Cuba Trip

Many mission trips: first one where I've been on a religious visa. It was a privilege to know that we had a right in a communist country to share the gospel. 

They don't have McDonald's, coco cola nor any American products, including cheese. The pastor even had to go out of the way to hunt for cheese. But none the less they are ordinary people just like you and me.

This was the first mission trip which we did not have to be so much trained but just prayed up before we were sent out to meet people. I felt privileged that the leaders of the mission team trusted God and trusted the students to go out and share Jesus in whatever way God was leading me too.

I LOVE how our team had such a culture of unity. There was a culture shock for me even in the team, because all of us come from different ages and cultures. We all come from different upbringings and denominations, different styles of worship, but we were all able to work together in unity for one sole purpose, Jesus Christ. It was amazing to see how great we were able to work together. Not only that, it was great to get to know my classmates outside a classroom context and hearing all their personal narratives and story.  I'm so glad that god chooses to use us as part of his story.

One example is: in one of the home visits we went out to, I went with a latasha, Christian, some of the locals from Cuba and two men from the states, one from Oklahoma and one from Wisconsin. There are different ways to present the gospel. One shared through the gospel through healing and another through relationship. It opened my eyes to see that even in the states, there are so many differences but the gospel is still shared nonetheless.

One thing that amazed me was how active the home church base was so active. They receive mission teams many times a year and so there are always people actively serving the people here in Cuba.  I spoke to many of the missionaries there who were from the states and heard many of their testimonies. I'm just so amazed at how God is using people who have been changed, transformed and renewed in Christ and passionately going out to different countries to share the love of Christ.

One of the main reasons why I was so excited to go to Cuba was to see their house church movement. Recently in my church,  our pastor has been trying to promote the house church movement to strip away from the traditional church and go back to the basics. One thing I learned was that there is such a need for house churches In Cuba and house churches are birthed so naturally there because people are desperate to come together corporately to worship god.  It made my perspective change because we as Americans are so privileged to have real physical church buildings. Ten years ago, there were four house churches, today they have 72.  They had a great system in place not just to preach the gospel, but follow up where their workers can be trained to continue to serve him until older.  One of the house church members we worked very closely was a young lady who was 24 years old and grew up in the church. She didn't grow up in the faith but through children ministry outreach events, she came to be saved and so did her mother. 

I was most blessed by some of the seminary students who took their time to stay with us the three days we were in the seminary. They are typically busy studying and involved in their own ministry but they took the time to spend with us. We shared many nights staying up late, shared testimonies with each other.  One conclusion nichole realized after debriefing with each other is that God chose each and everyone us, not because of our own works, but he hand picked us and used us exactly where we were in our own personal lives for his own glory.

Today, Carlos had said that he was so grateful because he really did not want to take the time out but he did out of obedience to his professor. Yosneis said that he really appreciated how we went out of our way to interact with everyone here, not just the students but the workers and kitchen ladies as well. It's all about different perspectives. Some will say there are no more Christians in Cuba but Cuba says "Christ never left"

To wrap it up, one mission team member whose name is LeRon said a quote: I don't know why I'm so amazed but everyone God does something, I'm so amazed!!!