, praising God for His mercy toward her.

The conditions in Cuba are Spartan. No toilet seats or paper ( they use newspapers), mosquitos so fierce that one service had to be temporarily stopped because of them, hot, humid weather with little relief from overhead ceiling fans in the sanctuaries, rice and beans every day.

On Monday we began our first seminar. Because the entire training comes straight from the Bible, I find it difficult to lecture and instead found myself preaching, exhorting, encouraging, and informing the trainees about our Lord’s command to visit those who are in prison. With the help of the team, 5 hours of daily preaching of the lessons of jail ministry took place for a total of nine of the 14 days we were there. About 200 attended the three seminars even though the local authorities set a limit of 30 people per seminar. I asked the pastors how many would have attended if there had not been a limit set. The response was that hundreds would have attended each seminar. We were told that this is the first time in the history of the country that an American team (other than Cuban expatriates) has come to present any kind of seminar. (They do have Canadians and Australians coming there to do some work but these countries do not have an embargo against Cuba like the U.S.)

The Cuban people do not enjoy the same prosperity that Americans do, but they have a zeal for the things of God. One man rented a set of clothes so that he could attend a seminar because he had nothing presentable to wear. Another pastor rented a pair of shoes. Most of the attendees were either pastors, active prison workers, or ex-inmates. No one, not even the Cubans, is allowed to go into the prisons to conduct services. However, they can visit on a one to one basis on visiting day and they can write to the inmates.

The seminar focused on teaching them the Apostle to the Gentiles’ (the Apostle Paul) method of evangelism and discipleship which is: visitation, correspondence, and prayer. In the same way that Paul visited, corresponded with and developed churches, ministry to inmates in Cuba can also be developed. Specific Biblical examples of the following jail and prison ministry areas were thoroughly examined during the course of the seminars: a jail “chaplain”, an assistant “chaplain”, visitors to a follower of Christ, someone who prayed for an inmate but didn’t visit him, visitation to an inmate in the Bible, ministry by the church to an ex-inmate, ministry to a jailor, and ministry to a prisoner’s family. Detailed instruction about letter writing, visitation and prayer was also given.

While I conducted most of the seminar, the responsibility for the preaching in the churches was given primarily to Pastors Chris and Daniel with Francisco and Peter helping them. Just about every night and Sunday mornings and evenings, they had opportunities to speak in the three largest churches in Cuba and in small churches as well. A total of about 5000 attended these services with the largest service being 1500 in Camaguay. The pastors of each of the three largest services all said the same thing. Without our asking them, they said that they had never seen such a move of God’s Spirit in the history of their ministries (one pastor had served for over 43 years.) The Cuban people were ready and expecting God to bring an outpouring of His Spirit and our Sovereign Lord was faithful. Everywhere we went we heard, “This is Cuba’s time”.

On the last day, the General Superintendent told me that he had just returned from a week’s tour of the island visiting even the most remote areas of the country. He told me that he was very surprised to find that the Gospel has spread to every area and that pastors all over the country were excitedly talking to him about our seminars and the work of our team. They expressed a commitment to work in the prisons like never before. In one particularly remote and poor area, he met a woman who had gone to one village where she knew no one, but started to pray with one person. One person became ten and ten became twenty and then there were 100. The local authorities became alarmed and told her to stop. She refused and they threatened to take her home, imprison her, etc. She still refused to stop and for 3 or 4 months she and the group were continuously harassed and threatened. Suddenly and surprisingly, the harassment completely stopped and for about 3 months there were no problems at all. One day, the head of the local authorities in the area approached her and asked how she was doing. Hesitantly she replied that she was doing fine and the man said, “Good. Keep up the good work.” She could hardly believe her ears. He continued, ” Ever since you have started your religious meetings, all the thieves have left the area and now there is no problem with stealing and we are happy for this development. Keep up the good work.”

In the service in Havana, we participated in the most powerful, anointed service I have ever been in my life. With the largest church in the city straining to capacity at 700-800, the Holy Spirit fell on that place in a mighty way as Daniel, Chris and I each shared a message with the congregation. As I preached a message on “The Lord’s Prayer,” I felt the power of God surging through me like never before. The word of God was enthusiastically received by everyone. At the conclusion of my message, I went back to my seat and tried to sit down. I couldn’t. The unction of the Lord was so strong, I couldn’t sit down for some time. The deacons immediately escorted a young man to a back room because he was incoherent and demons were being manifested in him as a result of the powerful move of the Spirit of God. Once in the room he threw himself against the wall, floor, and chairs while they prayed for his deliverance. Finally, he reappeared and was behaving normally.

The hunger and thirst for God by these people was so overwhelming, they would not be satisfied without an outpouring of His Spirit, and the Lord responded to their hearts’ desire. At the conclusion of the service, we began to pray for the sick as they came forward. When the Spirit of God fell again, people began to shake and fall back on the concrete floor and wooden pews stacking up on top of each other because there were so many of them. No one was “pushed” and in fact, one of our team members even tried to keep them from falling down by holding on to them as they fell backwards, but this continued as Chris and Daniel prayed for hundreds. Many were healed of their infirmities. One woman I prayed for had suffered from extreme pain in her shoulders, neck and head. As we prayed, she began to rejoice that the pain was completely gone and she gave God the Glory. We saw many make commitments to Christ for salvation as well. Cold hearts were rededicated to the King. Even when I went down into the church basement, people who were not even in the service were pleading with me to pray for them to receive the unction of God.

In one house church, we told the owner that we would return at seven that night for a service there. With joy, she called the people who had been coming to the house church but because they had not met for several months, no one would come. In desperation, she called everyone else she knew and invited them to come. We arrived at eight and no one was there. As we waited, about fifteen people finally arrived and each were loaned a Bible. Most could not even find the Book of John, but they all listened intently as each of us on the team shared the Gospel in a very simple and straightforward manner. At the conclusion, an invitation to accept Christ as Savior was given and twelve responded (including one man we knew to be an intelligence agent who we had witnessed to on our first trip last December) and the other three rededicated their lives to Him. Two persons who suffered from paralysis stated that they felt the Lord’s Hand touching and healing them. Suddenly, a church had been born and we made arrangements with another pastor to send someone to disciple this group on a weekly basis.

We were constantly being watched by clandestine representatives of the government who attended our seminars and listened for any sign of our speaking against the government of Cuba which we, of course, never did. There are many “sharks” in the water even infiltrating and pastoring the churches. Our sole purpose was to present the Gospel and the Love of God to a thirsty people and teach them how to share this Love with inmates, their families and ex-inmates as well. Just today, I received a letter requesting a written response explaining why certain living arrangements were not followed (these arrangements would have allowed them to more closely monitor me). I had nothing to do with the changes but I can see the Lord’s Hand in it.

The church in Havana reported some lessening of the enforcement of restrictions on the church there. Although it is not technically permitted, no resistance occurs currently when Cubans go out onto the street and engage in one-to-one evangelism and individual tract distribution. They are printing and distributing 60,000 tracts per week and the demand is still greater. However, no street corner preaching or group assembly is tolerated. Non-residents are not allowed to do any of these activities. Cuban evangelists are distributing Gospel of Johns house-by-house with a map of each home in Havana with purpose of giving one to every home in the city.

During our time in Cuba, we received three invitations to return. One invitation is from the Assemblies of God requesting follow-up prison and jail work, including a visit to one of the Cuban prisons. The second invitation is from the Assemblies of God pastor of the largest church in Santiago de Cuba. He wants to obtain a permit from the government and arrange a meeting or series of meetings in an open-air amphitheater where he would invite members of all the other denominations with 10,000 in attendance at each service. The third invitation involves an interdenominational organization that wants us to do two things. They want us to return to train all the other denominations about jail and prison work with a seminar of 1500-2000 attendees to take place in a large auditorium in Havana. They said, “These words are too good to be given only to the Assemblies of God. We want them too.” The second thing they are asking us to do is to send them a shipping container full of medicines, soap, toothpaste and Bibles that would be sent directly to the personal physician of Fidel Castro as Humanitarian Aid where the contents would be distributed to hospitals and prisons.

This all seems so staggering to me, so I am asking each one of you pray so that we can have the Lord’s guidance in these matters and invitations. We are excited about all of this and we don’t want our own enthusiasm to rule but we don’t want to miss the Lord’s Will either. All praise and honor and glory to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are trusting that He will lead and guide and help our frailty and weaknesses. We are grateful for each one of you who have stood with us and love His Coming.

Chaplain Rob Brown