Dancing toward the Kingdom

The Bible says that the enemy will be overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony! As I read that the Old Testament says that there is power in the telling and retelling of what God has done in our lives, He has put in me a hunger to know people’s stories. As I asked people in Cuba to tell their stories, I became aware of the one fact: It seems- I know how amazing this is- it seems that the Holy Spirit was a missionary in Cuba in the 90’s! He seemed to go and find the people to bring them to the feet of Jesus!

I don’t want to talk politics…. I am in fear of putting people in danger so many times there are pictures I cannot show or there will be blurred faces. But the Cuban people feel like the world has forgotten them… let me share with you their stories so you can see that God knows right where they are and He is seeking them out!

We were at a small church one Sunday in Cuba. The amazing, fast-moving, jubilant Cuban music started and an older lady at the front started dancing. She never stopped dancing, clapping for as long as the music continued in the sweltering church. For over 2 hours, there was joy in her face and she moved and danced all over the church in her special, private kind of worship.

After the church service ended I went up to her- I couldn’t wait to hug her! I looked into her twinkling eyes and I asked her name… She told me and we grinned at each other. I said, “I love your dancing! I love your joy!”

“Yo bailé hasta los pies de Cristo,” She said in that clipped, speedy way the Cubans have of speaking Spanish. ("I danced all the way to the feet of Jesus!")

“Cuénteme!” I smiled, “Tell me!”

Here she is with a young man she has brought with her to Jesus

“It was 1998,” She told me, “I was on my way to a dance. In Cuba we celebrate the Fiesta de Santa Bárbara on Dec 3rd. I knew there would be music and dancing and lots and lots of rum. My husband had left me several years before. I had supported my children on my own. I had no man and no joy and no life. My elderly mother liked to see me happy and pretty and I was all dressed up and I knew I looked goooood!” her blue eyes twinkled. “I went by my mother’s so she could see me and I smiled big and danced her through the living room so she would see how happy I was. The only times she ever saw me smile was when I was on my way to a dance- excited about meeting the men, drinking the rum and dancing the night away. I tucked a blanket around her legs and said goodnight and I left. I remember hearing the music from the street party and dancing toward it. I got to this small intersection up here and I clearly remember turning right, towards the dance. But the next thing I knew I was sitting on the front bench of this very church. I don’t know how I got here but the people told me later I danced all the way down the aisle as they were singing hymns! Bet they didn’t know what to do with me! “ She winked.


“A man stood up at the front and began to talk about a someone called Jesus. I  couldn’t sit still! I jumped up and said “ Who needs a man? They all leave!”
The man at the front answered, “He says He will never leave you nor forsake you!’
“Yeah, but he’s probably a liar!” I yelled.
The man answered “He is not a man that he should lie!"
“What can he give me?’ I asked,
“Hope," The man, answered, "Abundant life, and best of all- eternal life with Him."
"If you can get me some hope, a real life, I want some of that!" I yelled out.The man (the pastor of the church, I later learned) laughed and said "Get on up here!"

Counseling at one of the campaigns

I ran to the front and knelt down and prayed to accept Jesus. I have been walking with Him, singing with Him and dancing for Him since that very moment. My life is full of joy, and hope. That very night my mother accepted Him also when I went home and told her- she died soon after that. Jesus let me dance all the way to this place and to His feet and I will never stop thanking Him!”



I wish I could convey the joy in her step, the twinkle in her eye and the hope in her heart. “Hope is not something my people have a lot of," She said, “But Jesus knows no borders- when no one else could or would come, He took me by the hand and danced me all the way to Him.”

And they dance together still.

Tales from other places...

Cuba….  

Margarita Looking out over Havana

I remember many years ago, probably around 1965, my parents, my brother and I were walking on the beach, in the evening in the state of Veracruz where we lived. As it began to get dark my dad picked me up and pointed toward the northeast, over the water,  and said “Over there is a little island. They sure are in trouble. I pray for them every day.”  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “They need Jesus, “he said. Like all of us- they need Jesus.  Lord willing, before I die, I want to take Jesus to Cuba.”

He was never able to do that. But he prayed for Cuba frequently and I believe that prayer never left his heart.And I... I'm the one who got to go! Such unmerited, undeserved favor!

Trash pick up

I can hardly believe I had the privilege of being there, of getting to know so many people and yes, of sharing Jesus with the people of Cuba.  I want to tell you some of the stories. They won’t be political. They will just be people-stories. Stories of what Christ has done in the lives of people who feel the word has forgotten them.

But God… God has not abandoned them!

We honored our promise to the US to not be tourists- the last day, of training, we got to briefly drive by a beach and we got to take a quick look...

I’m sharing Cuba pictures with you… next I’ll share some stories.

Entering the Kingdom

Kingdom Kids Christmas, is the name of the project.
So why in the world am I talking about it in April??
Because God is STILL working through what has happened last December. Those backpacks are STILL opening doors, people are still coming to Jesus through their message!
Let me tell you some of the stories…but first, what happened and how this year started.

This is a dream that began in Michele’s heart 10 years ago, to provide 60 children a paper bag with toys, cookies and candy for Christmas. It has now grown into 20,000 backpacks and changed lives!!

This year’s impact began in December and continues to this day!! The reports are in: 57,000 people heard the message of salvation because of the KKC backpacks this year! 8,290 children and their parents accepted Jesus as their savior!

I can write and write and write…. But I think every picture will tell stories I am unable to voice- such is their impact! So I will show you pictures and will begin to share with you a few of the testimonies!

From Mpio de Huixtan:
...there was a family that was expelled from Ejido Lazaro Cárdenas, Municipality of Huixtan. They left with their children- 4 girls and 1 boy. Several families had the option of leaving their belief in Christ or being expelled from their village. This one family chose Christ, and they were told to leave with only the clothes they had on. When they received the backpacks they were very happy. They say there is no doubt that God cares for His own. They are living in a shelter we have made for them for now. They but they have been a faithful example of the faith that they have in God.

From Nuevo Guadalupe:
Some of the children who had registered for backpacks had to walk one hour each way to receive them. They didn’t arrive alone; they came with their parents and another girl with her grandmother. They all heard the message of salvation and they all accepted Christ as savior. The entire group has invited us to come to their village to begin worship services in their home.

From Iglesia del Nazareno:
Alexis is 9 years old, his father died of alcoholism. His mother lives but she is an alcoholic. She didn’t want her children to go to church. Alexis came and accepted the Lord, and now he has returned with his older sister and 3 younger brothers and sisters. He says that even though they live in someone’s patio in a cardboard home, he is happy because he is new in Christ. We are certain that he will soon bring his mother with him to church, for the glory of God.

We have hundreds of pictures and testimonies... it is very difficult to match up the pictures to the testimonies because some of them come from the villages and the pastors are unable to send us pictures- but also there is severe persecution in this area and sometimes we must be careful.

And Jesus said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

The Kingdom of Heaven is Near

I must, simply must, share some of the sights of the Kingdom Kids project. I had never been able to be here at this time of the year,  though I had helped to raise money to support it in the US. What a privilege I have been given, not only to have a front-row seat but to be a part of this move of God!

The first step of the process is that pastors have to come to bring us a list of the children for whom they want backpacks. We set aside 3 days for them to come, we told them we would open the doors at 10. The first day we opened the doors and looked out and the line went on...
and on...
and on..
….and on.
They came in and we went over lists with them…
One by one,
by one
by one.
By 6 pm when we closed down, we had requests for over 38,000 backpacks. And we still had pastors knocking at the doors.

One man I met with, I will never forget. I asked him where he was from and he told me a village I had never heard of. I asked him how far it was and he told me he had to take the “Nissan” (the mountain villages’ form of public transportation) at 2 in the morning in order to be able to get to the next town, and then take a bus to the next town, to get a minivan to our town. He arrived by 7 am top our doors- he wanted to be in line because he was afraid we would run out of backpacks.

When I saw him it was 2:45 in the afternoon!

When I saw his list I was gulping back tears. He was asking for 24 backpacks. He was willing to travel over and wait in line for over 12 hours to get 24 backpacks for the children in his church! (Would I have done that? I wondered?)

He anxiously asked me if he had made it, if he was going to get them. When I said “Yes, ” he asked how much he had to pay. When I told him "Nothing, they are free for you." He began to weep and we cried together.

I knew as I sat there looking at his tiny handwritten little sheet, that the Kingdom of heaven was near. We do so little with so much…. Here, they do so much with so little.
To you all who prayed, or came to help, or gave- thank you!

I want you to see pictures of the days the pastors came back to pick up their filled backpacks- 18,000 of them. You have never seen such joy!

These backpacks open doors to places where there is utter darkness- where the light of Christ has not been seen. They open doors to villages where we had never been allowed before, and they make their way into homes where there is no hope- all the while proclaiming in bright yellow, red and blue: Cristo me Ama (Christ loves me).

They are loaded up with pens, pencils, notebooks, rulers, erasers, cookies, a doll, a truck- but they have something else as well: a message of hope. You see, when each backpack is handed out the children who receive it- and many times- their parents as well, get to hear that Jesus loves them, that He died on the cross for them- that they are special to the God of the universe and that He has the greatest gift of all for them: eternal life with Him.

You. You made this possible. We are so very grateful. So moved. So thankful to God for the vision and to you for making it happen.

Next, I want to tell you about the children…

I can’t wait to tell you about them!

Catching up with the Kingdom....

"The problem with blogs," People told me, "Is that the people writing them lose interest and then stop writing. Obviously, the people reading them, quit looking for a new post. There zillions of blogs lying dormant in blog-heaven."

“Well, not mine!” I thought! “I am so excited about what God is doing, I WILL use my blog to stay in touch and people from all over the place will read it to be excited with me about what God is doing wherever He sends me, through-out the world!”

Well. Here I am. Five months after my last entry, desperately wondering what in the world happened.

(By the way, I’m grinning from ear to ear as well because so many of you have told me: “Are you EVER going to write in it again???”)Thanks for noticing my absence…. And thanks for your prayers as God has been working and we have been huffing and puffing to keep UP!!

Personal notes- let me get them out of the way and then we are back to what in the world God is doing to further His kingdom and fulfill His purpose from my little point of view!

I went San Antonio for 1 month- thank you to all of you who received me in your homes, churches, Sunday School classes, at your tables in a restaurant or sat with me on the floor as I shared about what God is doing in Chiapas, Mexico! ( I still owe profuse apologies to Ann Rutherford because the day we were going to meet I was tired and took something (like Red Bull?) to keep me awake and….  When you add that massive caffeine to my already wired state of mind about the miracles and joy I am a part of….well. Needless to say, my friend from Virginia probably had no idea what loco steam roller blasted through her hotel room chattering 100 miles an hour about the people, the passion, the persecution and the purpose of what God is doing here. Let’s do it again Ann… without the Red Bull!)

I had to turn around to go back to San Antonio a few days after arriving in Chiapas, because it was determined that I should sell my home. Blessedly, the ministry paid to fly me back.  I will sum up the wonderful story of God’s provision and miracles  with these words: God sold my home.

But there was also the realization that I have joined a  fellowship of which many people I admire are a part:  That little group of people who has more invested in heaven than on earth. What had been a blessing for a season could have become a burden- and now it is gone. Placed into the hands of a wonderful Christian couple for whom it is a blessing.

What an awesome God we serve!

I am reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

And now…. Let me tell you some Kingdom Tales….

(to be continued, very soon!)