This post is not my story to tell. I am, instead, a privileged bystander and would like to invite you to join me here on the sidewalk.

Nestled against the Sierra Maestra, the province Granma is a 16 hour bus ride away from Havana. Its forested peaks roll 2,000 meters above sea level for over 240 kilometers. It is a beautiful place, a land of coffee and banana, rivers and canopied trails. But Granma’s beauty is not found solely in its landscape. In the 1950’s, Arnold Adams, along with his wife and two boys, moved from the western side of the island to this remote area with the vision of seeing the gospel spread throughout the entire country. Up until that point, all missionary work had centered in the west, so having established an assembly, built a hall, a printing press and establishing a work in literature, Arnold decided it was time to move on. They ended up in Bayamo, Granma where they traveled by mule up and down the hills sharing the good news of salvation. An assembly was established in Bayamo and so they took down their house and moved to the next town over. He shared the gospel in over 60 places, often in the homes of those interested, like the father of a brother named Walfrido.

“He??” the people would exclaim. “That wicked, godless man is now a christian? Now this I want to see!” And so they would come to see a transformed life and some of them were also converted to the true gospel.

But Arnold and his wife were only in Granma for four years before Castro landed on the beaches on the opposite side of the mountains and came marching across, even taking over the Adams’ home in his conquest (they were in Canada at the time.) The Adams had to leave Cuba permanently, along with the missionaries that were laboring in the west. Their hall was confiscated and turned into a school. Walfrido’s father was thrown into jail. The sheep were scattered.

But after several years, he was released. And so he began rounding up the the believers again, a shepherd amongst a scattered flock. The assembly began meeting again and began once more to share the gospel. “From you sounded forth”, as Paul says. And so today, some 60 years later, there are 16 assemblies in the province of Granma.

No missionary.
No food.
No money.
No meeting place.
Hardly even a Bible.

They were just a group of devoted believers who knew there is no life but the life that is ours in Christ.

Today that fervent spirit continues. The economic needs and control of a communist government have not diminished but the gospel has grown and flourished.

My husband is an impacted eyewitness of that ancient promise: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

More than conquerors.

These are the experiences that break us. That strip us of our preconceived notions of how the gospel ought to be spread, how churches are generally formed, what sorts of physical necessities present themselves in a new work. Would to God each believer could grasp this wonderful truth. God can use me sharing the gospel with just my family and friends in our living room to see an assembly established for His glory.

David has made three trips to Cuba over the last year or so. Each time he returns home more impressed by their zeal and love and activity. He comes home exhausted, too. Getting up every morning at 3 am to walk over the mountains to this village or that; waiting and hoping a bus might come by to visit believers in another town shreds our cushy habits.

To begin to introduce you to every believer, every assembly, every work would rapidly outpace the scope of a little blog post. There are still new churches being formed. New converts gathering out. More places being reached with the gospel.

We recently mailed 5 packages to different people in the eastern half of the island with gospel literature and texts for handing out, Bible studies and charts for meetings with young people, veils and verses for the believers, among other little things. Please pray these packages arrive. Only a few days after they were sent, huge riots broke out across the island; people’s endurance levels have been superseded. Now, unimaginably so, there is even less food available, there is electricity only about 4 hours per day and because of the uprisings, internet availability has been greatly reduced. The suffering is unimaginable. But the believers tell us that neighbors and family members they have invited for years are finally attending meetings. So, despite their desperate situation, they are encouraged in the Lord.

I feel so humbled writing that all out. It’s impossible to reckon in our human minds the ease and abundance of our lives and the slowness of growth in the gospel, the little we truly devote to raw gospel work, with the utter wreckage that is the Cuban society and the overflowing abundance in the Lord’s work. How often we year for revival–do we even comprehend what the potential implications of impending revival might be? Hunger. Major government overreach. Jail for a million and one little things. Basically no transportation. Cooking over a wood fire. No industry. No technology. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I examine my own heart. Will I still pray for revival?

In the meantime, please pray for Cuba. Some believers are being pressured to “take sides”; they need enormous amounts of grace and wisdom to navigate this situation, aside from their abundant daily needs. We know God will never forsake His own but sometimes the valley is so dark it can feel like He has. So, please pray for their encouragement and spiritual fortitude against their many, many trials.