The ‘Cuba connection’ really began in around 2008 when we became very conscious that God was building something new out of what was previously known as Time Out Mission or The Body and the Bride Ministries. The Lord had brought Dr Mike and myself together into one ministry and had made it very clear that we were not to ……..”join anyone to this ministry too hastily!” Little did we know then of the significance of this warning nor of the reasons why we needed to be so careful. He told us that He and He alone would add people to it, from around the world. All we were to do was to share our vision and passion for the Bride on several social media platforms and “sit back and watch”.
Now, years later, we understand. It was because He was leading us into a ministry that was centred on Awakening, then preparing and encouraging His Bride to call Come Lord Jesus! The Bride is His most precious possession and He is so very jealous over Her. Now, years later, many hundreds of people support the Call2Come ministry and each has been added as they have connected via the website or social media and have expressed a similar passion and commitment to see the Bridal Paradigm understood and embraced by the Church of their own nation. Rev Maikel Mauris Milan Suarez, a leading Pastor in Cuba, was one such person who connected in 2008.
And so began our journey ten years ago of preparing what would eventually materialise in this recent visit to Cuba, taking with us a Prophetic Word for the nation and the teaching of the Bride of Christ and the One New Man. God is so faithful. The ‘baby’ was conceived but it took 10 years to come to full term.
What is so encouraging, is that this mission to Cuba was in line with the recent Seven Shofar vision and strategy that God had downloaded to us. Cuba was one of those Shofar nations…..a nation chosen by God to carry the message of the Bride to the Church there and to her surrounding nation. And what we discovered, as we began to correspond more regularly with Maikel, was that 1) Maikel was originally President Castro’s leader of the Communist Youth Movement in Cuba but had been soundly convicted and converted by the Holy Spirit of God to serve the Lord Jesus and had become a Pastor. And 2) that he had been trying for several years to gain a ‘Religious Visa’ for us in order to visit and had finally been granted one for us to visit last December 2018.
We believed that this mission would become a very significant one because of Cuba’s historical connection with Spain and therefore the nations of Latin America, and because of her connection with Africa through the African slave trade and Africa’s own prophetic destiny in the End Times. (Isaiah 19)
This Mission was planned by Maikel to be in two halves. First in Havana and then in Las Tunas where Maikel himself lived, returning to Havana for our flight home. The mission also had two objectives 1) to share the message of the Bride and the One New Man and 2) to bring a Prophetic Word to the nation that God had given Dr Mike before we left the UK and to do prophetic action and declaration at many places of historic or spiritual significance. The purpose of all this was to bring an understanding of the Bridal Paradigm and to break the power of the Kingdom of darkness over the nation through prophetic work, forcing a shift in the spiritual atmosphere.
Throughout the two weeks we had much opportunity to minister in healing and deliverance to the people and so many wonderful testimonies have been given to the miraculous grace of God experienced in people‘s lives.
In Havana we were hosted by Pastor Eliseo (Elisha) Navarro Jordan who is the current president of the Christian Pentecostal Church of Cuba. We were so blessed by him and are very grateful to both him and his dear family for caring for us so well. He accompanied us in much of the prophetic action work in Havana.
Our immediate impression of Cuba when coming out of the airport, apart from the truth that the Cuban people are delightful and so welcoming, was 1) the absence of advertisement on posters, or outside shops and on hoardings. Few neon lights here! There is no competition of course since the government regulates and controls development and all aspects of business and industry. Consequently, shops are not really recognisable as shops because until you enter the dark space, you cannot see the items on sale. This is slightly different in the capital city of Havana but it’s certainly not like London or New York.
Then 2) it’s the cars of course! Anyone like Dr Mike and myself who loves old cars feel they are in ‘vintage car heaven’. This is because after the revolution and the USA imposed a stringent blockade of good getting into Cuba, the Cuban car owners of 1959 stockpiled and preserved carefully the current models and parts, before they became obsolete or scarce. Nowadays, these Cadillacs and Pontiacs of yesteryear are both privately or commercially owned and parade the streets majestically as taxis, bedecked in their bright coloured hand painted body works and offering luxury rides on cosy real leather seats. Someone has rightfully described Cuba as a living car museum.
As time went by, it became very clear that this mission was less about teaching and more about the prophetic. It was such a privilege to visit the main harbour and main river exit into the ocean and pray there, and at the ancient Fort beside the sea, and to blow the shofar declaring an end to the authority of many water and marine spirits that had dominated the spiritual realm over Cuba. All this was in alignment with what the Lord had told us in the prophetic Word before we left the UK. (See Prophetic Word for Cuba)
Later we went to see the beautiful tall and pure white statue of Jesus that towers over the wide river below and over the city of Havana on the opposite side. This statue is rather like, but in miniature form, the huge statue of Jesus, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Revolution Square in Havana is massive and one of our last visits in Havana was to go there to prophesy and to announce with the Shofar that a new revolution had been born in Cuba ‘The Revolution of Love’. It was a powerful time of prophetic action and declaration as we stood in the midst of this huge square blowing the Shofar and ministering in prophecy and in the Spirit. This was where Castro addressed his revolutionary troops and where annually the anniversary of the revolution is commemorated. Later we heard that the last prophet to stand on that square and prophesy and who was from another nation was Jonathan Cahn over 20 years ago. It was such a privilege.
Christianity, in Cuba, is saturated with beliefs in ancestral spirits and communication with and the worship of, in marine and serpentine spirits, in witchcraft, in many Mary Cults and in freemasonry.
There is still much prophetic work to be done in the nation generally and in Havana, especially at the National Capitol Building which is at the zero ‘0’ point of all road interjections in the city. This building was the Government building before the Revolution and has, like with the White House in Washington USA been designed and ‘birthed’ in witchcraft and freemasonry. There is an obelisk (a Phelix symbol of witchcraft and Freemasonry) there too as in Washington, but here in Havana it is inside the Capitol building itself.
We prophesied and followed the lead of the Holy Spirit outside Capitol building as far as He allowed but we sensed that this was the responsibility of the indigenous Church of Cuba and that ours here was just to inform and encourage. This time anyway.
We have a real sense that we will return to Cuba and together with the national Christian leadership move in and ‘take that territory’ sometime in the future.
Capitol building is like a very imposing Gothic temple and in front of the series of very heavy entrance doors there stands two huge statues of which we are yet to understand their significance. It is modelled on the White House in Washington USA but the whole area is surrounded by iron railings that are in sections and divided by stone pillars and at the base of which each pillar there is a metal plate bearing the sign of the Goat or the Baphomet, a symbol of witchcraft.
Alongside the Capitol building is a park area where occultic and native spiritistic ceremonies and covenant practices takes place regularly (Covenants with the land and with ancestors) and these have become syncretised with various forms of Roman Catholic religious beliefs and Mary cults. In fact, perverted forms of the Mary cult are epidemic in the religion of Cuba and have infiltrated the traditional Church throughout the land.
Gifts of food on display offered to the spirits in the adjacent park. ‘Mary cults’ permeate Cuban society. Much teaching and cleansing and deliverance ministry is needed, if His Church here is to be “without spot or blemish”. But the Church is rising up to the challenge and we saw that demonstrated during our visit by Pastor Maikel and the generation of Pastors he is mentoring. It was wonderful to witness. The people were so hungry for God and that hunger precipitated a move of God amongst the people wherever we went. Many were healed and refilled with the Holy Spirit.
After the first week, we then took a 10 hour coach journey south to Las Tunas, the home of Pastor Maikel, and were taken to our next host who was a wonderful man of God, a Methodist Pastor called Ronaldo. He and his wife and family looked after us so well. Dr Mike and I shared a lovely room in their home and we eat well. We had a wonderful time with them.
We were introduced to Marcus, a dedicated young servant of God married recently to a lovely young women of God and there little pet dog! He, Marcus that is, became our constant companion and translator. Dr Mike developed a close mentoring relationship with him and Marcus fully embraced the Bridal message and is now working with Call2Come and translating much of our material into Spanish for further use both in Cuba but also in all Spanish speaking Latin America and Caribbean nations. We thank God for him.
Marcus is between Mike (far right) and myself (middle)
But we were also blessed to see how deeply the message of the Bride was embraced by all who heard it, especially by the Pastors in the land who relate to Pastor Maikel. He also has a close group of young spiritual brothers that he is discipling and mentoring and we spent a lot of time with Maikel and these friends, building relationships and exploring how we might partner together in ministry for the sake of the Lord’s work in Cuba. This was very profitable. Dr Mike and I intend to return to Cuba and then on to Nicaragua, later this year, in August 2019.
It was such a privilege to declare the Prophetic Word that God has given prior to our visit to Cuba (See website and Prophetic Word for Cuba) and we did so on every occasion that the Lord indicated that He wanted it shared. The Lord always led us to give it in the context of a Court Room which He allowed us to open in the spirit and each time that moment became like a ‘Solemn Assembly’ convened both on earth and in heaven. It was so powerful and His presence was very tangible.
We love the way the Lord arranged things. We have been given a clear strategy from Him as to how we are to initiate and carry out a visit to a nation. We have to go through whom He calls the ‘Gate-keepers’. These are those who are found within the Intercessory and Prophetic Movement in the nation and who affirm the initial invitation. We then explore with them what they feel is the ’Time and Season of God’ for that nation. In other words, what they believe the Spirit is saying at this time, to the Church of Jesus in their country. If they respond with suggestion like …”We believe that this is the season for the Church to understand Her Bridal identity’ and to hear this message (or words to that effect) then the gate may be being opened for us to visit. Pastor Maikel was our original ‘Gatekeeper’.
We always like to be sent out from our own nation by a group of intercessors and receive their covering before we leave the UL. We were concerned that on this occasion that had not happened and that disturbed us a little. But God knew and He had already gone ahead with His provision.
Even before we began ministry in Havana, straight after leaving the airport on that first day, we were taken unexpectantly to meet a Pastor in Havana City at his church. To our joy there was a group of intercessors there, meeting at lunchtime to pray. We joined them and immediately the Spirit of God fell upon them as we ministered to them. They were all so refreshed in the Spirit and insisted that they prayed for us too, so we knelt down and there and then received from them that prayerful covering that we had missed. And this happened again in Las Tunas later also.
The ministry in Las Tunas, in teaching, in prophetic action and delivery, and in prayer for the people was so anointed by the Lord that healings and impartation flowed. We felt as if we were simply watching Him in action and of course, we were, for all ministry is all His and all the glory is His.
Because we were moving so much in the prophetic, the impartation that the Pastors and people received reflected the prophetic and many testified to a spiritual shift in their personal experience and ministry as they received greater revelation of the Word and manifestations of the spiritual/prophetic gifts of Prophecy, the Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom and Discernment of Spirits. This impartation was indeed maturing the Body of Christ in Cuba and we were so grateful to the Lord for that.
People praying for the nations.
What impressed us so much was the people’s concern for the nations and the earnest prayer that was offered to God for them. And their love towards us and desire to cover us by their intercession and prayer.
We completed this two-week assignment in Cuba with great joy in our hearts and thanksgiving for the many blessings received. We left this lovely island with the knowledge that our work here had just begun and that we would return to Cuba in 2019 as soon as was possible.
December 2018
