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During the last year we
have observed a great increase in the mission work in our church’s life.
We have steadily and consistently kept and developed our mission work
among all the developing areas of our local church family, taking into
account a constant coordination among all the participants both here and
abroad who take part in our action as the body of Christ.
- Local Session
Our local session is the central axis of every
activity. This guarantees the work of the whole church life. They hold
programs, meetings, receive reports, seriously study all the work guidelines
and access the needs or problems of our church.
- Committees
The ecological committee has been enriched with
the presence of the German Rev. Rainhard Hauff and the signing of a bi-lateral
agreement with the officials of the Varadero Ecological Zone Environment
Education Area adscript to the Ministry of
Sciences.
But this work must be strengthened, and we must
learn more from it. A new attention, the Social Cases Committees has
been appointed. This committee has started to give its first steps to the
visualization of its future work uniting the Family Support and Orientation
Project.
 This
project will provide a steady monthly program of work related to drug
addiction.
As to World Outreach, it has been a year of
important tasks and exchanges. These have occurred in the new relationship
with St. Paul’s Presbyterian church in Greensboro, North Carolina; the
Pastoral Action Hispanic Center in the Bronx, New York; the Deer Park United
Church in Calgary, Canada; the First Presbyterian Church Lake Charles
Louisiana partnership project for the creation of a webpage for the Center.
We must emphasize the appointment on Easter Sunday of Dr. Cambell as an
honorary member of our church and the planting of a Hicacaos tree in our
church garden on the very same day. The Hicacos tree gives its name to
the peninsula where our municipality
is located, and the one planted was given the name of “Peace and Friendship
Tree” standing as a symbol of our ecological commitment.
We were visited by numerous delegations including the outstanding
visit of Dr. Jurgen Moltmann, German theologian.
- Programs
 We have improved our Christian education program
with the growth and organization of many different classes in the Sunday
school. We have also developed a new program to work with the junior high
youth which will be organized during the first semester of 2003. We have
carried out important activities with the youth, such as the vacation bible
school, visits to theaters and museums, rehearsals and performance of a
Christmas drama, a youth choir, and youth leadership of the liturgy during the
Sunday services. The Women’s Association has developed a good outreach
program with standing visitations and
ministries to various churches and social aid to people in our area. They have
reorganized the work in the different localities into cell groups of
volunteers.
- Relationships with
institutions and organizations
The cooperative links with civil and religious
institutions have been improved, as well as the relations with governmental
and political organizations and institutions within Cuba. We must underline
the relations with the Municipal Geriatrics Commission,
 the House of Culture,
the Cuban Women Federation, the Ministry of Education, and the officials of
the different levels of the Communist Party's Office of Religious Affairs,
with whom we keep a friendly open dialogue. We are grateful for our
relationships with the Evangelical-Theological Seminary in Matanzas, the
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center, other centers and churches, who
provide us transportation services and spaces to support and carry out
activities, workshops, meetings, seminaries, excursions, joint programs, etc.
We have also provided our church facility to a group of young women in the
community to develop an aerobics program.
- Action work cells
Aside from the Women’s Association, we have
created 6 work groups or cells by neighborhoods, with an average number
between 10 20 members each. The purpose of these groups is to perfect the
mission and evangelization work in our community. This idea should be fully
working after May 2003.
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