LUIS SORI CANCIO
Saturday, May 2, 2009
To: Lyle Harms and the brothers and sisters in the church in Ponca City
May you all receive a greeting in the love of God. We are in good health here, thanks to the Lord, and we hope that you all there are, also, in good health and are receiving a spiritual blessing from the Lord.
Brother Jose Sori informed me that in our report we should send information about the family and when we began in the church. In this letter I am writing this.
We are a very big family. My wife Maydee Rodriguez is 41 years old. She has been a nurse by profession, and she is a very busy mother caring for the children. In addition to being a mother, she is a sister in Christ, and she is a blessing from the Lord. She always is helping me in all that she can at home with what needs to be done, as well as constantly helping in the Lord’s work. Since she was very young, she has had health problems, allergies, and orthopedic problems with the bones, which occasionally become a crisis. She has to rest and needs medical treatments in order to recover. She is busy teaching a group of children. In the classes she teaches them how to pray and to sing. She reads the Bible to them with the help of Biblical material that she has used to teach various stories from the Old and the New Testaments. These have motivated the children. Sometimes she has prepared refreshments and candy.
We have four children. Yonly Yassiel is 23 years old, and he is the oldest. He is in the teaching profession where he teaches ceramics. He is married, and he has a very beautiful daughter. She is our first granddaughter, and she is 2 years old. Yonly and his wife Yanet have been baptized, and they live in Sancti Spiritus and worship in the Jobo Gordo congregation. Yosbel Luis is our second son. He is 19 years old and is in his fourth year of study to become an art teacher. He has done very well on his exams. He aspires to study foreign languages, including English. He is still not married, and I hope that he will be well prepared for marriage when the time comes. In addition to his studies, he is preparing himself for the work in the church. In his free time he goes with me to preach the gospel to others and he participates in exhortations in the worship services. Yoel Antonio is the third. He is 12 years old and is studying in high school. He likes to sing, and he does this well. Also, he really likes to draw. Finally, he is busy doing something entertaining. He has acquired Biblical knowledge and is now preparing himself for his baptism that I hope will be soon. Yonathan Anselmo, who is the youngest being 7 years old, is in the second grade. He is a good boy, loving, and very playful. He likes school a lot even though he is not an outstanding student, but just an average student. As a father, I can’t really complain. I am thankful to the Lord for the children that He has given me. I hope that one day they will become good servants of the Lord who will serve in the work as workers and leaders teaching others. Luis Roberto already knows my name. I am 41 years old and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. I only practiced this profession for one year when I was a technical programmer. Then I left this job to dedicate myself full time to the work of the Lord. I will do all that is humanly possible to do. I learned God’s Word in May, 1999, with the help of brother Jose Sori, my uncle. For a long time before this he didn’t stop speaking to me about the Lord whenever he saw me. He always encouraged me to look for the Lord, and on August 10 of that same year I was baptized by Enrique Maury. He was one of the leaders of a little congregation of ten to fifteen brothers who meant in his house. After meeting together for more than a year, the congregation fell into a crisis because of some brothers who were persisting in sin, and among them was brother Enrique Maury. Then brother Jose and I remembered to continue praying, and we got together occasionally in his house to pray and to read the Word of the Lord. At that time we were new Christians, and we weren’t sure what we should do concerning worship. We were so poor that we didn’t have chairs to sit in. We continued praying and reading the Word of God for two years. Then we received an answer from the Lord. This answer to prayers was a messenger sent by God. His name was brother Luis Alberto Echevarria from the congregation in Diez de Octubre in Havana. He came with his wife, and they spent a few days with his wife’s family who live here in Santi Spiritus. He tried to come to the congregation on Sunday to worship. He went to the house of Enrique Maury, and he didn’t find anyone worshipping there. Sin caused division, and nobody had congregated there for more than a year. Sin, also, caused various brothers to fall away. What did brother Luis Antonio do? Being a good Christian, he began working in evangelism, visiting one by one all the members who used to meet in Enrique Maury’s home. He encouraged all of them to continue to worship the Lord, and only brother Jose Sori and I with our families decided to continue to worship the Lord in the correct way, in spirit and in truth and persevering as the original church. We met in brother Jose Sori’s home. The year 1992 was already ending. A very strong crisis was spreading across our country. We did not know when it would affect us, because situations continued to be special and very difficult. In spite of all of that, this messenger of God, or so he called himself, motivated us to fight with all of our strength, strength that were multiplied little by little by the Lord Jesus Christ. The word is growing and multiplying itself in various congregations in the whole province of Sancti Spiritus as a result of years of evangelism, evangelistic campaigns with preachers from here and from other provinces. Here in Sancti Spiritus Jose and I began the work of evangelism. Brother Jose Sori since he began did this work full time. I was doing construction work and was a student in this then. I wasn’t able to be full-time. I did what I could, and brother Jose would visit me so that we could go out to evangelize. The church began to grow in number, and many were baptized. New leaders emerged. They had Biblical contradictions that began to create divisions within the church. They planted confusion related to some doctrinal themes. There was a group of young people who brought us pain. They stirred up trouble. We lost brothers who weren’t very mature Christians. These young people were instructing us with these little contradictions. We didn’t permit these non-expert young people to continue in their false teachings. They believed that they knew a lot about the Word, but they were lacking in love and in the fear of the Lord. We didn’t permit them to continue dismembering the church that we had started with much love and effort and that had grown in number. What happened to these young people? They were determined to form another congregation under another name (Celulas Cristianas). They added praise music using the hands and allowed women a presiding place in the worship services. In other words, they fell away from the Christian doctrine. Today many of these young people have fallen away, and they aren’t meeting in any congregation. Others recognized the error of their ways and returned to the Church of Christ.
All these contradictions in the early years of the church resulted in a doctrinal strength. We studied in depth the Word of the Lord. We studied Larry White’s courses, which certainly are very profound. We, also, studied Efrain Valverde’s courses with The World Bible School and the courses and seminaries presented by accredited teachers of the International Bible Institute of Miami, Florida. These courses were organized and directed by the congregation of “10 de octubre #64” in Havana, Cuba. Brother Armando Alanis and other North American brothers brought them to us. All of these things have served us greatly in our preparation for the ministry. As a result of combined effort with other workers and by means of evangelistic campaigns the gospel has been dispersed throughout all the municipality of Camino de las Canas. I helped the preachers Mario, Yosbani, Daniel, and Alexander Toyo who began in the congregation of Jobo Gordo, but now unite in this place which is a great distance for many. We have expanded 12 kilometers from Jobo Gordo where another congregation has started. We evangelized in Jesus Maria which is a zone where many persons listened to us. In 1998 there was full-time work there, and there were various people preaching including Nelson Orozco, Daniel Alvarez, Henri Sori, Maykel Sori (both sons of Jose). The congregation has been strong and has been reaching out to other places, such as Jiquima de Pelaez where I did evangelistic work with brother Misael Canizares for more than a year. Then I helped in evangelistic work in the town of San Pablo which is on the road to Trinidad. I helped along with sister Oneida Capote for six months. I, also, worked in the town of Caracusey, and finally I began to evangelize in Trinidad with the support of Benigno Garcia Miranda and Ramon Rodriguez. Ramon is my work companion and is a faithful Christian who appears in the photo that I am sending you. You will, also, see my son Yosbel who is at my side. Here in Trinidad there were about 42 people who began to worship in Benigno Garcia’s home. I traveled three or four times a week to Trinidad from Santi Spiritus. The travel was very difficult, but I still kept going. These trips were tiring, and we weren’t seeing a lot of results in the work that we were doing. The brothers from Santi Spiritus encouraged me to move to Trinidad, and so I moved with my whole family. Benigno Garcia was creating doctrinal problems in the congregation, and he refused to recognize his doctrinal error after having a lot of conversations with him. He tried to continue in this doctrinal error. This led to another division in the church and which caused irreparable harm to the body in the church. The church lost many members. My family and I have now lived in Trinidad for almost four years. We have had to fight untiringly to take the gospel to hundreds of people, to teach the Word in home Bible studies, and to praise the Lord each first day of the week. Here in Trinidad, as in the entire world, various denominations exist, Catholic churches, etc. Idolatry is everywhere, and there are many Jehovah Witnesses. These denominations are sowing more confusion in the minds of people, and in many homes that we have visited, many do not listen to us. Very few have hearts that approach God. Some laugh, and others shut their doors in our faces. However, we still continue. We don’t grow weak in our work knowing that our work in the Lord is not in vain. We continue meeting together and persevering in the Lord’s work. There are sixteen brothers who meet on Sunday mornings to praise the Lord. We study twice weekly in the evenings. During the week my wife and I visit the brothers and sisters. We did this in the mornings when we have free time. In the afternoons we go out to evangelize in the homes, sometimes with brother Ramon Rodriguez who has been a faithful companion in the Lord’s work and sometimes with my wife who is my capable helper. It seems that there just isn’t enough time for the duties at home, the children, and the church work.
Of my four sons the third one, Yoel, who is twelve years old asked to be baptized next Sunday. We tried not to pressure him. We are assured that his decision is based on his Biblical knowledge and his heart.
My wife’s work in the children’s classes each Sunday after worship service has been a great blessing. We have plans to continue to evangelize in places where we haven’t gone. We have coordinated for this year at least three evangelistic campaigns. We have done this with the help of preachers from the congregations of Jobo Gordo, Kilo 12, and Camino de las Canas. In these campaigns we always gather the fruits of new converts, and besides, we have sown the seeds in tens and even hundreds of people according to the preachers. We usually spend two or three days in this work.
We give thanks to the Lord for being able to communicate with you all. We desire the Lord’s blessings for you all. We continue praying daily for you all and for all of God’s sons everywhere. We know the great effort accompanied by much love in Christ that you all show by helping us. We are very grateful for this. We ask you all to pray for us so that God will continue giving us the necessary strength in the middle of these adverse and difficult times. May the Lord richly bless you.
Your brother Luis Sori Cancio
