Week 3&4
The last 2 weeks in Cuba we were more involved in some of the ministry of the church. We had the opportunity to lead some of the youth church meetings and it was great to see how they interacted and engaged in what we did and how they wanted to learn. We did a lot to take them out of their comfort zone and had some meeting on the roof of the church, did the toothpaste drama (and I took part it was really disgusting and not so disgusting at the same time) and made them do a few things out of their comfort zone. It was truly amazing to see what happened at those meetings and how powerfully the Holy Spirit worked in those times. We also got to do a drama and challenge the norm of the church in their Sunday service and it was again so good to see how positive the reaction was to something out of the norm. We also went to the CharoMono mission outside of town that is focused on reaching some of the back country people who has not had the change to hear the gospel, we had the chance to see how it works and to camp on a farm and have a big bonfire the evening and swim/bath in the river. In the last week we spent 4 days at a youth (16-30 year olds) retreat/camp of baptist churches in the area. It was a interesting few days and we helped out in a few places, but wow they do not believe in sleeping, staying up and making noise till 2-3am in the morning.
There was also some more fun time in that period. Jansie and myself went out the one day and spend the morning running after random people in 41C temperatures, taking foto's and freaking out some locals, but also having some good meetings. This is where we met Francisco, the peanut selling man , he was a believer and he started speaking to us in Spanish and for some reason both me and Jansie understood him and what he was saying, we met with him a few times over the next few days and even gave us a Spanish Bible that some Canadians gave him a stack of and we were able to bless a family with it that needed a Bible. We also spend more time with the peeps from church and the 2 ladies that made us food just crept deeper and deeper into my heart. Bethsida, one of them, had a nephew Orlando, that took a liking to me for some reason and we started playing and he found a new theo, theo Fred. The day we returned from the camp was also the last night at the church and Jaco's b-day. They people put together a surprise b-day party for him the evening that also doubled as a farewell. It was so good, but also so difficult to say goodbye. The next morning we took the bus back to Habanna. Our bus arrived at 11:45pm after a nice long 21h bus ride and then surprise surprise it was challenge time. So we slept outside the station with a few people coming to have a look at us during the night, it was funny, they probably just thought it was weird. This time the pink team took the more chill scenic challenge route and ended up last due to being cauth in a massive rainstorm in the middle of nowhere and getting stuck for 2 hours. That evening I started getting sick and it was the start of the most interesting 11 day stomach flu I have ever had. The next morning we went to the airport nice and early and got there just in time to buy some toilet paper since we were out and were now a few that had stomach problems. When check-in opened and we tried to check in were were told that we could not get on the plane to Mexico since we did not have a flight out of Mexico, since we were going to take a bus from Mexico and had visas to pass throught and have cleared this with the Mexican embassy in RSA this was quite a shock. We then had 2 hours of fighting with Cubanna Air allow us on the plane, but it was unsuccessful. In the end we had to buy return tickets from them that we could refund with some penalty in Mexico and is what we had to do. This did put a bit of a damper on our time in Cuba that was so good.
Personal journey
The first few days in Cuba started on a weird note. Some funny thought and actions, like unexplainable anger and swearing, popped up and I was wondering where it came from and was it not things that was not part of me any more and things that I have not been in an environment that would make the old habits come back. So I ended up looking to God to see what was up and it was revealed that some of those was part of my old self, part of my flesh and frankly just part of me. But I did not want it to be part of me any more I want to live in the spirit and then Rom 12:1-2 hit me. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. “ So these 2 verses in the end was only scripture that I read in my own personal time in the 4 weeks in Cuba and it sort of sums up my personal journey.
So after 2-3 days in Cuba with this revelation I started to have some serious prayer time in the mornings asking God to come renew my mind, come help me live in the spirit and not out of my old flesh, let me not be stuck in the old, but bring me into the new. It started with me asking for specifics, but went on to being general and without noticing it all those things that was bothering me started to melt away. The prayer time in the mornings continued and it was just a time of sitting back in God's presence and just allowing the Holy Spirit and to come renew my mind and not having this battle of asking for change and looking at the faults, but just sitting back and allowing the Holy Spirit the work and wow, looking back reading my journal it happened so naturally that I did not notice it. In my journal I would be asking question and wanting to know WHAT is going on with this or that and 2 days later there is nothing of this thing that looked so big and looking back I just go O that disappeared, O this is not part of me any more. Having the time to look at it it while reading my journal I can see that it happened a few times and on different topics. The morning prayer time was also a time of just sitting and listening to what God wants to speak to me and I started having this random moment where thoughts would hit me for what was going to happened the day and I did not think on it, but then for a few days in a row I realised that every thought (and some of it was really random) was happing “go draw money for the team” turned to a person from church turning up during the day to get money for visas and if I did not go draw money we would not have had enough cash and other random things. It just showed me that God want to speak to us, He wants to come change us, we don't have to work to do good or do things and practices to hear His voice, we just need to sit back and listen, create time for Him to speak and just ask. “
F