Introduction

Last Updated (Monday, 20 February 2012 22:54) Written by John Walter Monday, 14 February 2011 16:34

It was Rev. Dean Lewis, at the Cuba Partnership Network meeting in Louisville, Kentucky in 2008, who first introduced me to the book called: El Tiempo y las Palabras, Articulos y Mensajes, 1937-1997  by Rafael Cepeda.

As far as I know, it's only available in Spanish. I explored some of the articles and sat back thinking: This is something I'd like to share with non-Spanish reading people interested in the Cuban Presbyterian Reformed Church, (IPRC), its history and its struggles. I Googled the title and author with little result. Later I emailed the publisher in Ecuador who informed me that all printed copies had been sent to Cuba.

Still determined, I emailed Rev. Francisco Marrero, the Secretary General of the IPRC, who gave me permission to translate the work and make it available to people on this web site. He noted: "Perhaps you'd like to work with Lois Khroeler, the now retired PC(USA) missionary whose forty year stay in Cuba spanned the arrival and later days of the Cuban Revolution and mass exodus of Cuban pastors as well as North Americans."

I confess I haven't done that as yet, mostly because I don't want to burden Lois with my ongoing project, but also because I have a small number of advisors - both here and in Cuba - who are helping me with the editing, especially of problematic idiomatic expressions.

To that end, I would like to thank Rev. Mairolet Vega Comas, formerly pastor of the IPRC Church in Cabaiguan who knew Cepeda personally, and Carlos Molina, professor at SET who holds the copyright to Cepeda's work.

My greatest wish is that those in the United States who have already begun their journey to establish close ties to the IPRC might use this work as a spring board to further their understanding of the history that these articles represent.

My secondary wish is that perhaps we can use this rather like a wiki , an interactive document which can be edited by people with expertise in the subject.

May God grant both wishes; and may the many people on both sides who have committed their lives to being beacons for others to follow, see in these pages a source of illumination.