Cuba, 2012, Day Five

It took a little longer to wake up on Monday, as the busy week was beginning to catch up with me. I got up, showered, got dressed and sat in the front room. Pastor Julio was daily on his knees when I would get up, his face and hands on a chair, praying for the events of the day.

We ate breakfast after Raulito (our interpreter) arrived from the home he was staying in nearby, which he went to every night, and we were off again to visit some of the missions of the church. The missions we went to were filled mostly with children, as it was during the day and their parents were working. We also learned that the kids were out of school that week as part of a "celebration" of the revolution in 1959.

We again shared our testimonies, returned home for lunch, and took some time to rest. We sorted through all of the medications we brought with us (about 45 pounds of aspirin, cold remedies, etc.) according to type and labeled everything. At 2 p.m., we went to the church to install the sound equipment that we were able to bring with us. Pastor Julio loved his wireless microphone, as did the rest of the praise team with their new equipment. I joined in a rehearsal, playing the guitar I had brought to them from my personal "collection" and after a few minutes, the sound stopped. Forty year old stereo speakers simply could not handle the 500/1,000 watt system we provided. After some thinking, we had some used speakers delivered from a man down the street and once they were connected, they worked like a charm.

Parks and I discussed what we might be able to do, and we decided to give out of our own resources to offset the unexpected cost of the new speakers. (We would present the money the next night.)

Later, we returned for dinner, and then went to yet another mission, finishing out our day. Pastor Julio was appreciative that we had taken the time to not only set up the new equipment, but that we stayed with them until everything was as it should be. We watched a little baseball and went to bed.