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
