Upon sitting down in our seats on the plane to Cuba, we noticed a Cuban magazine with Obama’s face on it tagged, “It’s time.” I suppose it is, Obama, I suppose it is.
As soon as we hit the ground and greeted customs, I got interrogated again. It seems as if they thought we may be spies with all of the questions they asked, but I told the truth and yet again we passed without trouble.
On the other side, one of our men passed through with a bag of nine Books. After half an hour of searching and questioning, he was released. His daughter was stopped by a young woman in customs with more Books. The lady noticed what kind of Books she had, quickly looked over each shoulder, then told her, “God bless you. Go quickly.”
We visited Old Habana, ate dinner, then took our long trek on the pot-hole tainted road to our destination.
It later came to the surface that we had to split sleeping arrangements between many hostels rather than two – interesting, but swell. After dinner, we parted ways to only knock on the hostel doors and be greeted by our little Cuban abuelas for the week. Gabe and I got settled in our room, struck up a conversation about family, then she offered to make us some Cuban Espresso. It was 9:00pm, however it didn’t matter – we were so tired that we could have slept on a bed of nails. On the other side of the block, Michael was told by his host, “No chicas! No chicas! (No girls!)” Evidently his host had a few bad experiences in the past. It was explained that this man was different and he obliged with a warm welcome.
Gabe and I returned, played a game, wound down the night with rolling laughter and a terrible movie, then retired for the night.
As soon as I peeled my eyelids back the next morning, I remembered my dreams. The one that stood out was how God took me to show me what it meant to be a good Father. I pondered this for a while, then opened up to read and what do you think I read about? It was the same thing – letting God show us what it meant to be a good Father. So I asked Him to walk me through it that day.
We then arrived in Santa Clara. After our gathering, I saw a lady who just had a stroke and asked to pray for her. Upon “amen”, I opened my eyes and noticed a large group had gathered to ask for prayer. Gabe and I took the opportunity and began asking them questions and praying as the Spirit led. All of a sudden I noticed a woman, Lucilla, with wide eyes calling out her friends by name and hitting the jackpot on the “how many fingers am I holding up?” game. Evidently she had cataracts a few minutes prior, but the Lord delivered her and she could see! In my unbelieving heart, I kept playing games with her to test her vision, but she eventually got tired of it and said, “You keep saying do this or do that; I can see!”After lunch, we returned to our hostels for a nap. Gabe and I were browsing the 4 Cuban channels available on the tube when we heard a knock at the door from our translators. They were translating a Kari Jobe song and wanted to make sure they were correct. This quickly turned into a worship session and some very good Spirit-led conversation where Gabe and I got to minister to one of them for a while. It was way beyond us, the topic, but the Lord delivered. That evening at the church service, we noticed he had made an important decision and saw freedom birthing in his eyes. That was huge!
These are the times that I live for.
As the week ensued and many more of these conversations came up with our participants and the Cuban natives, it began to hit me – if we operate in the Spirit, life is birthed and fruitful relationships are built, and we must learn to be real and trust one another to do so.
The spiritual gifts you read of in Ephesians 4 are meant to build up the Bride. Without them, we are dwindling away, tossed by the wind, and slowly decreasing in spiritual fortitude, when the Lord wants His Bride healthy, whole, diverse, and full of vibrant life.
On the last night of the trip, Gabe and I only got one and a half hours of sleep because we got to sit with, listen to, share our lives, and encourage a couple with us. It’s always such a joy to share in the crappy times together too. This is a picture of the Kingdom being forged.
Heck, even the owner of our hostel knew we were “pastors” (that is both of our most dominant gift), and no one told her. Maybe it was because we are American, or maybe it’s because we decided to lovingly embrace each other at minute one and share our lives as they are.
On our way to the airport on April 1st in 50 degree weather, we broke down for two hours. But we learned a valuable lesson or two, and the Lord still got us on that plane.
It seemed that every time these situations arose, I was tired, in the middle of something “important”, or simply didn’t want to engage. But I’m learning the joys of being in love with Jesus – every moment is a moment to be a sent-out, laid-down lover of Jesus. Every moment is to share in the grit of life, because after all, the Gospel is not about me and He is always enough.
Pray for myself, as I will be back a number of times this year. Pray that the Lord would increase my love for Him in the secret place, and that He would increase my capacity to love at all times, in every circumstance.
To view my whole album of photos from Cuba, click here.
