Cuba Prayer
Movement
R*
Since 1999, OMS has aided two
principle partners in Cuba. They
have shown us the absolute importance of prayer.
After the revolution in 1959,
churches lost many members,
pastors struggled, and normal
activities such as evangelism
and discipleship nearly stopped
due to the lack of available materials. Additionally, people were
preoccupied with cultural issues.
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From 1960 through the early 1990s,
pastors and members of the few existing
faithful churches focused on praying and
praying some more.
These faithful intercessors represent the
remnant generation of the Cuban church.
They laid a strong foundation of focusing
on prayer through their obedient and disciplined lives, which set the tone for what the
Lord planned to do in Cuba.
In the late 1990s, the Lord began to
pour out his Spirit on the Cuban people,
and the people developed a spiritual thirst
and hunger. As many Cubans came to
know Christ, existing churches were filled
so that services were needed most nights
of the week and multiple services on the
weekends.
Even then, the churches were filled to
capacity. While the perceived need was for
church building space, the Cuban government recommended that Christians begin
to meet in houses. This recommendation
by the government led to the multiplication
and proliferation of small groups.
The denominational leaders trained
many lay leaders to lead these small
house churches. Seminaries in Cuba began to offer distance-learning courses for
the multitude of new leaders to take training to the people. The strengthening of
many leaders led to the multiplication of
house churches across Cuba.
With this growth, the leaders understood that the best investment they could
make was in training lay leaders, not in
constructing buildings.
With the development of lay leaders
came the new focus of evangelism, church
planting, and leadership development,
which fueled even greater growth in the
body of Christ in Cuba.
Their solid foundation came from the
discipline of prayer that was modeled and
passed down to them from the remnant
generation of believers. Through prayer,
the Lord revealed his will, his methods, and
his strategies for reaching his people, the
Cubans.
Their focus on prayer through prayer
walking and saturating all ministry activities
in prayer is still a priority today.
Our two ministry partners in Cuba also
have national prayer champions that encourage and coordinate local churches in
prayer walks and sharing prayer requests
in-country and externally. A network of
prayer intercessors from Canada and the
U.S. provides prayer support. The intercessors receive weekly prayer requests,
testimonies, and updates about ministry
initiatives, as well as photos and answers
to prayer from the ministry partners. The
Cuban ministry partners have been diligent
in sending fresh and meaningful prayer requests each week for almost four years.
Due to the incredible movement of
the Lord in Cuba, many new leaders are
emerging each day. The body of Christ has
a great need to be strengthened so that the
churches will grow in healthy ways. Through
the ministries of OMS and the financial resources provided by OMS donors, believers in Cuba feel the support and have been
able to minister through evangelism and
church planting, leadership development,
marriage and family life retreats and workshops, and literature distribution, including
Bibles and discipleship materials. We thank
God for the faithful prayers of those whose
shoulders we now stand on.
*Name withheld
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