Alfredo Forhans
The Forhans Family
We are excited to partner with Alfredo Forhans and support Iglesia Evangélica Los Pinos Nuevos in Holguin, Cuba. Please keep Alfredo and his family in your prayers.
What are the names of your family members?
Dainel Pifferrer is my wife and we have three children, Juan, Rebecca and Laritza. We have one son-in-law, Hennyer and a grandson, Allen.
What is the name of your church and roughly how many attendees do you currently have?
Iglesia Evangélica Los Pinos Nuevos
Where are you originally from and where is your current church located?
I was born in the city of Holguin, Cuba. The church is in the center of the city of Holguin.
Tell us the story of how God called you to plant churches and why you chose the current location for your church plant.
In fact it was a process, as such I found myself pastoring in a very traditional and legalistic church. It was after a crisis in the ministry in that church, mainly due to legalism, that we requested to leave. We were encouraged to move to the city of Holguin to do church planting work. To tell the truth, we had no idea what we were going to do, since we had never worked in church planting before. Being in the city of Holguin, God began to move our hearts towards the work of planting, and with it, the vision and philosophy of how we were going to do it started to show up. The current location of the church was decided after a first attempt in the outskirts of the city. We realized that if we wanted to impact the city with the gospel we should move to strategic areas where we had a greater reach to the community.
What is the spiritual temperature in your community/country? How does this reflect your church’s mission and focus?
Cuba is a very syncretistic country both culturally and religiously. It can be said that the Cuban people now live in a kind of pragmatism mixed with much uncertainty and search for answers to their many concerns. It is a culture open to teaching and willing to learn. The most common gospel alternative in the Cuban context is heavily influenced by neo-Pentecostal movements with a strong legalistic emphasis. There are hardly any churches preaching the gospel of the grace of God. That is why our church focuses on preaching and extending the gospel of God's grace, opening a dialogue with the culture that allows us to interact with their concerns and present the gospel alternative, in fact this is our core value.
Tell us one of the most difficult situations you have faced during your years as a church planter. How did God work through that particular situation?
The most difficult situation was in the beginning of the work. Among the greatest difficulties was that I had never had previous experience in planting. On the other hand, we did not have formed leadership. We arrived alone to the city of Holguín, so we had to start from scratch. Another difficulty was the economy. We did not have any financial resources to do much. Then God began to reach out to friends, to whom we presented the gospel, and these came eventually to be the leading leaders we have today. Also during economic scarcity, God opened doors, one of them being the beloved church of SRC, who generously supported us and made strategic investments for the development of the work in Holguin.
Tell us about how you have seen God working.
God has being at work wonderfully by giving us friends, very special people whom his grace brought to salvation. Then we trained them, and they became the main leaders in the work of Holguin. Interestingly these friends, not only have a wonderful job in their leadership in Holguin, many of them have a very important leadership role in the movement of the gospel that God has raised in Cuba.
If there are any other stories or information you would like to share, please do so here.
Something interesting in this planting process, which I call it the story of God's love and faithfulness: When we started planting, we had no idea what God would be doing in the future. No one can say that this was a human strategy, rather it always was and still is a good plan of God. He has given the vision and the passion. God has provided friends, changed hearts, provided the necessary resources. In short, I can only say humbly, that we have followed the call of God, and he has been doing everything for us. We ask for humility and strength to follow. God bless all of you friends. A big hug from Cuba.
Please list any prayer requests we can share with our SRC family.
- We ask for renewed wisdom and new strengths to move forward.
- For the new generation of leaders we are working with right now.
- Also pray for the advance of the gospel on in our nation.
If you would like to reach out to Alfredo, you can visit the church's website at http://lospinos.cubava.cu/.