Monday July 4, 2011 Much love:

I am in a very poor country.  Here in Cuba, toilet paper is a gift and hot water is a privilege.  All the paint is peeling and people live in buildings that in America would be seen as unsafe, because well, figuring out how to make enough to eat to feed your children is first priority and sometimes the only priority of the day.  

Yet, somehow, in this country that seems lost in a time warp, fifty years behind their neighbors in the West, I find myself moved by love. 

There is so much love here. 

They welcome us with hugs and kisses, cheek smooches and hugs that melt my dislike of being embraced by strangers.  Our bedrooms at the church contain so many fans, that Christina suspects the church members gave us their own, so that we would be a little more comfortable during the night.  They offer us their beds and although we refuse, their gesture is a nonverbal act that speaks volumes to their kindness. 

They have so little materially, but they have so much love, which unlike a nation’s GDP or GNP cannot be measured and quantified. Why is it that they so easily love strangers and welcome us into their homes?  Is it because they are, as Seth says, a romantic people who find it easy to express and give love?  Is it because Latin America understands community in ways that are much deeper than our individualistic culture in America can express?  Or, could it be, that the church in Cuba has come to understand in a nation of scarcity that God’s love knows no boundaries? 

And, this, my dear friends and readers, is what I am so grateful to experience the church here in Cuba, an example of what the family of God seeks to emulate to the world – the goodness and kindness of Jesus to the world and to one another. 

'Esther