Confessions of an Introvert

 I’m losing it.  It’s not so much the heat, or the humidity or the flies, mosquitoes and dirt.  There are just too many people crammed into one space.  I can’t go to the bathroom when I need to.  I can’t walk 10 feet without saying “permiso” 5 times.  I just want to be able to pee when I need to and not hold it for 12 hrs.  I want to be able to wake up, brush my teeth and wash my face without waiting in a line 9 people deep.  I want quiet.  Peace and quiet.  I have complete time-to-myself debt.  Majorly.  It’s wearing me down.  I don’t want to see or hear another person.

- Christina

Just to give you a sense of how crowded it was... this is Oscar trying to sleep in the midst of all our luggage.

Wednesday July 6, 2011Ñ Snapshots of Poverty:

On the outside, it’s not always so obvious that Cuba is a poor country.  People adorn themselves with Gucci and Chanel clothing, much like rich New Yorkers, except theirs are cheap knock-offs from China.  However, on closer glance, it’s obvious it’s clear that Cubans struggle to make ends meet. 

Today I had a conversation with Ivan, the video/tech person at the church about the cost of electricity relative to income.  Their bill last month was $30, but their income is about $20/ month.  So, the question is … how does he pay for his electricity?  And, more importantly, how does he afford to support his family on that income?

Paul’s perspective with Esther’s tweaks

Space

When Rachel mentioned that we’d be camping at the youth retreat, I thought, “Simple… I got this down.” 

So, after arriving at the “camp,” we found ourselves standing with 55 other youth kids in front of a one room church a mile from the ocean, with two showers – one of which was outside next to the chicken coup. The bathroom shower floor had a sprinkling of dead roaches and lots of mosquitoes all waiting to eat me alive.  There’s no land phone.

I had to laugh at myself.

After spraying myself with four layers of Offskintastic bug spray, I attempted to fall asleep to the giggles and squeals of high school girls all the while afraid to move for fear that I’d wake up Christina sleeping on the pad next to me.  At 6 a.m. multiple roosters crowed and I awoke with mosquito bites all over my body – one of which has become so swollen that it is almost the size of my palm (so much for 1^st world bug spray in a 3^rd world country).

I don’t know why it never occurred to me that in the Third World, people don’t go camping and rent cabins or tents.  In fact, you can’t rent cabins in a Third World country.  Very poor people live in them and they’re called shacks. 

In fact, their idea of “camping” pushes my 1^st world boundaries of comfort, cleanliness but more so of space.  I like space. I need    s    p    a   c    e.  As an introvert, I need the emotional space to process.  It also gives me silence, as I deal with culture shock.  And, this has been hard to come by at a youth camp and especially in a country where everything including space is shared.

So, my prayer for Team Cuba, at this moment is for rest.  Christina has somehow managed to crash and is currently asleep on the bunk in back of me.  But, the rest of us are struggling.  A chicken has just run over Rachel, waking her up as she tries to nap.  Seth is at the moment attempting to write a sermon in a very noisy room filled with kids playing board games.  May we find the silence and space to reflect on the past few days … during the next much needed hours.


-Esther

Married People Funnies

Oscar:  You think you could survive in Cuba?

Rachel: No.

Oscar: No, honey, you could… You would adapt.

Rachel: No Oscar, I couldn’t.  Do you know how many times I go to the grocery store in one week?  Do you know how much laundry detergent I use?

Oscar [pauses to think about it.]  Oh…you’re right.  You couldn’t.

Tuesday July 5, 2011 'Spiritual Spring

The church we are staying at for youth camp was closed for 19 years due to communism. An elderly couple tried to keep the church open. The old woman came by to water the sole plant that was left in the churchyard. The government almost threw her husband in jail for trying to open the church on Sunday. But, they prayed and prayed and prayed and hoped that one day, they would be able to worship again freely.

Lately, with the Cuban government starting to relax its control over the church, it is starting to grow again. The pastor explains that much like a spiritual spring, how there’s a consistent 20-person congregation now and they just baptized 6 members this past Sunday. Today, Seth preached to a full house of 65 people, so much that it became standing room only. One woman arrived, went home and came back with her own chair for service. Just like there is no longer a sole plant, but a garden blooming full of flowers, so also is the church in Cuba.

I can’t help but wonder if this tiny spiritual revival started because God heard the prayers of an old couple in rural Cuba and decided to answer by allowing all the kids sitting in this room to openly experience the gospel.

Oscar’s story as told by Esther

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

On Marriage:

“I met my wife and proposed the following week.  We were both 18 at the time,” Pastor Alexis explained to Seth, Christina, Paul and I.

Gasp.

“I’m Cuban.  What can I say?  We are a very romantic people.  We meet that person and it happens very fast… “

But, how did you know she was the one?

“I got engaged and fell in love later.”  He explains.  “We got to know each other and then we figured out we couldn’t live without one another.” 

“We do it the opposite in America, I explain, “We fall in love and then we get engaged.”

He shakes his head.

“Yes, but some of you just wait and wait and wait and never get married.  There is no perfect person, you know?  When you hit the hard stuff, you commit to working things out.  It is not good for man to be alone.  We are meant to experience God in community, and marriage is just one of those covenants God calls to live in.  What are you waiting for?  ” 

The four of us look at each other blankly.

Sunday July 3rd, 2011 Survival and Resilience:

Here’s a test of survival: If I gave you a tire, a screwdriver, and a dollar, and dropped you off in New York City, could you figure out how to get home?  I would fail this test, but Cubans would pass with flying colors.  

To own a Cuba in rare and those who own a car do so because their family owned one in the 1950s.  It is expensive in upkeep, especially since those replaceable parts are no longer manufactured.  So, if you want to transport people in a major city to and from church each week, how do you do so in a nation where people hitch hike on the side of the road for hours hoping desperately for someone to give them a ride? 

Jose Manual figured out how to solve this problem with his bare hands, literally.  He found the empty frame of a bus and with the Southern Baptist convention’s financial help, replaced the 1948 motor, and then scrounged around for seats.  It just so happened at the time that Cuba’s National Baseball team was retiring the seats on their bus, so he bought the seats for $10 bucks each and drilled them into the floor of his bus, and repainted it with his wife.

“The family of God,” as Oscar says, “is alive in Cuba and doing God’s work with whatever resources they can find.”  Jose built his bus together in 8 months using salvage parts and now drives followers of Jesus all over to Cuba to church, retreats and meetings.  His story is a refreshing reminder of what the body of Christ, each doing their own part to support the church, looks like in a different cultural context. 

----

Jose is the Jesus buses’ sole mechanic and he told Oscar that he’s in desperate need of some new tools.  He makes a salary of $20/ month and being able to replace the screwdriver he uses which is half broken and the ball pin hammer that if he twists hard enough will fall apart is impossible on his salary.  Oscar said he’d figure out what we could do and see if we can bring it to him on our next trip to Cuba in November.  Would you like to help out?  Any financial donation would be greatly appreciated.

Glimpses:

As the wheels of our plane hit the runway in Cuba, our entire plane simultaneously erupts into a unanimous applause where everyone is hooting with joy. 

Being able to go home must be an incredible feeling, to return to the place where you grew up, where you felt both known and loved.  For many of the passengers on the plane, this is a homecoming since the travel restrictions placed on Cuban Americans have prevented many of them from visiting. 

After we finally find all 460+lbs of luggage, we go through doors open where a massive group of Cubans surround the metal fence marking the front of the airport.  As Christina and I make our way through the front gate, we are greeted with an anticipating crowd, who are all waving and searching for loved ones.

For the next thirty minutes as we load the luggage into the car, I watch strangers embrace their loved ones.  I see an uncle and an aunt jump up and down, waving excitedly at their niece and nephew who have come for a summer.  I witness grandparents cry as they meet their newly born grandchildren for the first time. 

The scene at the airport was beautiful, honestly.  It made me want to cry and laugh and hug a random stranger, but the side of me that believes in social acceptability in a foreign country refrained.  But, really, it felt like …

It felt like a glimpse of heaven. 

I imagine that when we get to heaven, all we will feel is an immense amount of joy and fullness, for we have finally reached the place we have longed for all our lives.  Not only that, there will be all these people that loved us through the hard parts, shared in our joys, and left to go home before we got to say goodbye waiting for us at the gate to welcome us home. 

And, what’s more, Jesus will be there and we will finally glimpse Him face to face, which will make all the suffering and hard stuff we had to go through seem worth it.

---

Here’s to being reminded of the kingdom of heaven in the Havana, Cuba airport.

Flexibility Practice:

“We need to be at the Miami airport at 3:30pm,” Rachel explains.

“Oh, so, what time does our flight leave?”  I ask.

“At 7:30pm.”  She says.

Oh, okay … wait… a minute…we need to be at the airport 4 hours earlier in order to make our flight to Cuba?  

I assume this is partly because of the fact that maybe things move slower in communist countries, so getting into a country must be just as slow. 

When we finally arrive at the Miami airport, everything starts to make sense as I witness the line of passengers waiting to check in their luggage that is so long that standing at the back of it, I can’t see the front of it.  No, really, even if I was 7 feet tall, I still couldn’t see the front of it from standing here.  In fact, the line winds around the corner and spins and spins and spins until somehow you end up talking to a very important and powerful person that looks at your papers and decides whether you have the legal papers needed to enter into Cuba. 

Wonderful. 

“Sometimes they lose the papers and you have to start all over,” Rachel adds.

Three and half hours later.

We are still standing in line.  We managed to stand in three lines during the first three hours:  first in the pre-check in line, then in the check-in line where we handed off 450lbs of luggage, and then in the “now you need to pay money because you brought too much luggage line.”  We waited in line for a really long time today.

I look at my team and they all look wiped out.  I laugh.  We’re in Miami.  We haven’t even got to Cuba yet and we’re exhausted!

“Be like a rubber band.  Learn to be flexible,” Auntie Miriam’s voice echoes in my head. 

----

Here’s to practicing being patient about simple things on our way to Cuba, a place where we Americans will adjust to being flexible about all things.

Meet Uncle Raphael

Earlier today, when we arrived in Florida, we were met by a quirky elderly man named Raphael who I later found out is Seth’s uncle.

“Isn’t he adorable?!”  Christina asks me.

A retired pastor, he can talk to literally anyone and he still does, on a daily basis at the age of 80+.

“I’m going to get some ice cream at Walmart,” he’ll inform his wife, Aunt Miriam in the morning before disappearing.

Did he get lost?  He’s been gone for three hours.

No, no.  He didn’t get lost.  He’s still at Walmart.

Still at Walmart?

Yes and he does this on a daily basis, so much so that we shouldn’t be alarmed … 

Alarmed at what?

Well, that he’s still at Walmart, where he is lovingly known as the Mentos man.  He knows each person that works there by name and every day, he goes around offering them a Mentos, asking them how they’re doing, how so-and so’s surgery went, and figuring out how to brighten their day with his jokes, a smile and the love of Jesus.

Honestly, I don’t quite know how this works, because I’m half his age and there are days when I wake up and I am crabby, grumpy, and lacking in all fruits of the Spirit including niceness (if that counts).  But, then today, I met Uncle Raphael whom I’m sure is frail, human, broken and has his stinky days because of the Fall, just like me, but he seems to carry around joy wherever he goes…

As I was reflecting on this, I felt God whisper, “This is what it looks like to know the heart of Jesus… You know, in the deep way, where my love heals and changes, makes you whole enough that it can’t help but overflow out of you into a broken world that is so desperately to see and experience glimpses of me…” This is what it looks like to embody the love of Christ to the world.

I pray more than anything that now, during my thirties, that I find Jesus or more importantly that Jesus continues to find me and I let Him love me until my life truly reflects a life transformed by the gospel.  So, that when I am old and gray and retired from teaching, I will know Him in such a way that God blesses me with a quirky place, like Uncle Raphael was given Walmart, where I can continue to love people with contagious joy…

we're in Florida!

We've arrived in Florida.  It is very humid and we are very sleep deprived.... 

468lbs of luggage are being transported with us to Cuba in just a short bit.

.... now ... we're on our way to the airport.... 

-esther

An annoying question.

Hi I'm Seth. I'm one of two half-Cubans on this trip. the other is my cousin Paul. It's his maiden voyage to our family's motherland (for half our family at least). I've been there on four prior occasions. Each successive trip for me has brought a new appreciation for a culture that seems so removed from my day-to-day experience as an American, yet at the same time, strangely so 'close to home' (after all, I've been around Cubans my whole life).

I think what I've come to admire is the social vitality that exists in Cuba independent of the materialism and consumerism that we seem to think makes life so fab for us here in the good ol' USA. It's more than refreshing (and somewhat erie) to drive around a city in which there are absolutely no advertisements cajoling you buy things you don't need.

And would it shock you to know that people there still laugh? People still love? People still have families? It's all true. In fact, there's a vibrancy to Cuban culture that as an American I find romantic, and it stems from the passionate heart of the Cuban people (this, as as a half-Cuban, I recognize in my family).

Could life in Cuba could be easier and more comfortable? Yes. Could it be better? Sure...however, I guess it depends on who's defining 'better.' Leaving semantics and culturally-biased definitions aside, I understand this. No culture is without need of redemption (including our own).

What I've been continuing to process with every trip to Cuba I've taken is this lingering, and very annoying question: What is it that makes life 'good'? It's way easier to go on living your life and never so much as ponder the question. That's why we have network television.

The bottom line is that I know my life needs to be centered on God. It all begins with that. The problem comes in translating faith into real world life decisions when every thing around you yells at you that you need more of this and more of that...the voice of Jesus inevitably ends up getting the mute button.

This blog is called 'finding jesus in Cuba.' I like that. I think it means finding where Jesus is alive in Cuba, and from what I've seen and heard the church is indeed alive down there. But I also wonder if it means that I might find jesus in Cuba for myself.

Not that I've lost jesus. But maybe he has something to tell me about what it means to live a 'good' life by hanging out with some of the youth at the camp we're visiting. Maybe Jesus has something to tell me about how life can be a little more simple and still be a little more than good.

Are you all in Cuba, yet?

Sort of... close, but no Cuban cigar (lame joke).


We are headed for Miami on a red-eye flight from SFO tonight around 11pm.


We're arriving in Cuba tomorrow afternoon(7/2) where the weather is expected to be a humid 90-95F degrees during the day and 77F at night.

Rubber Band Faith:

In response to the news that our flight to Cuba has been delayed for a few hours, Rachel's sister writes in an email to us, "Become a rubber band.  Adjust to change.  It will happen during this trip."  

Intuitively, we know that calling Cuban Travel Services to complain will get us absolutely nowhere.  However, if this were a domestic American airline, one of us would have called customer service line to ask for a refund or credit for a replacement flight.  If enough was on the line, we might even ask to speak to the manager.  

Why?  Because in America, we believe we're entitled.  It's our God-given right to have life go our way.  For the most part, living in the land of plenty, we're used to having life happen the way we want it to.   This is why, a wise older person explained, our generation is stuck in a regressive spiritual state, where we think Jesus is actually Santa Claus.

This truth hit home to me a bit more during a conversation I had with my dad a survivor of communism a few years back.  As part of the privileged class, my father's family lost everything when the communists took over China.  Accused of being an anti-communist, my dad lost his career as an engineer, was tortured by the Red Guards, went into hiding, and drank cabbage and water soup for months.  

As I listened to the story he was able to tell (some of the details are still too hard for him to share), I couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you get angry at God?"

First, he chuckled, as if my question was a bit outrageous.  

Then he said something along the lines of, "Why should I be angry at God?  What happened to me during those years wasn't God's fault... it's just life.  Life just happened that way..." 

Just the mere fact that I had to ask him about whether or not he got upset at God reflects how much I am shaped by the privileged often plastic world of America.  There are moments when I realize that I have come to believe aspects of the Jesus as Santa Claus gospel.  For, if God loves me and I try to be a nice person, I will never have to worry about my parents growing old or watch my best friend battle cancer, as she loses all her hair and wonders if she's still beautiful.  Those are the times when I want Jesus to be Santa Claus and fix the parts that aren't going as I want them go.

Dave Evans, a mentor from college, once asked me if I wanted to follow a Jesus who changed my reality OR penetrated my reality. As we embark for communist Cuba today, as rubber band Americans who practice going with the flow, I sense that we will quickly realize what the world has always known:  we are not in control of our lives, but God is - even and especially in the brokenness.

May I come to see that I serve a God who has the power to change reality, but who chooses instead to be fully present in the mess of this world.  I pray that while in Cuba, He chooses to use the moments when life doesn't go our way to perfect our faith: to help us see Him more clearly, trust Him more deeply and serve Him more truly with our lives...

-esther