Greetings from Florida

Warning:  This post has not been written or approved by your regular blogger, Esther.
To get the introductions out of the way, my name is Paul. Unlike the rest of the Cuba team, I’m from Jacksonville, FL – some 2,662 miles away...

Tangent: the mileage is according to the “walking” directions from Google maps. What I find amusing is that Google finds the need to warn you sidewalks may be missing during portions of the trip, but doesn’t really see any need to warn you that you’re planning to walk over 2,500 miles which should take well over a month, but I digress….

Having grown up in Florida, and going to college in south Florida I’ve been asked many times why I would go to Cuba. I was told “What a waste of vacation time? Why don’t you just take a weekend and go down to Miami, it’s the same thing?” While Cubans have definitely conquered Miami and are making their way north into Broward, there’s still something missing…

While it’s not the most apparent from looking at me, I am a first generation American on my mother’s side of the family. With that, the opportunity to go to Cuba holds a special meaning – it’s the chance to see where my grandparents grew up and where my mother was born. Up until now, my impressions from Cuba have come from stories my grandparents tell me and the I Love Lucy reruns from when Lucy went to Cuba and met Ricki…

As Esther pointed out, Cuba does seem to be frozen in the same time as those I Love Lucy episodes, but that’s the key to why a weekend in Miami doesn’t constitute the same as seeing how people live in Cuba.
I’ve never been to a communist country. I’ve never been to a place where you can be thrown in jail simply for saying the wrong thing or uttering a sarcastic joke. I’m well aware of the spoils I get from my family’s decision to leave Cuba 50 years ago (in January), but this trip represents a glimps of “what if…” to me. What if they hadn’t left? What if I was born and raised there? How would life be then?

Next week is the final countdown. Friday, I leave straight from work to Broward county and then meet up with the team Saturday morning (meeting Christina and Esther for the first time). In addition to praying for our safety and praying that God touches the hearts of myself, my team mates, and those we meet in Cuba, I ask you to pray for time management, that we can all finish our pre-trip to-do lists.