Despite our late arrival on Thursday night, we started our day fairly early on Friday. We went and met with Ammiel Perez, who acts as administrative head of the churches of Christ in the eyes of the government. We discussed plans for the youth conference that Herald of Truth sponsors in the summer; Ammiel assured us that everything seems perfectly normal for that event. (Two recent national conferences were cancelled because of complications from the hurricanes that hit Cuba last year)

Ammiel took us to visit one of the nearby congregations in Havana that had been able to purchase a building thanks to help from the Mayfair congregation in Huntsville, Alabama. The house they had purchased has once been a beautiful mansion-like home; now it lies in ruins, and the brothers are working hard to recondition it.

After visiting with Ammiel, we ate lunch at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Havana, then headed for Matanzas (about a 90-minute drive).

On the way, we stopped to visit some radio listeners who knew me from the program I do. That’s always fun. One of the listeners was so excited to put a face with the voice she had heard on the radio; her eyes were glistening with tears as we talked. Since we were on a tourist visa, we couldn’t do as much of that as we usually do, but it was good to meet these people. Arriving in Matanzas, we stopped by to greet Tony Fernandez’ family, then headed on to Varadero, where we would be staying. Tony’s wife, Liudmila, used to work for a travel company and has a good friend that is business manager of the Meliá Varadero, a very nice hotel near Matanzas.

In the evening we arrived at our hotel fairly early, ate an early supper (8 p.m.; that’s early in Latin America), then tried to get some rest.We were worn out from the trip and would need our rest for the busy weekend ahead.

Of all the trips that we make with Herald of Truth, the ones we make to Cuba are among my favorite. For one thing, the numbers for the work there are very exciting. Over the last two years, our follow-up team there has responded to over 1400 letters from radio listeners. The church in Matanzas, Cuba, (where our representative, Tony Fernandez, works) has started 19 new congregations over the last three years, averaging about 200 baptisms per year.

Another thing that makes the Cuba trip rewarding are the relationships we’ve formed there. This was my fifth trip there, and I’ve had the privilege of getting to know a number of people there. Steve Ridgell, our director of ministry, made this trip, and it was his fourth time there. But even our executive director, Bill Brant, who was making his first trip, commented on the way people received him, greeting him enthusiastically. As he said, “It becomes personal very fast.”

A few days before we traveled, we discovered that the Cuban government had not granted us religious visas for this trip. (Twelve men from the States applied for religious visas in March; one was granted) All that meant was that we couldn’t preach while there. Since the principal purpose of the trip was mainly “administrative” (planning future events, ministries, media development, etc.), we didn’t feel like that limitation would hinder our work there.

Bill, Steve, and I traveled from Abilene to Dallas, then from Dallas to Cancun, where we faced a six-hour layover. Cancun may sound exciting, but an airport is an airport, and Cancun is not among the nicer airports for long layovers. Turned out to not be a six-hour layover. It was nine hours. Our plane arrived three hours late, so our departure kept getting pushed back. What made it worse was that we were already scheduled to arrive at 11 p.m. With the delay, it was about 3 a.m. before we arrived to our hotel in Havana.

Ammiel Perez, one of the preachers in Havana, made arrangements for us to stay at the Havana Libre hotel, a landmark in Havana, the former Hilton hotel. The hotel has not maintained its luxury status after 50 years of communist austerity, but it was interesting to me to be in such a historic place. Of course, we were only there from 3 a.m. until 8 a.m. Still, we were in Cuba and were looking forward to the busy, rewarding weekend ahead.