Thursday, August 1, 2019

Adult Leader Cuba Reflection - Rev. John Leedy


The 2019 Youth Mission Team would like to say a big THANK YOU to our UPC and FPC families for all the support, love, and prayers that accompanied us on our adventure to Cuba. We could not have made this trip happen without a community of faith and friends behind us. Your dedication to the Christian Formation of our youth shows in the lives that were changed in Cuba and we are all so very grateful. Your support through participation in our Cuba Gala, your gifts of financial and material donations, your prayers, your blessing, and your engagement with our young people – all of it was felt every step of the way. From all of us, thank you.

            The trip itself was spectacular and unlike any other mission trip we’ve taken with the youth ministry thus far. Our adventure started at 3:00 am on July 23rd when all of the sleepy youth and adult leadership from University and First Presbyterian Churches arrived at the airport to catch our 5:30 am flight from Austin to Miami. It is here I want to specifically thank the parents and spouses who sacrificed a good night of sleep to get their loved ones off with a hug at the airport. After a seven-hour layover in Miami and a two hour weather delay on the tarmac, we left Miami and landed in Santa Clara around 8:45 pm. Landing in Cuba was a strange experience. Personally speaking, Cuba was always spoken of as an “off limits” place when I was growing up and I had resigned myself to think of Cuba as one of those places in the world I would never have the chance to visit. Seeing the lush, green Cuban countryside out the airplane’s window was surreal. Travel weary and hungry, the mission team cheered when we walked down the jet way and took our first steps on Cuban soil. 

            Obviously there were many unknowns awaiting us when we arrived in Cuba – including what the process of getting through customs and immigration would be like. Thankful, a Cuban airport agent and members of our adult leadership team who had travelled to Cuba previously made the process smooth, and once all of our bags were collected and the 16 members of our team accounted for, we got on the big yellow El Centro Presbytery school bus and began the drive into the night. Our first stop was the town of Camajuani and to the Presbyterian Church there where half of our group would stay for the week. After we dropped them off, the bus continued to the Presbyterian Church in the town of Remedios when the other half, including the majority of the UPC youth and adults, would stay for the week. One of the most memorable moments from the trip happened as we pulled up to the church in Remedios. We arrived around 9:45 pm and as the bus pulled up alongside the curb of the church, we saw light shining through an open door to the church. Through the door we saw tables set with tablecloths, folded cloth napkins, and a feast awaiting our arrival. Such was the hospitality we experienced from the Cuban people throughout our entire time. The pastors of the two Presbyterian Churches, Pastor Jesús and Pastor Marielys (also a clergy couple) assisted and guided us every step of the way. Elders and deacons from the churches cooked food, provided translation services, and even brought sheets and towels from their own homes for us to use. Every meal was a feast: pulled pork and chicken, fried plantains, shrimp and fish, fresh mango and guava, avocados that were literally the size of your face, coffee and clean water, and the quintessential Cuban rice and beans. Our bunk style accommodations had air conditioning (a rare amenity in Cuba) and hot showers (90% of Cubans do not have a shower in their home). Our host sites were understanding of our need to rest in the midst of the extreme heat and humidity and provided ample opportunities for siestas. 

            Among the many aspects of the trip that made it unique was the work we did. Our primary focus for the week was building relationships with the Cuban people and engaging in mutual dialogue about what life and church are like in Cuba and the United States. Every day our youth sat with Cuban teenagers and shared their experiences as they made friendship bracelets, swam at the beach, walked through the town plaza, ate, and played endless games of dominos. Such work requires a different kind of giving of oneself than other forms of mission work. Our youth had to navigate the initial cultural awkwardness and differences with a group of young people who live totally different lives than they do. They had to navigate differences in language, politics, economics, and cultural references at every turn. This type of work takes an enormous effort (for both our youth and the Cuban youth) to approach such interactions with intentionality and mutuality. Our youth never approached the Cuban youth with the assumption that the Americans had everything all figured out and we were there to set the Cubans straight. Both our youth and the Cuban youth asked thoughtful questions of each other, learned, laughed, took selfies, listened to one another’s music, played sandlot baseball, worshiped and prayed together, and, after a time, became friends. Sometimes it’s hard on mission trips like these when there isn’t a physical “something” that we built to show for our time there. But the thing that was built was connection, understanding, mutual love and appreciation, and Christian fellowship across cultures. The thing I have to show from this trip was when my mobile phone finally reconnected to cell service in Miami and I had new friend requests waiting for me on my social media from the youth and adults in Cuba. Those connections with our Presbyterian sisters and brothers in Cuba mean the world and will continue long after the glow of the trip has faded to memory. 

            One final story. On our last evening in Cuba, one of the Cuban teenagers, Alejandro, whom our group had grown close to over the week, invited the group of three boys from UPC and FPC to take a walk in the downtown area of Remedios. I volunteered to accompany the group for what was pitched as a 30-minute walk through the town plaza. As it was already 9:15 pm with an early wake up the next morning, I was anticipating one last brief stroll past the colorful buildings, vintage cars, and guitar and maraca trios playing salsa music outside the hotels. Cuba is a profoundly safe country. With strict government gun control, absence of drug abuse, and almost no theft, walking around the streets at night felt free and easy with many of the locals sitting outside the stifling heat of their homes in the cool evening breeze. Our Cuban friend, Alejandro, lead us to the town square, past the beautiful old Catholic church with it’s 17th century carved wooden roof, past the office of the PCC (the Cuban political party), past the memorial to Che Guevara and posters of Fidel Castro, past the Cohiba cigar factory, past the hospital, the schools, and the bakery. Looking at my watch and gauging how far away from the church we were, I was starting to get the feel we were in for something of “a three hour tour”. Finally, Alejandro asks if we’d like to visit his home and meet his family. Ah. That’s what this walking tour was actually about. We, of course, agree and begin our walk through another neighborhood. After around 20 minutes of walking and talking, and surreptitious watch checking on my part, he turns to us and apologizes that his home is out in the country. (Deep breath, John. Deep breath.) We’re committed now and we’re going to see this through. Finally, out in the middle of farmland, banana trees, and cows mooing in the fields, we reach the home of this Cuban teenager. Although I’m confident his family was not expecting a group of four Americans to drop by, unannounced, at 10:15 pm, the hospitality we were shown in their tiny front living room was unlike anything any of us had ever experienced - chairs were brought out and furniture rearranged, fans were moved, glasses of fruit juice were brought in, and hugs and kisses were shared by all. We met Alejandro’s mother and grandmother, his aunt and grandfather, and talked freely together as if we’d known one another for years. Toward the end of our stay, Alejandro’s grandfather leans over to me with his hand on his heart and says, in Spanish, “Our family is your family and our home is your home.” From his tone and sincerity, his words did not come across as a platitude or an overly effusive thing one says to guests. Reflecting with our youth on the walk back home, I reminded them of the Christian discipline of radical hospitality and how it is faithful work to welcome the stranger as if they were Christ himself. That point did not need much further emphasis since all of us were still processing the experience of being welcomed in such a profound way. Stories like this and a hundred more are what we return home from Cuba with and we look forward to sharing them with our UPC church family in the days and weeks to come. 

            It was a joy and privilege to have the opportunity to partner in ministry with some great folks this past week in Cuba. The leadership team for the trip included Rev. Dr. Sarah Allen (FPC), Ray Lopez (FPC), Stephanie Holmsten (UPC), Michelle Ruiz (UPC), and myself. The youth mission team from UPC consisted of Emma Faidley, Caleb Jackson, Edith Holmsten, Xander Greenway, and Natalie Holmsten. The youth mission team from FPC consisted of Zach, Madeleine, Emma, Leo, Camille, and Susan. We especially want to thank these folks for their willingness to trust God on this adventure and their openness and love they shared with the people in Cuba. We also want to thank God for the invitation from El Centro Presbytery, the radical hospitality of the Presbyterian Churches of Remedios and Camajuani and their members, the deeply faithful pastors Marielys and Jesús, our wonderful translator Maykel, our fearless bus driver Osmani, the amazing Cuban youth: Luis, Ryson, Alejandro, Thalia, Eduardo, Rosy, Yanira, Cesia, and their friends, Mike Murphy for being our emergency contact, Caly Fernandez and the Cuba Partners Network, for the UPC and FPC staff that assisted in logistics and communication efforts, and finally the congregations of UPC and FPC for their generous support and unfailing prayers. In the end, gratitude and joy remain. Thanks be to God.

-Rev. John Leedy
Associate Pastor
University Presbyterian Church