Snapshots

La Vibora Church is one of the oldest in Havana and it the one Elder Folkenberg attended as a boy when his parents lived in Cuba. Like many other churches in the country, it lost the vast majority of its members during the 1980 Mariel Boat Lift when many fled to Miami and others (like many pastors) were pressured by the government to leave. And again, like most of the churches in the country, La Vibora Church was completely rebuilt when Maranatha Volunteers International, with the backing of a generous ASI family in North America, refurbished all the churches in the country as well as most of the church headquarters offices, in addition to building many new churches. All of these were in addition to building a new Seminary and Publishing facility. This initiative, carried out with the cautious blessing of the government's Ministry of Religious Affairs, made possible the growth we see today. Whereas before only 5-8 pastors could be "trained" in the union office, today we have 80 pastors in training at the seminary.
This church appears, upon arrival, to cover the whole block. (►) It seems to stand out by itself. A number of the members of this church work for the conference or the union. The feeling we got on entering the church was that this group was really "ready to roll" for the campaign. The main floor was filled to overflowing as was the balcony (below, left & right) and continued that way virtually every night of the campaign with nightly non-SDA attendance averaging 150-175. While it was assumed that Communist Part members were assigned to attend each campaign site, here church leaders knew who they were and this provided Elder Folkenberg and the church pastor an opportunity to make personal contact with them.

Pastor Orlando Diaz (►) who is, to say the least, a "lively" pastor, welcomed members and guests to the opening meeting. With over 500 members and a large number of guests attending this was a big job. He told us that 15 people are already preparing for baptism and he can sense that "hearts are being stirred by God's Spirit and that many souls are soon to be taken from the grasp of Satan." Adjoining the church is a major construction project led by the Maranatha Volunteers International staff. Included in this project will be vegetarian dining room (operated by the church).
	Elder Folkenberg (◄), the facilitator and organizer of the Carolina Conference Global Evangelism Program (and Cuba's 400-church national campaign), is the evangelist at this church. And while we do not understand a word of Spanish, his first night's message, delivered entirely en Spanish, kept us both spellbound.

We discovered early that the success of all the campaigns depends on many people [greeters, those registering guests, ushers (▲, left-distributing hymnals) sound-system operators, musicians (▲, right- providing the special music), etc.] people who attend to the myriad of details every day are indeed the foundation of the campaign's success.

The night we were present, of the total attendance 152 were non-Seventh-day Adventists. As we visited each of the various campaign sites we found that a large percentage of those attending the meetings are children. And while many entire families attend, the children are escorted either to the front of the church or to a separate meeting room for a child-evangelism program. But, in all cases, they are extremely well behaved. That observation is by the "grandfather-photographer" who is documenting this trip!