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Reflecting on a Pandemic Summer 2020
From right to left: Pastor Arturo with three young men he is discipling: Yankarlo, Randi, and Brayan
Hello FIEL International community! Many of you are receiving this newsletter for the very first time. We’ve had a busy summer despite not traveling, and have many updates to share! FIEL International is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to partnering with Christian ministry leaders to build sustainable, discipleship-centered ministries around the world. Chas and Adam, college friends and now co-founders of FIEL, currently work alongside Pastor Arturo in Alamar, Cuba, where Arturo is building discipleship into his youth after-school sports ministry. What is discipleship, you might ask? Or what does FIEL stand for? Check out our new and improved website for these answers and more! www.fielinternational.org
With your help this summer, we were able to collect over 50 stuffed bags of gently used kids clothing, sporting equipment, and technology products, including 2 laptops, 2 iPads, and 10 baseball bats! Y’all must’ve gotten COVID-induced spring cleaning and cleared your houses out, huh?! We are incredibly grateful to you for this blessing to Arturo’s ministry. Because of the pandemic, already penny-pinching Cubans have now had to pay up for the basic necessities like food. With less disposable income on hand, our Cuban friends are going to be thrilled to receive these items! Thank you for your generosity. If COVID has spurred you on to clean out your closets and garages, and you have clothing, sporting equipment, and technology you are looking to give away, please let us know and we will organize a pick-up!
This summer, we also assisted Arturo and his family in the purchase of a plot of farm land. This is an answer to prayer that happened before we were even expecting it! Be careful what you pray for! A farm is an answer to prayer because it opens up an opportunity for Pastor Arturo to work toward self-sufficiency financially from his global sponsors. With the ability to raise crops and care for animals, Arturo is able to build a micro-business in Cuba! It was our goal to help Arturo become self-sufficient, and God provided when a perfect piece of land went on the market back in May. As an added bonus, the farm also provides a new avenue for discipleship opportunities as Arturo and his small group manage this new responsibility together. The fact this all happened during the time of COVID was a lesson for Chas and me in trusting God’s plan instead of our own!
Finally, this summer we invested in our leadership, one of our major goals following our 2019 board meeting in December. Chas and I participated in the 2020 Praxis Academy Fellowship program, a 10-week virtual conference giving us the opportunity to be trained in building our mission and decision-making skills from a prestigious Christian non-profit accelerator and mentor network. We also added two new board members to FIEL International’s advisory team: Josh Bell and Riley Gardell. There is much on the horizon for FIEL International! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for news about our next project, which we will be sharing with you in more detail. In the meantime, we invite you to hear a few words of encouragement from Pastor Arturo: https://youtu.be/h1RKzDDJUQ0 We thank you for your interest in hearing about our ministry and your continued support of the work God is doing in Cuba.
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