My Cuban Trip, Part 9

We awoke the next morning and headed to the church in Santiago de Cuba. They led us to the roof of the church, where there was an enclosed room with lunch set up for us. You can see that we each had some rice, some fruit, and a small piece of meat. Again, many of the people of the church had given up some of their food so that we could eat.


It was extremely hot that day. After we ate, we went out on the roof to enjoy the breeze and the view. Santiago de Cuba is near the coast and the mountains.

Then we went back into the church where we heard several people talk about the ministry there in Santiago de Cuba and the work they were doing there to teach the children about the Bible. We were able to bring many materials to them that they would not have been able to afford on their own.

When we left there, we walked around the city for a bit and then took a tour of an old house. It was filled with antiques and we had a wonderful and informative guide. I was able to understand everything she said and would probably even have been able to translate if our guide hadn't been there.

We went to the mission's city headquarters, where we waited until evening to go see one of the children's club meetings. I think it was around 2 in the afternoon, and the meeting didn't start until 7. We waited in this large, non-air conditioned room all that time. Normally, I would've been impatient, upset, bored and generally unhappy. But God just gave me tremendous peace and I sat there and took a nap. Then I talked to some of the other team members and before long it was time to go.

We all went in shifts in the enclosed back of a truck. We arrived in a small neighborhood and walked to a home where the children were having a club meeting. Ten of us went in at a time. The children were adorable and it was so much fun to watch them singing and answering questions about the lesson.

Then it was back to the airport for a flight back to Havana. We would be arriving at our hotel sometime around midnight, and we would need to leave at 7 a.m. to get to the airport for our flight back to the Dominican Republic. The hotel staff had a midnight snack waiting for us. I sat up and talked to several of the other people on the trip for quite a while. Around 3 a.m. we decided we should probably get to sleep!

More later!