From the Editor

A few years ago I picked up a Che Guevara biography. I don’t remember why. Perhaps I had seen enough of the
ubiquitous “Che” t-shirts to finally wonder who in the world this guy was.

I started reading and my mind was absolutely blown. Turning page after page, I realized just how little I knew…
about any of it. The Cuban Revolution, the US embargo, the Bay of Pigs, even socialism in general. I had Wikipedia
open next to me practically half the time I had the book open. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. I may have
missed most of the Cold War by virtue of being born in 1983, but that doesn’t mean I should be ignorant of what went
on.

Since reading Che’s biography, I’ve been eagerly soaking up information about this fascinating period of time and
learning what I can about Cuba, a country located just a stone’s throw from our own.

This magazine issue has played a big part in that. Editing these articles and photos has given me a whole new
understanding about what life is really like in Cuba. Specifically, my eyes have been opened to the vast government
control that still exists in this island nation. It isn’t just a footnote in our history books. It’s real today.

This fact hit home when the authors of this issue, Jeff and Brooke, requested we use only their first names in their
articles. If the Cuban government were to connect them to our partner ministry, EchoCuba, they would most likely be
restricted from ever entering the country again.
What?!? For real?

These are people I know! These are people I care about! Never in a million years would I have expected the eye of
the Cuban government to fall on them. And yet, this is the reality we have to live with.

Imagine, then, what it must be like for our Cuban friends in-country. Facing punishment or exile every day as they
attempt to grow the local Church, cut off from the global body of Christ, yearning for freedom of worship while looking
over their shoulders at every turn… I had no idea it was this way, but after reading these articles, I can’t ignore it
anymore.

My hope is that you would also have your eyes opened by these fascinating and challenging articles, and that you
would feel compelled to do your part in the struggle for freedom in the global Church.

Who knows? Maybe it will be you visiting the streets of Havana some day…

Enjoy!

Barry Rodriguez
Executive Director
World Next Door, Inc.
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Captured

Engulfed
by Jeff
I was sitting on a hill at the historic Hotel Nacional overlooking the Malecón, a famous seaside drive in Havana. It was
a busy Friday evening and hundreds of people were gathering along the drive. Two little girls apart from the crowd
were playing together and caught my eye. Who were they? What were they talking about? Where were their parents?
As I was pondering these questions, I picked up my camera and started taking candid photos of the crowd and the
Friday night scene. Just then, a huge wave crashed into the wall and seemed to engulf the surprised little girls.
Fortunately my camera was set on burst mode at 6 frames per second, which allowed me to capture this amazing
moment.
* Note: no little girls were harmed during the shooting of this photo!
Recipe

El Cubano (The Cuban Sandwich)

By Jeff
Since the early 1800’s, the food of choice by the workers in Cuban cigar factories and sugar mills has been the aptly
named “Cuban Sandwich.” It also happens to be the food of choice for yours truly while in Cuba. Here’s the recipe!
Ingredients:
1. 8-12” slices of Cuban bread cut horizontally and lightly buttered on both sides
2. A coat of yellow mustard spread on both slices
3. Several layers of sliced roasted pork marinated in mojo sauce*
4. Glazed ham piled onto the pork
5. Salami optional
6. Thinly sliced Swiss cheese
7. Dill pickles
*Mojo sauce: salt, black peppercorns, oregano, garlic, olive oil, sour orange juice
Toast the bread until cheese is melted and press sandwich to 1/3 its original size. Cut in diagonal halves before
serving.
On the Map

ECHO Cuba and many churches are doing wonderful work all over Cuba. Here are a few of the places we visited.
1. Miami: EchoCuba has its headquarters here.

2. Havana: Here, Los Pinos Nuevos Church serves as a CENCAP Training Center
3. Varadero: The most popular tourist area in Cuba and home to blue water and white sand beaches

4. Matanzas: Beautiful farmland in Matanzas helps provide food for many churches and programs in the area.

5. Santa Clara: Thousands of pastors and church leaders participate in CENCAP training in 250 training sites
throughout Cuba.
Havana Up Close
By Jeff

Havana’s Parque’ Central (Central Park)

Located right in the heart of the city, locals and tourists alike gather in this scenic park. There is constant activity with
kids playing and men arguing about the previous evening’s baseball game. It is an enjoyable place to observe Havana
at its finest.
Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution square)
 Located on the highest point in Havana, the plaza has been the site of some of the country’s largest social and
political events. Mass rallies of over a million people have gathered to hear fiery speeches from Fidel Castro as well as
messages of peace, love, and justice from Pope John Paul II (1998) and Pope Benedict XVI (2012).
El Capitolio
 Havana’s capitol building is one of the most prominent buildings in Cuba. Prior to the revolution it housed the Cuban
Congress. However, when Fidel Castro dismantled Congress it became the headquarters of the Cuban Academy of
Sciences and the National Library of Science and Technology.
The Malecón

Built in 1901 by the United States, this famous 5-mile stretch of road along the Bay of Havana is a hub of local activity
from romance to entrepreneurship, to relaxation and entertainment. A walk along this road is a must for all tourists.
Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro (Castle of the Three Kings on the Bluff)
 Construction of this famous Cuban landmark began in 1589 and finished in 1630. It served as a military fort and
protected the Harbor of Havana from many attempted invasions. A lighthouse was built in 1845 and continues to flash
every 15 seconds today.
Plaza de Catedral (Havana Cathedral)

This plaza is one of 5 main squares in old Havana. Many say it’s the most beautiful. Originally build on a swamp in
1748, it was finished 30 years later and was known as “Swamp Square” by the locals.
Cristo de la Habana- The Christ of Havana
 This statue was carved out of Italian marble and blessed by the Pope. Standing 66 feet high, it can be seen from all
corners of the city. Fifteen days after its inauguration, Fidel Castro entered Havana marking the beginning of the
Revolution. Ironically, that same day the statue was struck by lightning and the head destroyed. It was quickly
repaired.
El Floridita

This bar opened in 1817 and was known as the Silver Pineapple. 100 years later a large number of American tourists
persuaded the owner to change its name to El Floridita. Not only is this bar noted for inventing the frozen daiquiri, but
American writer, Ernest Hemingway, lived within walking distance and was known to frequent the establishment. This
life-sized statue was erected in his honor in 2003.

- See more at: http://www.worldnextdoor.org/magazine/may-2014/havana-up-close/#sthash.PrvoYzWu.dpuf

Cuban Baseball

More than just a game

By Jeff
“In Cuba, when you speak about baseball, baseball is not a sport. It’s a culture. When the boy is born, the father’s gift
is the bat and the ball”.

– Dr. Antonio Castro, vice president of the International Baseball Federation and son of Fidel Castro

Take the national frenzy of American football and combine it with the hopes and dreams of little soccer players in
villages around the world. Add the pure simplicity of kids playing pick-up games in Indiana and you begin to get a feel
for Cuban baseball. It’s much more than just a game.

Cubans studying in Mobile, Alabama (of all places) brought baseball to Cuba for the first time in the 1860s. Because
the Cuban people eventually preferred baseball to bullfighting, Spanish rulers tried banning the game. With this
deeper significance in play, the game itself became a symbol of freedom and resistance from Spanish oppression. By
1878 a Cuban baseball league was formed. The game soon became a national obsession.
Everyone seemed to play baseball, even Fidel Castro, who was rumored in 1949 to be offered a contract by the New
York Giants that included a $5,000 signing bonus. After some deliberation, Castro refused and went on to do a few
other things in Cuba (like lead a revolution!).

After the Revolution, the government banned professional sports and prohibited Cuban athletes from joining foreign
teams. Amateur teams replaced professional ones, and baseball was played on a socialist model, driven by national
ideals, not money. Castro deemed baseball players to be “standard bearers of revolution.”

Number One

Baseball came naturally to Cubans and they excelled in the international scene, winning silver or gold medals in every
Olympics that baseball was played. They placed second in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, and today Cuba is ranked
number one in the world by the International Baseball Federation. This international success has fueled a national
pride that is palpable when talking with Cubans today.

Many Cuban baseball players are highly coveted by teams all around the world. Major league teams in the United
States are willing to pay millions for elite Cuban players. This was demonstrated recently when the Chicago White Sox
signed Cuban pitcher Jose Abreu to a $68 million contract. With the average player in Cuba earning less than $20 a
month, and professional teams often lacking bats, gloves, and balls, the lure of the Major Leagues in the United
States is strong. It’s no wonder some are willing to literally risk their lives to get there.

Last season alone there were 21 Cuban-born players in the major leagues, including national league rookie of the year
Jose Fernandez and Dodgers rookie star Yasiel Puig, who placed second in rookie voting. Many more could play in the
United States, but the Cuban government has restrictions. The fault doesn’t lie solely with the Cuban government,
however. The United States forbids Major League teams from hiring Cuban citizens, thus requiring each one to defect
and renounce his Cuban citizenship to be eligible for a contract.

The Hot Corner

I love baseball, and with interest declining in the United States, I was thrilled to see baseball being played by Cubans
of all ages in the streets, parks, and stadiums all over the country. To my amusement, I came upon a little corner of
Havana’s central park called “Esquina Caliente” (or “hot corner”) where you can almost always find an intense debate
about Cuban baseball. Old guys yell and argue about baseball 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, clearing out only
when it rains.

National pride is incredible, and baseball players that stay in Cuba are deeply respected not only for their skill, but for
their loyalty to their country. While considered heroes, many are not paid more than the common man and have to
work other jobs. Some even quit organized ball in order to provide for their family. Because of this, you could argue
Cuba is one of the only places where people still truly play for the love of the game.

During my time in Cuba, I was able to experience this passion for baseball every time I brought out my glove. Just
the sight of my baseball glove broke down international barriers and quickly turned a serious grown man into a kid
attempting to turn (an invisible) double play or hitting (an invisible) home run with me in his kitchen.

I never would have thought a baseball glove could replace the olive branch on such a small personal scale. Now if only
the US and Cuban governments could put away their boxing gloves and bring out their baseball gloves and start
turning double plays together!
Yank Tanks
Photos by Jeff
Buying and selling cars has been illegal in Cuba for almost 55 years. As a result, almost 60,000 antique cars still roam the
country. You could argue Cuba is the largest living car museum in the world. Take a look at this gallery of “Yank Tanks,” as
they’re called, and get a taste for the vintage automobile scene on the streets of Cuba.
Quiz
True or False?
How well do you know Cuba? Take this quick quiz to find out!
By Jeff Hartman
(Scroll down to see the answer to each True/False question)
1. Women in the United States are better represented in government than in Cuba.
2. A person living in Cuba will live longer than a person in the United States.
3. Cuba has dominated the summer Olympics, winning either gold or silver medals in baseball at every Olympics in
which baseball was an official sport.
4. The United States has a higher literacy rate than Cuba.
5. Christmas is one of the most celebrated holidays in Cuba.
6. It is just as expensive to buy a car in Cuba as it is in the United States.
7. Picking up hitchhikers is mandatory in Cuba.
8. Since 1992, Cuba has dominated the Olympic boxing scene winning more gold medals than the US.
9. One of the last items purchased by the United States government from Cuba before the embargo was imposed
were cigars.
10. With an estimated 60,000 American and Russian vintage cars from the 1950’s and 60’s still in Cuba, the country’s
import of auto parts is one of the highest in the world.
11. The Cuban government used cacti to prevent Cubans from defecting to the United States.

Answers:
1. FALSE Women in Cuba hold 45% of parliament seats compared to 19% in the US.
2. FALSE Cuba and the United States both have average life expectancies of about 79 years.
3. TRUE Cuba has won a medal at every Olympics since 1992 and has 3 gold and 2 silver medals to prove it.
4. FALSE Cuba boasts a 99.8% literacy rate compared to 99% in the US.
5. FALSE Christmas was banned soon after the Revolution and only became recognized in 1997.
6. FALSE Purchasing cars only became possible this year but mark-up is as high as 400%-1000%. A Peugeot 508 is
listed at $262,000 in Cuba compared to $55,000 in the US.
7. TRUE Hitchhiking was established by the government as a necessary means of transportation during the ‘special
period’ in the early 90’s. Picking up hitchhikers is mandatory for state-owned vehicles, and lines can be seen
throughout the country with official traffic supervisors managing the process.
8. TRUE Since 1992, Cuba has won 22 gold medals in boxing, compared to only 4 for the US.
9. TRUE According to President John F. Kennedy’s press secretary, President Kennedy ordered 1,200 Cuban Cigars
and signed an executive order putting the embargo in effect the morning after they arrived.
10. FALSE No new parts have been shipped to Cuba since the Revolution. Cubans must manufacture their own parts
from household items or repurpose them from other vehicles.
11. TRUE Soon after the Revolution, Fidel Castro had his troops plant an 8-mile barrier of cacti called the “cactus
curtain” along the border of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in eastern Cuba to prevent Cubans from taking refuge in
the United States territory.
Havana Antiques

By Jeff
They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If that’s true, this Havana antique market is a gold mine.

Where else can you buy an antique Bible, a Beatles album, and a Spanish copy of “100 Years of Solitude” in one
place?
What looks like a casual stamp collection turns out to be a collection of stamps dating as far back as before World War
I. Included are stamps from The Republic of German-Austria, Yugoslavia, Russia, Denmark, Luxemburg, New Zealand,
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Romania, Australia, and, of course, Cuba.

Before the Revolution, Cuba boasted hotels and casinos larger than Las Vegas. Today, curious buyers can get their
hands on rare casino chips from that era.
Baseball is the national pastime in Cuba and people of all ages play and watch it. Baseball cards are of great value and
are not often found for sale in Havana.

Vintage cameras like these are commonly seen in Cuba. Sellers claim they still work like new.
The Cuban cigar is world-renowned but most Cubans are unable to afford them. However, where cigar collections are
rare you will find cigar label collections instead.

Pre-Revolution money, most of which is of no use today, can still be found circulating around the country. Shop
owners sometimes slip these bills to unsuspecting tourists as change.
 Cuba is known for its 60,000 antique cars that are still being used today. The license plates are seen as a novelty
among tourists and can be found for sale. Watch out for replicas, though!

Books about the Revolution and its leaders, such as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, are a dime a dozen. They’ve been
written for both children and adults. These are found in schools, stores, and markets all over the country.
 Collections of antique books are still used by the people of Cub
- See more at: http://www.worldnextdoor.org/magazine/may-2014/havana-antiques/#sthash.5CVbVC24.dpuf
Lost in Translation

It’s ok. I speak Spanish.

By Brooke
Lost in translation? In Cuba? No way. I mean, I speak a good amount of Spanish and have twice lived in Central
America. I though traveling to a Spanish-speaking country 90 miles from the US would leave us with zero moments of
cultural confusion.

Imagine my surprise when I KEPT DOING EVERYTHING WRONG!

Another Round of Espresso for the Table!

Café con leche. Not too complicated, right? I mean, it’s coffee with milk. I usually love my coffee black. However,
when I watched how others poured the amount of espresso they desired from these tiny adorable pitchers into their
mugs of steamed milk, I wanted it. Next time, I ordered the café con leche, too, and three steaming mugs of milk
were delivered to the three of us sitting at our table. My little container of espresso was set in front of me. I poured
and stirred, poured and stirred, poured and stirred—I like mine strong—and then topped it off with little more
espresso. I smiled proudly at my creation, then looked up and asked where everyone else’s espresso was.
“That espresso was for the table…” they said.

A Pre-Dinner Breakfast

My husband and I sat down for dinner one night and ordered two chicken, rice and vegetable plates. But we were
starving, so we selected “tortilla con queso” (did I mention that I speak Spanish?) to snack on before the meal
arrived. A tortilla with cheese. A quesadilla, right? Or maybe fried tortilla and queso, like chips. Either way, delish.
He asked how many tortillas we wanted, and we decided on two. Two tortillas with cheese, one for each of us. So it
must be like a quesadilla, then.

He looked confused and double-checked that we wanted it before the meal. Yes, we would have it right now, before
the meal.

Out came two 12-inch omelets covered in cheese, right before our full chicken and rice meal.

In Cuba, tortilla means omelet.

Yes, I’ll have a wine goblet of coffee, please.

Though I’d never used the word before, I noticed “copa de vino” on a menu to mean “cup of wine”. Being smart (I
speak Spanish, you know), I started ordering copas of Coke and copas of café and copas of water. Finally, somebody
said, “You know we don’t usually drink all our beverages in wine glasses.”
Copa does not mean cup. It actually means wine glass.

This Orange Fruit in Front of Me

Papaya is an ordinary fruit in Cuba and served frequently, so I often raved about it in the presence of my pastoral
hosts and elders, who smiled kindly but exchanged funny looks between them.

“I just love papaya juice!” “We don’t have papaya juice at home, you know, so I can’t get enough papaya.” “This
papaya! So fresh!”

“We don’t say that word,” a member of the youth group told me on our last day at that church.

Papaya turned out to be slang for women’s private parts. Whoops.

Cuban Culture
A crash course in Cuban culture
By Jeff
Cuba is a colorful, laid-back, Caribbean island with a mix of 1950’s Russian, African, and Spanish influence. The
people are incredibly friendly, intelligent, and talented. From cigars to dancing—it’s all there to stimulate our senses in
a way that leaves us even more curious and fascinated.

Sounds great, right? So let’s put aside politics for a minute, and sit back, grab a mojito, and travel to Cuba!
Cigars

Cuba’s climate and land are ideal for producing all the tobacco leaves necessary for making high quality cigars.
Combined with some of the most skilled cigar rollers in the world, you have the makings of some of the finest cigars
ever made!

Music
If you put 11 million people on an island that has been influenced by African, European, and Caribbean culture, one
thing is inevitable: music. Rumba & Son, Salsa, and Jazz… you never know what you’re going to hear in Cuba!

Click here to watch a video of Rhumba dancers in Cuba!

Currency
Cuba has two forms of legal currency that fuel what many consider a dual economy. Locals use the Cuban Peso (CUP)
and tourists use the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC). The CUC is valued at 25 times that of the CUP, making unwary
tourists prime targets to receive the wrong kind of “change.”
Leisure
Dominos and mojitos are two favorites of many locals on the island.

Rum
Cuban Rum is world famous and in abundance on the island. Its not unusual for drinks containing rum to be cheaper
than soda.

Beaches
The beaches in Cuba are the main reason why three million tourists visit the island each year. Veradero Beach seen
here is perhaps the most beautiful in Cuba.
Architecture
The architecture found in Cuba is beautiful, eclectic, and weathered. This home in Havana is a great example.
Meet EchoCuba

Evangelical Christian Humanitarian Outreach for Cuba

By Brooke
EchoCuba exists to equip and strengthen the independent evangelical churches of Cuba through theological education
and leadership training of their existing and future pastors.

Leadership and Education

• Church leadership training
• Seminary student sponsorships
• Equipping the church

Faith-Based Advocacy
• Religious freedom programming conceptualized and facilitated by Cubans
• Prayer, advocacy and financial support of existing and growing churches

Increasing Christianity’s Impact

• Church building in remote areas
• Evangelistic programs
Humanitarian Aid Following Disasters
• Community kitchens
• Disaster supplies
• Home/church repairs

Mission Trips
• Linking North American travelers with churches throughout Cuba
• Reach Cuba: Hosting “Cuba Nights” at North American churches to introduce churches to their brethren in Cuba

Get Connected:
Web:www.echocuba.org
Email:[email protected]
Best Frenemies Forever

The US special interests building stands next to the Anti-Imperialist plaza in Havana.
The gospel truth about everyone’s favorite love-hate relationship
By Brooke
I always wondered why the US and Cuba didn’t get along. I mean, they’re 90 miles apart and seemed to have had
such a solid relationship in the 30s and 40s—what happened? And more importantly, why can’t we bring back any
cigars or rum?!

Well, lucky for you, I think I got to the bottom of it.

This is the history of US/Cuba relations, as I understand it. Don’t quote me. Don’t verify this. I’ll deny knowing you if
this ever shows up anywhere and no, we won’t run a correction.

This IS political, though. It kind of has to be. But I don’t align with any particular party and simply enjoy parties of
any kind. I’m not using my real name and I have no idea why *Fidel Castro* is following me on Twitter.
• 1492: Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed in Cuba. This event is illustrated by my favorite e-card: “Let’s
celebrate Columbus Day by walking into someone’s house and telling him we live there now!” Spain got Cuba because
they wanted it.
[Skipping a few centuries]

• 1902: After Spain lost to the US in the Spanish-American War, they handed over Cuba. Cuba gained its
independence but kept the island under US protection and gave the US a key to its apartment – I mean, rights to
intervene in Cuban affairs. After a sincere DTR (defining the relationship) conversation, Cuba agreed not to enter into
any treaties or financial agreements with other countries, and let the US set up a naval base on the island:
Guantánamo Bay. This is when the US and Cuba gave each other one of those matching heart-shaped BFF necklaces.

• 1930s: Worldwide depression crippled Cuba’s economy. The US, polishing its half of the BFF necklace, revised
Cuba’s sugar quota and changed tariffs to favor Cuba. Sergeant Batista led a coup to overthrow current leadership in
1934. Batista became president.

You know what they say. “What happens in Havana stays in Havana.”
• 1940s-1950s: US corporate assets grew under Batista’s leadership, and the two countries enjoyed mutual
benefits. Well, the US and Batista himself enjoyed these benefits. The average Cuban became poorer and poorer. A
mini-Las Vegas grew in Havana with casinos and cabarets, and Havana became a playground for America’s elite. Oh,
and the mob. The mob totally ruled Havana during this time.

• 1956: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara waged a guerrilla war against the Batista regime to more fairly redistribute the
government’s wealth to its citizens. The US withdrew military aid to Batista at the cost of America’s corporate
interests. Said U.S. State Department advisor William Wieland to the US government, “I know Batista is considered by
many as a son of a [jerk]… but American interests come first… at least he was our son of a [jerk]. Then he slammed
his door and yelled, “I hate you!” (probably). Fidel promised the world he was all about democracy and was in it to
fight Batista’s dictatorship.
The world cheered at the peasant revolution and Fidel’s victory, because anything was possible if two guys and a
bunch of farmers could overthrow a corrupt government. But then Fidel turned communist.

• 1960: All US businesses in Cuba were nationalized without compensation, and the US broke off diplomatic relations.
This is when the US and Cuba ripped off their BFF necklaces and changed their Facebook statuses to “It’s
complicated”. The US imposed a trade embargo in response to Castro’s reforms. The mob? I have no idea what
happened to them. I guess they went back to New York.

Today, anti-American sentiment is a common theme in Cuban propaganda.

In the meantime, Castro started taking all Cuba’s big businesses, too, and executed anyone involved with them,
accusing them of being conspirators in the Batista regime. The world started freaking out because Castro had totally
changed, and Cuban business owners were scrambling to get out.

• 1961: The US backed a failed invasion by Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs; Castro officially proclaimed Cuba a
communist state and got a new BFF: Russia. The US and Cuba officially became Frenemies.

• 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis. Fearing a US invasion, Castro allowed the USSR to deploy nuclear missiles on the
island. The USSR finally says to the US, “Fine. We’ll move our missiles if you move your missiles out of Turkey.”
Crisis averted.

• 1978: Castro sent 125,000 released convicts to the US. Thanks, pal.

• 1992: The UN condemned the US embargo on Cuba. I think it went something like, “Enough already. Can’t you
guys just make up?”

Today, anti-American sentiment is a common theme in Cuban propaganda.

• 2001: Five Cubans were convicted in Miami and given long sentences for being Cuban government spies.
• 2009: Cuba grabbed a young USAID worker and accused him of spying for Washington. Said Cuba: “We’ll release
him when you release our five guys.”

Obama lifted restrictions on family travel to Cuba. Though several cultural exchanges have taken place since that
time, Cuba’s refusal to release the USAID worker, even after one of the five have been released from prison in the US,
has frozen all relations to date.

Nobody knows what the future holds for Cuba/US relations, but we can only hope they’ll eventually make up and get
back together for our sake—the citizen-kids.
Cuba’s Propaganda
By Jeff
Many believe it was Fidel Castro’s brilliant use of propaganda, not military prowess, which led his army to victory in
1959. Castro used pirate radio broadcasts, public displays, and interviews with journalists to plead his case and to
make his military force appear much larger and more powerful than it actually was. Perhaps the most pivotal act
occurred in 1957 when Fidel persuaded New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews to interview him in the Sierra
Maestra Mountains. This interview produced both domestic and international sympathy for Fidel’s revolutionaries and
dramatically changed the future of the Revolution and ultimately Cuba itself.

But propaganda didn’t end with the Revolution. Today, the Cuban government controls all magazines, newspapers,
and broadcasting facilities. Billboards and graffiti with pro-Cuba sentiment litter the landscape, and strict law
enforcement and community groups are used to minimize the expression of conflicting views.

Here are just a few examples of the propaganda we saw during our time in Cuba:

Fidel Castro’s image can be seen in all corners of the country. It is a constant reminder of the Revolution and what
occurred 55 years ago. Here, Fidel’s image overlooks a Havana market.
Che Guevara is a major figure in the Cuban Revolution and has developed an almost god-like mystique since his death
in 1967. Known simply as “Che”, many consider him a martyr and a symbol of self-sacrifice. His iconic image is seen
everywhere in Cuba, even in a random parking lot!
 Anti-American and anti-embargo sentiment can be seen throughout the country. Cubans are taught and reminded
frequently that the United States is dangerous, corrupt, dishonest, and hypocritical. Here, government sentiment
about “El Bloqueo,” the US embargo, is on display.

In Havana, the old United States embassy is now a U.S. “Special Interests” building, and it has been the site of
propaganda between the two countries. In 2006, the US delivered anti-Castro messages via an electronic billboard. In
response, Fidel erected a “wall” of 138 Cuban flags to block out the billboard. Known as the Anti-Imperialist Plaza and
a site for anti-American activity, the flags continue to fly today.
People are constantly reminded of the country’s history and its socialistic values. The Revolution is often painted as a
battle against capitalism and all that it stands for. The slogan on this sign reads, “Socialism or death”.

Agriculture and hard work is of great value and is promoted through billboards and graffiti across the country. This
one says, “We must not rest while there is a single hectare of land not worked. –Raúl Castro Ruz”
 Youth are of great value and are seen as the future of the Revolution. Here, a wall quotes Che Guevara as saying,
“The clay of our work is the youth.”

The Revolution was established with values and attitudes that promote a strong sense of Cuban unity and
steadfastness. These values permeate the culture today. This sign reads, “The life of a single human being is worth a
million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth. -Che”
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) are a vast network of neighborhood committees responsible for
being “the eyes and ears” of the Revolution. The committees promote social welfare and have the duty to monitor the
activities of every person on their respective blocks and keep an updated file on each of them.
Digging Deeper
By Brooke

God is Moving in Cuba

In Cuba, the church is alive, growing, faithful, and active. Read how the Cuban Church is persevering through
difficulty in this fascinating exploration of revivals, evangelism and politics.
Click here to read.

EchoCuba’s Newsletters
Take a look at current news and reflections of the ministry on a monthly basis.
Click here to read.

Cuba’s Great Awakening: Church Planting Movement in Cuba

By Dr. Kurt Urbanek

This book was recommended by one of the EchoCuba staff members after her church read and discussed it together.
It follows the movement of Christ from inside Cuba. Interesting notes: Congregations among Baptists alone have
multiplied from 238 to 7,039 churches, missions, and house churches in just 20 years. Among the Assemblies of God,
the number has risen from 89 churches in 1990 to 10,776 traditional churches and house churches by 2010. It sounds
like Cuba is totally awakening.
Meet the Founder

ALIAS.
(Real life, not the CIA double agent TV series from the early 2000s,
though that would be awesome, too.)
By Brooke
One of the things that made this World Next Door assignment particularly difficult (besides the communism and
confusion and general inability to communicate) was the fact that our host organization has been blacklisted in Cuba.

We were greeted each morning with a tiny cup of Cuban espresso filled with sugar.
Before we left for Cuba, we had the chance to spend a week in Miami with our host ministry, EchoCuba, as though we
were part of the team. We attended their meetings, ordered from the lunch menu with the staff, and were greeted
each morning with a tiny cup of Cuban espresso filled with sugar.
I was dying to know how they’d gotten their start, and why anyone anywhere would blacklist this magical group of
coffee-offering people, especially the exact people they existed to serve!

As with all things Cuba, the history of this organization and its founder, Teo, was intriguing. I was especially
interested to learn how they found themselves at odds with Cuba’s Council of Churches.

Teo Babun leading a meeting at ECHO

Teo, having been born and raised in Santiago de Cuba, remembers the revolution clearly through the eyes of an 11
year-old. His family—one of the wealthiest in Eastern Cuba—owned successful businesses that employed thousands in
the community.

“Everybody helped Fidel and the revolutionaries,” Teo explained. “We created underground networks to send
medicines and religious materials and food. It was cool—here were these guys coming out of the mountains with beer,
running around and directing traffic, and these were people we knew because so many left to join the revolution: our
teacher, driver, friend were coming back with beer and new freedoms.”

It was such an unexpected twist, he explained, for Fidel to have come to power for the purpose of cleaning the
government and calling for clean elections and democracy, and then to turn right around and start confiscating
everything and putting people to death. The same class that funded the revolution – which included Teo’s family –
became the ones who had to leave to avoid the firing squad.

Teo on set with CNN Miami morning news

Teo and his family ended the summer hopping a plane to Miami thinking it was an end-of-summer vacation. Fidel’s
quick change would never last, they thought, and the family assumed they’d be home within a few weeks once the US
got involved. No one could have predicted the Bay of Pigs failure, the Kennedy assassination, the Soviet Bloc growing,
an atomic threat, and the Cold War.

Eight months later, they realized they would not be going back and finally unpacked their suitcases, enrolled in school,
learned English and began assimilating.
Fast-forward 40 years.

Teo was an American businessman with a family of his own.

“One of my businesses was a private investment fund for Cuba, because we were anticipating that after the fall of the
Soviet Bloc, Cuba would go the same route and we would have the chance to invest in the new Cuba. I went to
Jacksonville to meet with a large group of businessmen to answer investment and infrastructure questions, but when
we sat down, the first question was, “Tell us about the Christian church in Cuba. What’s going on?”

A church in Veradero, Cuba

Teo had no idea they were Christians. Neither did he have any idea how the church was faring in communist Cuba.
Almost no one knew what was going on, but the group of businessmen who had a heart for the Christian church
continued gathering at various clubs around Miami to share news of Cuba.

At the time, the Church was experiencing rebirth. The Cuban government had shut down the Church and declared
themselves atheist in 1962, so the church was underground until 1989.
In 1989 Jesse Jackson went to Cuba to negotiate the release of some prisoners. Fidel was so proud to have Jesse
Jackson in Cuba that when they were on national TV and Jesse Jackson was like, “Hey, why don’t you let the church
operate?” Fidel said, more or less, “Okay.”

The church, in effect, sprang up cautiously in the early 1990’s within certain parameters, and when the pope visited in
1998, Christians started coming out of the woodwork.

Hundreds of people would show up at the meetings in Miami, Teo explained, to learn from each other how to get in
and out and what the needs were. The Church was being helped in Cuba through ad-hoc ministries, so they decided to
create a group: Vision for a Christian Cuba. It was informal at first, just meeting every month and inviting ministries
in Miami and other parts of the US to come talk about how to help the church in Cuba.

After a few meetings, some of the members wanted to formalize. They took over another Cuban organization’s 501c3
(they had become inactive after the board was split on whether or not to provide humanitarian aid while Fidel was in
power) and changed the name to EchoCuba in 1995, standing for Evangelical Christian Humanitarian Outreach to
Cuba, Inc.

An EchoCuba sign hanging in their office in Miami

“We created a board right away and immediately took all the board members to Cuba. We sat down with the Cuban
Council of Churches and got the legal permissions and visas. It looked like a promising partnership,” Teo said.
EchoCuba began first with humanitarian aid: wheelchairs, food and a large amount of medical supplies. They raised
the money and shipped ten containers to Cuba. All of them were assigned to the Council of Churches for collection and
distribution on the ground by EchoCuba’s local pastors and partner liaisons.

When the ten containers arrived in Cuba, however, the Council of Churches gave eight containers to the Cuban
government, and distributed the other two containers to whomever they wanted.

“We were in shock,” Teo said, “and we tried to explain that we had a donor base and a credibility issue, but they
didn’t care.”

The officials responded with, “You have all the aid, you’re the rich countries, you should give it to us, and we shouldn’t
even thank you. We know better than you who should get it.”

“It was a huge wake up call,” Teo said. “We decided not to bring any more aid down through the Council, and they got
really mad at us for that.”

As ministries from the Vision for a Christian Cuba group continued traveling in and out of Cuba, the government
specifically directed them to stop working with EchoCuba. People would arrive in Miami on the way back from Cuba
and say, “I’m not allowed to talk to you, but I’m calling to say please don’t send me emails or make phone calls. I
can’t communicate with EchoCuba, or Cuba won’t accept aid from us.”

That’s how Teo first knew what was happening.

His suspicion was confirmed when the Vision For a Christian Cuba meetings were abandoned by ministries who had
previously all worked together openly. Everyone had always signed in at the meetings, and it turns out, someone at
the meeting had given a copy of the sign-in sheet to the Cuban government.

Anyone on that list who arrived in Cuba from any ministry was asked to leave the country. The government would say
to the ministry, “You attended a meeting in Miami sponsored by EchoCuba, so you can’t come in.”

“We started getting phone calls from ministries saying ‘We’ve been kicked out and we can’t come to the meetings
anymore!’ People were asking us to write letters to the Cuban government saying we were not working with them. We
would write the letters, but the Echo letterhead itself implicated those ministries with us. Even just their association
with us hurt them. It was Cuba’s goal to isolate us from every other Christian ministry.”

But EchoCuba pledged to continue empowering the churches and pastors in Cuba they had originally established
partnerships with. They just stopped using their name to do it, and they decided to work outside the Council of
Churches. Instead, they started matching churches and individuals in the US directly with individual churches and
ministries in Cuba.

“By that time,” Teo explained, “we knew enough about how the churches were structured to access them. Word got
out that we were providing assistance, and they started approaching us.”

A Religious Freedom program binder at the EchoCuba office in Miami

EchoCuba began with different humanitarian projects, like powdered milk distribution and disaster relief, and used
those windows as opportunities to build relationships with local pastors and expand their efforts. They quickly began
sponsoring pastoral leadership trainings, seminary students, religious freedom programming and began providing
theological resources through people entering the country, one by one.

EchoCuba now maintains partnerships with hundreds of pastors, congregations, seminaries and ministries all over
Cuba, with the common goal of reaching Cuba for Christ and for connecting North American churches with Cuban
churches for fellowship, support and resource distribution.

All without using their name.

Go There

The eye-opening truth about what I didn’t see in Cuba

By Brooke
Full disclosure: this was the hardest magazine article I have written to date. Usually we arrive in a host country,
show everyone World Next Door Magazine—which gives concreteness to our exact purpose in a place—and we all
participate in a mutual sharing of information and relationship building over the next six weeks. Then we come home,
write all the stories, and (of course) everyone in the world starts fighting injustice through our host organization!
Usually.

Also, we usually have phones and names and addresses of the places we’re going; we usually have access to Internet
for communication; we’re usually allowed in and out of our own country and the host countries without threat of exile
or jail or acquiring special permissions, and our host organization isn’t working through an alias.

An alias? Oh yeah. Our host organization isn’t usually blacklisted by the country it’s working in.

The host country usually isn’t communist, and we’re usually allowed to use the names and faces of the staff we meet
without risk to their safety or ministry. We’re also usually able to use our own names without risk to future travel, and
we’re always able to name the injustice we’re writing about—that’s sort of the point.
But part of the story here is that we can’t actually tell the story.

We went to Cuba. Cuba is communist. To showcase an injustice like poverty, or to outline the limits of religious
“freedoms” and discover the shape of oppression instead, is the ultimate insult to a government that boasts adequate
and equal care of its citizens. Nobody in Cuba would name the injustice for me. It would cost them their lives,
incomes, families, and physical freedom.

So the best, most honest thing I can do is name the injustice myself. I can tell the story of my own experience and
what it was like to live and worship there without identifying any specific churches, people, or ministries. In doing so,
I absorb the risk myself.
I can describe my own confusion and fog. I can tell you how a place so controlled grew a seed of paranoia in me so
real I thought for sure we would be arrested on our exit, and how I neurotically uploaded every possible note and
draft to Dropbox so if my computer got confiscated or if we spent the next seven years in jail, at least World Next
Door would have my notes. That’s real.

I can tell you about how we sought to find an underground movement and walked away empty handed—not because
it doesn’t exist, but because nobody would show it to us out of threat of exposure.

And, completely opposite, in the next article I can introduce specific churches and people we encountered who are
working in partnership with the system instead of against it—and how their ministries are blessed by that approach. I
can name them. They reject discontent, and they cooperate with the system they’re born into, which happens to be
communist Cuba. This perspective blew our minds and expanded our capacity to endure. They are accepting,
complying, and thriving.

So. Let’s go to Cuba together. I’ll lay it all out, and we’ll walk through the month together.

The Cuban flag

Claim Me!
My husband Jeff and I stood at the hot and crowded airport in Havana, Cuba with our luggage in hand and the quickly
fading mental image of a guy we’d seen on Facebook a couple days earlier who was supposed to pick us up. We were
among thousands as we scanned the crowd. We had no working phone, which was no big deal because we had not
been given any phone numbers.

(Why hadn’t we asked for any phone numbers?!)

We had a wad of American cash—useless until we found a way to change it—and a sheet of paper with a couple of
names, a few addresses, and our itinerary for the month. The itinerary said disconcerting things like To Be
Determined.

We’d been asked by our host organization EchoCuba, which stands for Evangelical Christian Humanitarian Outreach
for Cuba, to leave identifying information about them at home. They’d been blacklisted in Cuba for their work toward
religious freedoms.

We were also advised to leave our own World Next Door identifying information at home because we’d received tourist
visas, not religious or journalism visas. “Don’t tell anyone what you’re doing,” the host ministry had said. “You’re just
tourists—so make sure you do lots of tourist activities, and make sure your camera has lots of tourist pictures on it.”
It’s a good thing we’re part travel magazine. Our plan would be to use tourism to locate injustice. And if we had to
fight injustice on a Caribbean beach with piña coladas? So be it.
 A tasty mojito is often the drink of choice by locals and tourists in Cuba.
Just kidding. We prefer mojitos.
(Just kidding again.)

How?
Since everyone asks, these were the logistics. We (Americans) are welcome in Cuba. It’s the US government that
restricts our travel to Cuba, not Cuba. That said, legal travel from the US can be arranged through a handful of
organizations, and EchoCuba is one of them. They also arrange the Cuban visas and put us in touch with local
churches on the ground (Note: None of these churches will be named in the magazine. The churches named in the
next article were introduced to us through a mutual friend).

So. We’d traveled legally from the United States on a chartered flight with a religious license from the US – which we
would need to conceal until our return home for presentation to US immigration – and a tourist visa for Cuba. At all
times while in Cuba, everyone had explained, give as little information as possible.

(It dawns on me now as I write this why we, at all times, received as little information as possible. This is the way
Cuba functions. The less knowledge everyone has about anyone else’s doings, the safer everyone is.)
Having made it through Cuban customs and immigration without incident, I sat down on my yellow duffel in the
brightest pink skirt I owned, my tourist visa in hand, and waited to be claimed by the local pastor friend. It had
already been an hour, and the multitude was thinning. I looked at non-panicked Jeff and told myself that I am an
adventurer and that these are the types of things adventurers do.

I’ll do anything for a good story, and also there was no other option, so I continued to sit patiently on my bag and
acted like I’m always waiting to be claimed at crowded airports in communist countries pretending to be a tourist
while checking out the subversive work of my host organization, which had been kicked out of the country.
 Antique cars are the norm in Cuba and are a symbol of the persistence and ingenuity of most Cubans.
Two hours later, we were in the back seat of a bright yellow 1950s Russian Lada, windows down, with a local pastor
and his taxi-driving friend, cruising out of Havana toward a southern suburb.

Confusion
Our first moments in-country could have set the pattern for how most of our time in Cuba would be. We never had
more information than we needed at that exact moment, and it was never enough to put me completely at ease.
Neither did our hosts in Cuba have any idea why we were visiting, for their own protection. We had to find creative,
safe and protective ways of explaining our work with World Next Door, and we had to do it while pushing through
about five other barriers—like mysterious Cuban Spanish with no R’s or S’s, and Visa limits on how I can or can’t
legally interact with someone, and how someone can or can’t legally interact with me.

Our Cuban friends could be fined, interrogated, or even arrested just for appearing to be our tour guides or taxi
drivers without the proper licenses. Each interaction brought new pieces to a puzzle we had no idea existed until we
held it in our hands, sighing.

And each conversation inevitably reached a depth at which all answers became “it’s complicated.” We were warned by
well-meaning decade-long foreigners working within the Cuban church not to mistake hospitality for friendship.
Ouch.

Even now as I write this, I want to say my experience defies this—such fun and meaningful sharing of stories and
experiences with several couples—but how would I know?

One church sat us down on our arrival and said, “You are welcome here, but these are the rules: You can do anything
you want inside the walls of the church, but once you step outside, we are no longer connected. If someone asks what
you are doing in this neighborhood or why you are here, just explain that you are tourists. You may not tell anyone
you are sleeping here or eating here, and you may not speak in front of the congregation. We take no political stance
and are not involved in politics in any way.”

Noted. I felt like I was facilitating a deposition.

 Policemen posted around town are a common site in Cuba.
Another church in a different area was very cautious about letting us walk around outside at all, as the neighborhood
was in a non-tourist area and we would likely draw attention to ourselves and to the church hosting us.

One evening at dusk, after we’d attended several church services throughout the week and had been welcomed by the
church community multiple times, the pastor took us on a walk around the neighborhood. By the end of the week, we
were able to accept invitations to other nearby houses of congregant friends—the friends were our own ages, though,
which seemed to be the dividing line of trust.

Generally we found the under-30s to be friendly, open and informative; the 40s more hesitant, the 50s skeptical, and
the over-60s dead-bolted and chain-locked. Many didn’t want their pictures taken, and no one wanted to sign our
receipt book. By the second week we learned that if we wanted trust, we had stop asking for signatures.

A grocery store clerk writes down passport information for a routine purchase at his store.
To reduce the risk of compromising these churches by unintentionally drawing attention to their hospitality, and to
respect the limits of our tourist visas, we stayed at nine different places in four weeks: homes, hostels, hotels, retreat
centers and seminaries. In each place, we had to present our passports and visas. Our visas were sent to immigration
and returned to us 12-48 hours later. For any bill we used that was $50 or higher, the bill number was recorded along
with our passport numbers and signatures. The government potentially knew where we were and how much we were
spending for almost our entire trip—except the times we stayed at a church; these weren’t recorded. For two of the
four weeks, we were off the radar.
Misguided Preconceptions
Of course I was oblivious to these happenings before we came. Having been entirely charmed by Tourist Cuba on a
five-day birthday celebration three years earlier, I thought everyone Stateside who warned us about communism was
being just a little bit dramatic. This was Caribbean communism. But I could not have imagined the degree to which
not only the Cubans were controlled, but also how much control was being exercised over me while I was there. I
could not have imagined Actual Cuba.

Before we left Miami, I had written a blog about the work we’d be doing thinking, Hey, they can’t even access the
Internet in Cuba so I can say whatever I want. But in reality, we learned, there are informants Googling 24 hours per
day, and when short-term teams go home thinking they are safe to share whatever they want on the internet, it’s the
churches left in the country that suffer.

In addition, many people—including those who have worked with even the most reputable rule-following churches—
find that when they arrive in Cuba for their next mission, their visa is denied based on things they’ve posted online
after returning home. The kicker? Cuba doesn’t tell you your visa has been denied. You show up at the Cuban airport
and find out on arrival you’re not allowed in. As mentioned in the historical articles in Ignite, this happened to the
founder of ECHO.

For all these reasons, after we spent time in country, our purpose shifted dramatically: we would no longer be looking
for the secret stuff. In part out of necessity to protect our host organization and the ministries, but also because, try
as we might, we never saw any type of underground subversive work. We only saw people following rules. This is
evidently the way secret stuff is designed.

Repurposed
So we couldn’t see the secret stuff. We accepted that, but we couldn’t ignore the knowledge of injustice around us.
On the surface and in the tourist areas, you don’t necessarily see the everyday injustices that occur to the average
Cuban citizen, because the average citizen is following all the rules—but dig a little deeper, and you start to get an
idea.

Here is a Cuban’s starting point: random arrests and imprisonments for disagreeing with the political regime; physical
violence, travel restrictions, and forced exile for any behavior deemed as a threat to the regime; imprisonment
without due process or fair trials; mandatory re-education classes for ideas that differ from that of the current regime
(at one time Christians and homosexuals were targets for mandatory re-education camps); restricted access to news
and media outlets; outright denial of the rights to express and assemble; and the most visible of all—poverty.

The average Cuban lives on $20 per month, with government subsidization of housing, utilities, food and bus travel.
The average Cuban is highly educated, so this is a poverty experienced by what the American culture would consider
elite: the doctors, dentists, engineers, pharmacists, linguists, professors, etc. With a literacy rate of 99%, Cuba
produces some of the most skilled and educated asylum seekers in the world.

A line of people standing outside a bakery for their daily ration of bread
Never having seen a ration system, I was fascinated by the list of items and services each citizen had access to,
subsidized by the government, but only available to collect at his own neighborhood-based corner shop. We saw these
lines every morning. This also served as an additional assurance to restrict travel between districts. If you want your
bread and eggs and sugar this week, you’re staying in your own neighborhood!
Monthly allowances per person:
7 kilos rice
3 kilos sugar
2 kilos salt
10 lbs potatoes (but not every month)
10 Eggs
5 kilowatts of electricity for the residence
We had no access to Internet, independent newspapers, or reading material, as there are no printing presses outside
those owned by the government. Though it wasn’t the norm, I am not exaggerating when I tell you a Cuban asked
our German friends which Germany they lived in—East or West.

Same answer, different questions

Most things, we realized, had the appearance of freedom, but actual choices are limited. Yeah, you are free to buy a
car, but it will cost $95 grand. We’ll provide all your food and utility needs, but we’ll determine what your needs are,
and, oh, you can only get it here at this one place, so don’t travel anywhere.
Not surprisingly, worship freedoms follow the same pattern.

Cubans enjoy the freedom to gather, pray, worship, even host street ministries and outreach. Rules and permissions
exist, but as long as a church follows these rules and obtains the right permissions through appropriate channels, they
are relatively free to practice within certain boundaries.
Those boundaries, though.

Churches can exist legally, but no one is allowed to build any. A church in Cuba has two options—use the building of a
church that had been built before the revolution, or exist independently in a house.

A line of people standing outside a bakery for their daily ration of bread

Inside the Iglesia de la Merced in Havana, Cuba. Construction began in 1755 and the church is still in use today.
There are only a handful of pre-revolutionary churches, and they are largely puppet churches to show the rest of the
world, Hey, look! See? We totally have churches! But they’re subsidized by the government, are required to preach
Marxist theology, and comprise the official Council of Cuban Churches, which, as described in the Ignite article about
ECHO, does things like confiscate freely donated Bibles and sell them.

A person is allowed to own a Bible, by the way, but the government won’t import them. An individual from the outside
can enter Cuba with up to seven Bibles. The same is true with Christmas symbols, like nativity sets—allowed, but not
available (ECHO is all over the nativity set accessibility).

Christmas Mission
After 30 years, the Cuban government granted permission to the population to celebrate Christmas by exhibiting
decorations outside their homes and churches.

Most children in Cuba have never seen a nativity scene. Help EchoCuba send 10,000 mini nativity sets crafted of local
olive tree wood by Christians in Bethlehem to Cuban children at $5 each plus shipping.

Most churches exist independently, and they’re called house churches— unofficially limited to about 9-15 people per
house, though we’ve seen people squeeze in up to 30. This explains the desperate need for leadership training, which
ECHO funds. If a neighborhood has 200 congregants meeting 15-20 per house—kids in these two houses, youth in
that house, Sunday School in this house, women in that house, couples in this house—they’d need 10-15 pastoral
leaders trained and ready to lead per congregation.

I thought about how this would play out at my home church of about 6,000 active members. If we had to disperse
into home churches of 20 members each to maintain our existence legally, we would need THREE HUNDRED instant
leaders available and trained.

This type of situation exemplifies, too, why the Cuban church is so desperate for theological resources. They must
constantly equip hundreds of thousands of leaders all over the country—and they have to do it without printing
presses or Internet.

These tablets are an answer to prayer for many pastors in Cuba. Up to 4000 books and other learning materials can
be stored on each device.
Enter tablets. Digital tablets loaded with theological resources allow for the acquisition and distribution of hundreds of
books all over the country. ECHO sends tablets like these with groups who enter the country, several per person.
Don’t miss that. The tablets and Bibles are brought one-by-one, for the entire country.
Such a slow and patient process, equipping the Cuban church.

To accommodate the growing church in a place that doesn’t allow for new church construction, most pastors apply to
construct a “house” on land donated or purchased from a congregant, build a three-story house, live on the top floor
and create a sanctuary and classrooms into the bottom two floors.

Cubans are inventive, you know. The church then becomes the pastor’s home, which is legal. But to build the home,
they need money, and both money and construction supplies are hard to find inside Cuba on a $20-per-month salary.
No part of building or growing a church is subsidized.

The Nations
We immediately understood the dozens of flags strung up over the sanctuary in the first church we visited. Materially,
the Cuban church is almost 100% reliant on the body of Christ outside of Cuba to meet its needs, and God had
provided for the needs of that church through the Nations. The pastor could point to a bench, a Bible, a projector, a
computer, a study tool, a painted wall and tell you which church from which country had contributed to their
patchwork existence. The two measly Bibles we brought suddenly seemed embarrassing.

We toured the church’s facilities as the pastor showed us several initiatives that churches in North America have
funded or physically contributed to in person, many through partnerships forged and monies managed by EchoCuba.
This is not a dependency the outside church has created. This is a dependency the Cuban government has created,
the Cuban church has identified, and the larger church body is providing for. It’s the inverse of the When Helping
Hurts philosophy. This is a case for when helping actually helps.

I had been totally unaware of one entire limb of the body of Christ. I could have gone my whole life and not thought
twice about my brothers and sisters in Cuba who are working so hard to simply exist on the goodwill of their global
family. I was now inextricably connected to my Cuban church family, and I couldn’t un-know their situations. My 15
Bibles at home and the size of my church would hold new meaning.

Free but not free

Throughout the month, we learned that establishing a church and finding a meeting space is only the first hurdle.
Community watchmen in the congregation keep a constant eye on what the preacher is preaching, how the
congregation is stirred, and at what intensity. While the act of social programming—caring for your community—is
encouraged, discussion of discontent is not. Talking about injustice is not.

A church can be disbanded at any time for any reason and/or closed completely.

Isolation
Though all the things listed above pieced together a picture of how limited the religious freedoms really are, the most
impacting and heart-breaking discovery was the isolation.

Because there is no access to Internet or news, nobody has any information about the body of Christ anywhere else in
the world. Even if they had the news from other bodies and nations, there’s no way to connect or reach back out. No
email, Facebook, Skype, or twitter for the average Cuban—not even forwards of kittens dressed as humans or
quintuplets laughing in unison, if you can imagine.

Adding to the seclusion, Cuba has not been a short-term mission destination for most North American churches in the
last 55 years due to the embargo. So as ill-informed as we are about the Cuban church, and as isolated as we feel
from Cuba because of the embargo, imagine how isolated the Cubans feel from the rest of the entire world. We know
almost nothing about them—their struggles, challenges, hopes and testimonies—and they’re only 90 miles away from
us!

When we sat down with a church leader our age to show him World Next Door Magazine, his jaw dropped as I
described the challenges and growth of the local church in Nepal, a country where Christianity is growing fast despite
minority status and masked discrimination.
My friend said, “I thought we were the only ones!”
Can you imagine? I had no idea.

He described how valuable it would be for his congregation if I would go back through each country we’d visited and
write up a little summary of what it’s like to be a Christian there, to share the struggles and encouragements from
each country with his church. The connection to the larger body is essential for fellowship and prayer and
encouragement.

Here’s the punch line: The only way to overcome the isolation barrier is to go there.

When a person from the outside comes in and spends time with the church, sharing and fellowshipping, the pastor
told us, the church is forever changed. The congregation never gets to hear testimonies that other Christians in free
places have struggles and challenges too, and how God works in their lives to teach them things.

Even my own truth-telling about our struggle with infertility brought another four women out of the congregation in
tears, surprised we shared such common ground and faith struggles. Hugs and gifts and prayers were shared between
us, and our joint experiences in different worlds somehow surpassed the expanse of the Florida straits and 55 years of
separation.
So, yeah, EchoCuba does really exciting stuff like fund edgy bloggers and religious freedom programmers and respond
to disasters and bring Bibles and Nativity sets in and load tablets with theological resources and capacity building
materials—all things we can be part of.

But they also connect North American Christians with Cuban Christians. They arrange the lifeline of community
between us, and they pave an easy path.
You can go there!
You, an individual.
You, a family.
You, a small group.
You, a short-term team.
You, a teacher or painter or drummer or counselor or sit-and-visit-er.
You, a Christ-follower able to travel.
You, a Christ-follower willing to sponsor another to travel.
We not only can go there, we have to.
They’re part of us, and we need to take care of each other.

ROMANS 12:5 In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Redefining Normal

Exiled
By Brooke
We had been in Miami for almost a week and were heading to Cuba the next day.

Maria, the religious programming director for EchoCuba, hung up the phone and shook her head no. It was becoming
clear that seeing some of Echo’s programs firsthand would be impossible. However, she offhandedly mentioned that
so-and-so had just arrived in Miami after having been kicked out of Cuba for facilitating the same programs. Maybe
they’d be willing to talk with us.

YES, PLEASE.
A few phone calls later and we were sitting in the living room with Angel and Susana, the couple Maria had
mentioned.

At the time, “kicked out of Cuba” flew right over our heads, and we never really considered what that meant for a
person. The phrase could have been just as easily “sacrificed everything” or “gave up their entire lives.”
We also didn’t expect them to be 20 years old.

Angel and Susana, we learned over espressos, had arrived in Miami three months earlier. They were forced to leave
Cuba for showings provocative films and facilitating discussion groups that focused on religious freedoms &
evangelism—the exact programs we’d hoped to see. This entire movement was conceptualized by Cubans, funded by
Americans, and managed by EchoCuba.

While Angel and Susana’s names and pictures could be used, we were asked not to disclose the name or locations of
their program, because the ministry was still running under new facilitators.

Angel and Susana were in their early twenties, had been married for three years, and had left their entire lives in
Cuba at a moment’s notice. The transition has been challenging, they explained. The first thing I noticed as we sat
together was how bewildered they appeared, equal parts deer-in-headlights and exhaustion. They looked so young.
Way too young to be shouldering a burden of exile, or to have carried a revolutionary program to the margins of
society.

Angel had been a seminary student and on staff at a local church, and Susana was studying to be a librarian—a career
assigned by the government. Moved by compassion toward a marginalized group of Cubans, they spent the first years
of their marriage traveling to remote villages known for a particularly dangerous sect of Santería, a mix of Catholicism
and voodoo, to show films like The Bible Series and the Passion of the Christ in Spanish.

The films were highly attended, Angel explained, because this event was the only form of entertainment around—and
afterward, the group participated in open discussions about Christ and religious freedoms. Angel and Susana were
able to establish formative relationships with young adults in the neighborhoods and were sheltered from the violence
of that particular group of people due to the protection of these new friends.

As the community response grew, so did the exposure. Eventually the government learned (through community
watchmen) that these films and discussions not only had evangelical undertones, but also inspired social and moral
passions in young adults. Other films like Fireproof and October Baby showcased the American lifestyle and raised
moral questions about things like abortion. Government officials began pressuring Angel’s church to stop him from
hosting the films and discussions. If the church wasn’t able to stop Angel, the church would be forced to close.
But Angel believed the program, and the people the program was impacting, were too important to stop. Ultimately,
the church told Angel they had to sacrifice one lamb (him) for the sake of the flock, and they fired him.

He and his new bride Susana suddenly had no income, but he felt the program needed to continue. EchoCuba, which
had been funding the program in part, then picked up Angel’s salary, and he continued to travel around showing the
films and facilitating discussions.

Angel and Susana knew it was risky to continue. In fact, they’d even organized a succession plan in advance so the
program would continue even if something happened to them.
Eventually, of course, something did happen. They were visited by neighborhood watchmen and faced with two
options: jail or exile.

They left their whole lives behind—their educations, families, friends and passions—and came to Miami. One day they
were there, the next day they were here.

I didn’t even know what to say. I wanted to hug them and find a friend group for them and work out their
transportation issues and plug them into a church and soothe them and make everything in the world okay for these
two who had sacrificed everything for something that was so free to me, it was almost value-less. Movies? Talking?
I asked if they would do it again, knowing now what the consequence would be. I wanted to know if the programming
was worth their entire lives.

Angel rubbed his face with his hands and sighed, “Without even thinking, YES,” he said. “If had known from the
beginning we’d have only two years in those communities,” he continued, “I’d have taken more risks—more projects,
publications, theater in the streets—anything to share the love of Christ and the freedom He offers.”
I was speechless and totally humbled.

Here my husband and I were stressing out about which job we should take when our year with World Next Door is
finished because we don’t know which would most glorify God and meet our family goals, and these two were sitting
across from us—our Cuban life parallels—unemployed and exiled because their jobs glorified God at the cost of all
their family goals.

We thanked them for their perspective and sacrifice—they way they’d unknowingly inspired us to consider the bigger
picture of lives and jobs and costs and purpose. In turn, they gave us every possible piece of advice they could think
of, including which juice stands not to drink at, as we departed for the home they could no longer return to.
Tenacious Faith

How the endurance of the Cuban Church is causing the kingdom to

grow
By Brooke

After Jeff and I visited Cuba three years ago, we became a little bit obsessed. Our house became instantly decorated
with Cuban license plates and 40×60 mural prints looking down old Havana streets, and our most played music
channel for an entire year was Buena Vista Social Club. We signed up for rhumba lessons and devoured books about
Che. We watched documentaries and rented movies like the Motorcycle Diaries to understand more about the
country’s history.
However, in all of our obsession, we never found much info on the Church, and it never really occurred to us to ask.
All we knew leading up to this trip was the fact that religion in Cuba was illegal until sometime in the 90s, and that
now it was a little bit legal.

It wasn’t until we arrived in Cuba that we started to wonder: what is the Church’s role in a communist state?
Our first stop was spending a week at a pastor’s church, staying with a local casa particular—a hostel system in
Cuba—and navigating the fog of confusing unwritten rules to learn about what life is like there, what God is doing
there, and how we could be a part of it.

As a free-world-raised writer trying to interpret a communist-run system, I expected to find discontent. I believed the
only real response to injustice was to change the system, and assumed that (of course) everyone would feel the same
way. This seemed the obvious best choice.
But when I sat down in front of one local pastor halfway through our trip, he presented a simple and clear
alternative: endure.

This pastor, who I’ll talk more about later, lives in Cuba, and these are the rules of Cuba. His job is not to challenge
the political system but to work within the system to love his neighbors and transform his community through the love
of Christ.
*drops mic*

I understood immediately that life had equipped me with only one-tenth his grit and ten times the entitlement. From
my perspective, everyone deserves to be every kind of free all the time.

But, I marveled, after spending time in three churches working peacefully within the system—not against it—it turns
out God isn’t actually limited by communism. God’s people have been in and out of captivity since the beginning of
time, but God seems to do his best work in those circumstances.

We visited three churches like this—churches that don’t just exist, but thrive (as much as a church can thrive in a
resource limited environment)!

Pastor Saavedra and his wife make a wonderful team and share responsibilities within the church.
The first church was a beautiful three-story building outside of Havana that appeared relatively new. Pastor Saavedra
lived on the second floor with his wife and three kids—with whom we spent every meal and all our spare time. The
ground floor was the sanctuary, the basement housed the kids’ area and the kitchen, and third and fourth floors were
the seminary classrooms with a couple of dorm rooms. The roof was a community gathering space, and somewhere in
it all was a tiny office with a handful of computers and a bookshelf, holding a small number of theological resources in
Spanish.

The church welcomed us instantly, without fully understanding why we were there. And although it was difficult to do
World Next Door type stuff, like gathering concrete information, we lost ourselves in the warmth and hospitality of the
community.
 The church leadership team
We attended the main church service and the children’s service, we sang along with Cristo Es Mi Superhero, and
laughed with all the kids when a group of clowns showed up as part of a clown ministry. We attended the men’s group
and the women’s groups, the intercessory prayer group, the youth group (“youths” in Cuba, by the way, are 15-40
year-olds!), the worship team practice, the praise services, the elder meeting and the evening seminary classes. Let
me tell you, we went to church that week, and we learned what it meant to belong to that community.

The people in the congregation attended any and every service that even remotely applied to them in any possible
way, because church was their lifeline. If they were not sleeping or working, they were at church. We shared with
each other, the Cubans and I, over several tiny cups of espresso coffee. We spent several days throughout the week
together in the open sanctuary, or in the youth room, or in the pastor’s loft home above the sanctuary. They shared
their hopes and struggles, and my husband and I shared ours. We exchanged Bibles and necklaces and cutting boards
and hot sauce as tokens of remembrance between us.

Though I had collected nothing concrete for World Next Door (in fact, nobody understood why we were even there),
my soul was refreshed and my faith revived. It was like the body of Christ in this little church was a personal gift from
God reminding me that he hears our prayers, and that sometimes he comes to us in the faces of others around us,
even in a communist society.

One of the numerous prayer sessions held during the week at the church – a very powerful experience for all involved.
The congregation nurtured my husband and I– prayed over our marriage and future family, revealed visions of hopes
and shared tears over our mutual sorrows.

The pastor revealed throughout the week that this church exists because it has been supported in full by 20 nations.
Each flag represents a different partnership. Each seminary student sponsored, each tablet containing study materials,
each Bible, the projector, the structure itself, the clowns at Sunday School, the food in the kitchen—were all things
invested in by the body of Christ outside of Cuba.
The people of Cuba survive on the sustenance of their government subsidies. No part of the independent church is
subsidized. All expenses fall to the congregation, and despite a full offering basket each week, the congregation
simply does not have the income (at $20 per month) to provide for the church materially.

Flags representing partner nations of the church hang above the sanctuary.
It was only on one of our last days that I sat down in front of the pastor, my Spanish having improved dramatically
throughout the week, and clearly said: We need to see your needs. We see all these flags from all these countries that
have financed different parts of these ministries, we have experienced the ministries at work, and we want to tell our
community at home how to help. We want in on growing this church’s reach in the community.

He saw our cameras and our notebooks, looked closely at our strange digital publication, and understood, finally, why
we were there.

He took us on a full walking tour of the church and described his visions. We stood together on the empty, crackling
roof that holds different summertime events—the only outdoor space in the urban area—and pointed to the spot that
would one day host equipment for an outdoor weight room as an outreach to young men in the neighborhood. He
walked to the edge and peered out.

A makeshift weight bench used as an outreach to young men in the community

“Do you see that empty lot at the end of the street?” he asked.

We stretched to see the tiny plot of land in the distance.

“It was donated. That will one day be a community garden that feeds the elderly in our community.”

He walked us back inside and through the sanctuary to a tiny classroom off to the side. “This is our Bible Institute.”
The room was no bigger than a 10×10 foot room. Crammed inside were a handful of books and theological resources
and a couple of computers and laptops. This was the technology and resource center for the seminary students. They
were desperate for more tablets, books and laptops.

JH 14654 An example of a community garden outside of the church

The view of the local community as seen from atop the church
He then walked us through the sanctuary, up a narrow staircase, through a corridor, and into a tiny closet. I walked
into the closet, followed the L shape to the right, and there stood a newly constructed studio space!

The studio, funded by an American Church and a ministry in Miami, would allow for distribution of sermons to villages
far away and house churches all over. It would be their biggest tool for outreach, evangelism, and discipleship.
“Would you come back when it’s finished?” he asked. “It will be a celebration, and we want to invite everyone who has
made this possible to come celebrate with us!”

The soon-to-be studio which will allow for the distribution of sermons to far away villages
We could not predict what life would hold for us in the future, but in our best possible life—if God allowed us to plan
these things—we would be at that opening, (At the very least, we explained, we’ll be celebrating from home).

Our next stop, after long goodbyes and hugs passed between us—oh, and several activities between cities to make
good on our tourist visas—was a 1950’s-movie-theater-turned-church in Old Havana.

We knocked on the chained-up steel door, but no answer. We called the pastor’s name—tentatively at first, then
loudly as we rattled the chains on the door, no answer. We sat down on our 80lbs of luggage and waited below as
several neighbors passed and either offered to help by knocking on the doors with broom handles through the metal
bars, or asked us for money. We had no phone number for the pastor, no phone to call him with even if we had a
number, and no Internet to email anyone at home. The taxi driver who had brought us loaded everything back into
his car (no, he would not leave us on the side of the road unaccompanied) and dropped us at a nearby hotel. A hotel
that cost $300 per night, so, you know, not an option.
 The Los Pinos Nuevos congregation worshipping together one Sunday morning in Havana
Eventually we convinced hotel personnel that although we were not guests, we would have no choice but to loiter
unless they gave us some Internet time to contact friends at home via email and have those friends contact the
pastor to let him know where we were. The hotel business center lady smiled and made an exception. We would have
exactly one hour of Internet to solve this problem, so we emailed our friends (and moms) at home, and waited for
something to happen. We checked our email every 15 minutes for 8 hours. The moms at home were a little bit
panicky at this point.

And then suddenly a person was standing in front of me, wiping sweat from his brow and frantically speaking on his
cell. He paused, then turned to me and said, “Brooke?” It was the pastor.
WE WERE CLAIMED!

He and his adult son walked us back a mile or so to the church, and waited as we checked in to a nearby casa
particular. “We thought you were coming tomorrow,” he said. “For the training.”

The training? It turns out we had arrived just in time to meet about 20 local pastors who had traveled from all over
the region to attend a CENCAP training. And here was where the entire month came together.

A group of pastors and church leaders gather in a room for a week-long CENCAP training
CENCAP stands for (in English) Center for Training and is a train-the-trainer initiative of this pastor, Pachy, to
strengthen and equip leaders in the church and to reproduce the trainings in the places leaders live. Trainings are held
almost every week of the year at 250 different locations around the country, and about 7000 Cuban church leaders
have been trained since the program began three years ago.

We not only had the chance to spend time in the training, which provided a time and space for couples in leadership
to pour into each other and into other couples with guided facilitation, but we were invited to spend time getting to
know the couples over meals and during evening free time for the entire week!
We were exposed to the hearts of these pastors, their hopes for their country and communities, their struggles and
successes, and how they were called into ministry. Each person who shared could have been featured in our
Redefining Normal section, because each story involved sacrifice, blind trust, and a “who me?” calling.

One pastor described how his community is awakening because they’re hearing the grace-based gospel of Christ for
the first time instead of the works-based religion so often preached. The Gospel is now being shared with people who
had been typically marginalized in the past, like prostitutes, and these are the ones who can be converted into
leaders! They have few Bibles, though, he shared, which is hard.

His name was Abel and he was from Santa Clara, a city in central Cuba. He sat next to his wife as we sipped coffee
after dinner one evening and shared how they’d abandoned a traditional life together for the uncertain and often
challenging one of becoming pastors in Cuba.

He described how he fell in love with this lady (his wife, Isa, smiling in the seat next to him), how the two had gotten
married and had a son. His wife became pregnant a second time but miscarried the baby. The doctor who treated her
had told the family there was no infection and that everything was fine.
But the doctor was wrong.

Something—bacteria they supposed—had remained untreated, and Isa got a blood infection that turned into a
cerebral infection and caused a stroke. Doctors injected something into her blood through an IV to help determine
where the infection was in her brain, and they decided to operate. The odds were not in her favor. Abel described it
like this, “We had 99 chances to lose and 1 chance to win.”

The doctor was 34 years old and he said to Abel, when he saw their fear, “Behind these hands operates somebody
who is superior to me, and your wife is in his hands.”

Although Abel had not been living in faith at that moment of his adult life, he had come from a Christian home, and he
began to remember things he’d learned as a child. The truth was rooted deep somewhere inside and began to work its
way to the surface.

By the time the operation had finished, Isa had a blood pressure of 0 and was presumed dead. But the doctor said to
Abel, “When man finishes, Christ starts.”

The other doctor said, “Tell me if she has even a tiny pulse.”

Sure enough, she had a little pulse when the doctor checked. By the time she came out of recovery, her blood
pressure was 120/80. She stayed in intensive therapy, and after four days she was allowed to have visitors.
“I stood in front of the glass wall,” Abel said, “And she signaled to me, and I knew what that signal was though the
glass: You and I no longer belong to ourselves; we belong to Jesus. And as long as we live we will tell everyone who
Jesus is and what Jesus has done. And then we started our ministry.”

At this point in the interview, Abel and Isa were holding hands and wiping tears. The interpreter and I were floored. I
wanted to know what happened next.

“We told everyone about Christ,” Abel continued. “Our son became a Christian, my in-laws became Christians.”
Abel began going to all the churches to give testimony of his wife’s healing. A professor gave him a study Bible and
said, “The love of Christ has come to transform your life. I want you to gather a group in your house and talk about
the love of Christ to others.”

And that’s how he became the pastor of a house church. He started meeting with another pastor to get training,
eventually attended several CENCAPs and then started a CENCAP branch in his area for others to be trained.
 Abel and Isa happily married and living out their calling to spread the good news of Jesus
“Our greatest hope,” Abel said, “Is to reach Cuba for Christ. If we could do that, the marginal people would be
included, the love of Christ would be practiced in those neighborhoods, and people will feel loved and needed. It would
be a different Cuba.”

Another couple we sat down with on a different night described a totally different path into ministry. Abel (a different
one) had just finished his military studies and was in medical school. The church he attended at the time didn’t have a
pastor, and as he was praying for a pastor, he felt like God was calling him into leadership. He had been working with
the youth at church and teaching adult Sunday school every other week, so he was already preparing himself and
reading books on leadership in the church.

He wasn’t feeling as great about studying medicine as he was about studying the Bible, and though he didn’t see
himself as a pastor, he knew the church desperately needed one. For three years, Abel explained, he struggled with
what to do, and during that time he met and married his wife Raquel.

Raquel and Abel were our ages, and we had identified with them from the very beginning, though it wasn’t until our
last night we’d actually heard this testimony. Our respect only continued to grow as they continued to share.
Raquel told us that Abel had communicated right away that God was calling him into ministry, but she didn’t feel the
call. So she stayed in nursing school, and Abel continued with medical school.

“One year later,” Abel said, “I found her crying at home. I asked what was wrong, but she didn’t want to tell me. She
shared, through tears, that she felt God calling her into ministry, too. She didn’t want to tell Abel, though, because he
only had one year of medical school left, and she knew the minute he found out, he would drop the program.”
“We were the hopes of our families,” Raquel explained. “It was the special period in Cuba, and the entire country was
going through a difficult time economically. Our families were very poor. We were the only ones who could bring home
salaries for our families.”

But the calling into ministry overpowered their logic. Raquel and Abel left their studies and careers in faith, and for
four months they had no income as they trained. The seminary had temporarily closed due to the circumstances of
the “Special Period” (a time of economic crisis in Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union) but the head pastor at the
seminary sent them to a small community south of Camaguay on the southern border, hours away from their families,
to lead a small church.

“It was a very difficult place,” Abel described. “There was lots of witchcraft and Santaría [a mix of Catholicism and
voodoo]. It was our first church and it became our seminary [of hard knocks!].
“At first we accepted that place,” Raquel said. “We prayed that God would send us where he wanted. But we never
thought they would send us there! About two or three weeks in, we asked the pastor to take us out of there. It was a
place of violence. There were drinking people everywhere, men abused women, and we could hear women at night
screaming. We knew of men killing each other and their wives.

“Other churches were far, so we had no community, no transportation, no phones. But we agreed to take a week and
pray about it. After that week of prayer we felt peace and we knew we had to stay and help the people there. We had
our first daughter there, and we stayed for two and a half years. And in two and a half years, no one came to visit us.
But we traveled from time to time to attend the seminary courses once they resumed again, and eventually we
started studying with a Bible Institute extension.”
I asked what they notice now, how they see God working in their lives as pastors and throughout Cuba.
“At the beginning, when I was a child, church wasn’t even allowed,” Raquel said. “But now God is making it possible
for public church services, celebrations at Christmas and nativity programs! In years past, it was not possible.”

One week the CENCAP training focused on healthy marriages and how to foster these relationships in the church.
“The challenge,” Abel described, “is to prepare and equip leaders. The pastor does everything—he’s the teacher,
evangelist, the visitor, and counselor. But now we are learning to work as a team and to equip others in the church to
lead, which is what CENCAP helps with.”

Abel and Raquel now want to take advantage of the demographic in their church: young professionals, doctors and
lawyers—these are the people primed for leadership, but they need the leadership training.

Currently Abel and Raquel’s church meets in small 20 x 20 ft space with no bathrooms or classrooms. The children’s
classes are divided between two nearby homes, the youth are in a different house, the new believers a different house
to prepare for baptism, and women stay at the main 20 x 20 ft space. People don’t eat or drink before coming to
church, they explained, because they’ll have to go to the bathroom, and the church does not have bathrooms!

Abel and Raquel were willing to give up everything to answer the call of God in their lives: to reach young
professionals and leaders in their community.
The congregation is now fundraising to build a structure on a piece of land donated by a congregant that will house
the pastor and his family, the sanctuary and classrooms on the lower floors.

These were just two sample conversations we had with several couples over the entire week, during meandering
after-dinner walks or morning coffee breaks. The time was so meaningful for Jeff and me to understand the types of
challenges and hopes the average pastor has in cities all over, and to hear their sincere passions for Cuba.

We also traveled to a rural community during the week with one of the pastors to see his in-home seminary, the
several house churches the congregation meets in, and the farm that produces food for all the CENCAP trainings and
elderly feeding ministry.
 Our pastor friend Kendry and his family open their house daily to help train church leaders in rural Cuba.
Throughout the week, the same themes came up: passion in sharing the love of Christ through Cuba and determining
to be missionaries of the gospel of grace within their own land; urgency to capture the hearts of the population for
Christ before anything else does; and the hunger for training and discipleship.

BEING THE GREAT COMMISSION

And then there was Pachy.

Pachy is the guy I mentioned at the beginning—the one who sat across from us and told us matter-of-factly that
politics aren’t even part of the conversation. Feelings aside, this is where he lives and this is the system he is required
to work within. His focus is to love his neighbors and transform his community, and the best possible way to do this is
above board—everything on the table. He patiently wades through the slow process of applying for the right
permissions and visas from the religious affairs people and carries out his projects within the granted limits—for
example, if he applies to feed the kids and elderly in his neighborhood and they only approve feeding the elderly? He
only feeds the elderly. If people (like us) come to visit the church and we only have tourist visas instead of religious
visas, we cannot address the congregation—not even to say hi, though we are warmly welcomed and offered coffee. J

Kids worshipping together in the basement of Los Pinos Nuevos.

He prays for his leaders and simultaneously works alongside them so his church is able to function at the most-
effective legal level possible. And this is what he’s been able to legally accomplish:

Every building on his entire block has been freshly painted, and a Bible has been offered to every household; the
elderly in his neighborhood now have glasses to read the Bible and several had surgery after the discovery of
cataracts during the eye exams. Every morning at 10:30 the elderly in his community are served a hot meal from
food grown at one of the CENCAP’s several local farms. The local school and clinic has been painted, further boosting
neighborhood morale; CENCAP is functioning as an official and legal training program, and experts from all over are
invited into the country as training facilitators. Two thousand trainers are raised up each year at 250 sites throughout
the country. Biblical and theological resources have been distributed to various sites and groups on tablets as part of
the training program, donated by several outside sources.

Pachy’s church started out with about 10 members. They now have several hundred from their own neighborhood and
surrounding communities.

And here’s what dawned on me at the end of my week with this training program: Cuban Christians are not just the
hope of Cuba—they’re the hope of the world. These are the ones who will travel to the far and uncomfortable corners
one day, carrying their experiences and struggles and love. They’ll BE the great commission.
They’re sturdy, long-suffering, persistent, and inventive. The Cubans are such a beloved group of oppressed people,
there’s almost no place they won’t be welcomed warmly—and they’ll come skilled and educated, but with the empathy
and compassion of poverty and oppression.

Cuba is where it’s at, you guys. Leaders are being raised up and equipped, the kingdom is expanding, and we have
the opportunity to be part of it!

We can help equip through training, discipleship, fellowship and encouragement—both directly through the churches
outlined in the article, or through CENCAP, the training program. And we can invite and sponsor pastors from Cuba to
come speak and fellowship in our churches, with our congregations.

This is how it’s done: in partnership, made possible by each pastor’s endurance.