Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This is just a short note to thank you for your prayers regarding the Hispanic Conference and my trip to Cuba. I will post some pictures on the web in another week.

There were over 150 at the CRC Hispanic conference and I gave two presentations on 10 Principles to develop intimacy in your family relationships. They received the talks very well and found them very contextualized to their situation, which was my concern now that I was not ministering in Chile. It was a joy to find about 10 Chileans who are ministering in Church planting among the Christian Reformed Church. I knew them from our work in Chile with the National Presbyterian Church. They have immigrated here over the past 10 years.

My trip to Cuba was very exciting. I started off a bit "under the weather" with laryngitis, yet by my second day there I was doing better. The students responded to my classes very well (from Tuesday at 8 am to Friday noon) and the more I got to know them through interacting with them around meals, the more I was able to speak "their language". They had not studied pastoral psychology before, and it was "all Greek to them". They received the book in photocopy form on the Monday they arrived, and so the challenge was to go through all the book in those few days. I was able to take in my laptop and a multimedia projector from Logoi, so I highlighted the material of all 8 chapters on ppt. presentations.

I was impressed with the sacrifice of these students. Over 80 of them came from their towns in different parts of Cuba - travelling on the back of carts all day pulled by tractors, on trucks, etc. - no buses. They live on only 12 dollars a month and their food is almost constantly only rice and beans - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet they don't complain and their spirit is that of gratitude for belonging to Christ and being able to serve Him. Their worship was noticeably heart felt. I was able to hear their conversion stories and experiences, all of which are deeply engraved in my memory. Some of these student pastors come from a background of witch craft and idle worship and others from being officials in the army. What impressed me is the fact that the gospel is freely being preached in these churches scattered all over Cuba. Most without a church building, but God's people are gathering to worship Him and to learn from His Word.

Thank you for your partnership and for making it possible to help prepare these servants for the ministry they are faithfully carrying out. I will give you more details of my experience there in E-mails to come.

In His service
Richard

Richard Crane
662 Patriot Drive
Lancaster PA 17601
phone: 717 397 9955 cell phone: 717 201 8649
Web page: http://mtwla.org/people/rcrane.htm