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By Stephen Strang
 With all the bad news coming out of Washington, D.C., and the assault on what I perceive as our religious freedoms, it's good to get some good news.
On Tuesday I was reminded by Dan Betzer, a well-known pastor in the Assemblies of God circles, that never has there been a greater time to spread the gospel nor a time when people are more responsive.
He gave a report on the growth of Assemblies of God churches in Cuba. They have grown since 1989—under a communist regime—from 12,000 members to more than a half million.
The setting for our meeting was the annual Peninsular Florida District Council of the Assemblies of God, held at Calvary Assembly in Winter Park, Fla., where Charisma began almost 34 years ago. My roots in the Assemblies of God go back four generations, so it was good to reconnect with many of my friends who were there. But by far the most encouraging thing to me was to hear about the revival in Cuba.
This is of special interest since my late father-in-law, Harvey Ferrell, and my mother-in-law, Rose Ferrell (who currently lives with us), made missionary trips to Cuba in the early 1930s through the Assemblies of God.
On Tuesday night, Hector Hunter, the Assemblies of God general superintendent in Cuba, gave a report that when Castro came into power in 1959 there were 89 small Assemblies of God churches. That number remained until 1989—when a revival took place. Since there weren't large church buildings, the people had to meet outside. During that time thousands of people came to Christ and it drew the attention of the authorities to the meetings. Government officials actually met with church leaders to ask if the large gatherings could be held in homes. It's amazing, the communist regime bent on opposing the gospel, actually authorized home cell groups.
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  The situation in Sri Lanka for the Tamil people, many of whom are Christians, is very dire. The United Nations reports that 6,500 people have been killed and 14,000 injured in the last three months alone. You can read more about this in the news article provided at the bottom of this report.
Several years ago our readers responded to the emergency of the tsunami by helping the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka through Godfrey Yogarajah, its general secretary. We raised more than a quarter of $1 million.
I e-mailed Godfrey yesterday to get an eyewitness view of the problem and he responded last night by telling me that many Christians have "suffered and rendered homeless and destitute." He told me, "Ten of our National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka pastors have died in the shelling in the last four weeks. They stayed with their congregations and paid with their lives."
His staff at Vavuniya recently stated: "There are no more tears left for us to cry; words cannot describe the suffering we have seen. We need help and we need it badly."
Many refugees do not get proper meals or have access to sanitation facilities. Godfrey reported that 38 people, including children, recently died due to lack of food and nourishment.
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