Hyde Park Speaks

Destination Making God's Love Real: Cuba

By Mandy Cloninger

The flurries of excitement are really building as the departure for our team to Havana, Cuba, is nearing! Tonight we weighed our many bags and packed it all up for the drive to Miami tomorrow.

I had the pleasure this spring at Hyde Park to hear both Pastor Diaz and Bishop Pareira from Cuba speak and preach about how the Lord is working in Cuba. I left with a hungry heart ready to serve on the Cuba mission team. Something Pastor Diaz shared really stuck with me. He quoted from Ezekial 47, and said there's a river of living water within each of us but that even with the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, sometimes we just stand there in the water, and the Lord has to come along with His thorns and poke us (he likened it to birds getting too comfortable in their nests). That sometimes we're too comfortable, so He comes and shakes it up. He described the Christian movement in Cuba, its youth and vibrancy thriving in small groups and how the Holy Spirit is moving. How when the government felt that they had too many, they would continue to persevere, move it out of the church, and into houses and the spread of the Word continued to multiply. He described the Holy Spirit grabbing hold and taking action! Take my house, take my job, take my husband, take my business, take my children, take my family. He said the church is supplying the true needs of the people, the living water, through Jesus Christ.

I said count me in. This mission appealed to me on so many levels that I felt with a certainty that I was called to go. In this period of anticipation and finally preparations for the journey, I have really leaned on the following scripture, which I love from the Message translation, “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He's the one who will keep you on track” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

I’ve had several people ask me this week if I’m scared to go to Cuba particularly because of the history of political tension with the U.S. and the nature of its communist government, and I have responded with a very clear no. These things do not concern me, that’s not why I’m going. I find comfort and am not afraid because I know that the Lord goes with me, and He will not forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6). Cuba is only about 220 miles from Miami, yet they are miles apart indeed.

Angeligue Muller (her mom, Drema, is leading our team) and I’ve been reading a dissident blogger, Yoani Sanchez’s book, Havana Real, and her postings from Cuba with her perspective on daily life in Havana. I have been taken aback by how when you’re only supplied rations, you long and covet food, even dream about it. I’ve never been truly hungry before, but in Cuba, only if you’re under 7 or over 70, are you provided a daily ration of milk. I offered up my thanks this week as I enjoyed my milk with my cereal, a simple staple, that is not widely available under their system.

Similarly Sanchez describes how when you’re in a hospital, you bring everything, including cleaning supplies, a pillow, bed sheets, a fan, and more importantly, sutures, gauze, cotton and even syringes. “I have obtained some needles appropriate for the IV, because the one in her arm is very thick and causes pain. I also bought some gauze and cotton on the black market. The most difficult – which cost me days and an incredible series of swaps – is suture thread for the surgery they will do tomorrow. I also brought a box of disposable syringes since she yells to high heaven when the nurse approaches her with a glass one.” Walking around our award-winning hospital at Tampa General this week, I gave thanks for the medical advances, supplies and world-class healthcare that we have available in abundance. These are the things that break your heart for the Cuban people.

The freedom, the living water that Pastor Diaz and Bishop Pareira described when they visited here to share the work of the Methodist Church in Cuba, is the true freedom that comes from God. And our purpose is simple to make God’s love real and be in relationship with the Cuban people. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear " (I John 4:18).

View My Saved Places in a larger map 

Our team will be residing and serving at the Evangelical Methodist Seminary, located in the historic section of downtown Havana. I found it on a map, and was super excited to pinpoint the location! Our primary project will be construction within the seminary on the third floor, which will be outfitted to house visiting professors who will be teaching at the seminary and eventually may house retired pastors. We will also be in ministry making God's love real with the people and children of Cuba. Thanks to generous donations from various individuals and organizations, we will be taking face painting supplies, hula hoops, baseball gloves, balls, clothing and more to share God's love with the children of Havana and medicines and personal hygiene products for the adults.

Please lift up our team in your prayers as we travel to Miami on Friday and depart for Cuba early Saturday morning. Team Leader: Drema Muller; Team members: Jack & Linda Brown, Mandy Cloninger, Jeanne Compitello, Mike Burgamy, Pat Hannon, Dan Hegeman, Bruce McIntosh, Rebecca McLarty, Angelique Muller, Belinda Paisley, Slater Taylor.

Adios y vaya con Dios mis amigos! We go with God, because wherever God is, there is love, and where we share love, we share God.

 

 

The Things We Carry

by Angelique Muller

 

On July 1st, our team will set out on a great adventure bound for Cuba.  This will be a deeply rooted journey for me, as I have spent my whole life hearing stories of the lives that my grandparents once had in Cuba, before the Revolution.  Growing up we always sent our hand-me-downs and photos to our relatives who live there.  I still sift through the hundreds of photos at my Abuela's house that have captured the beautiful and glamorous life my family had while they were there.

My Abuela Isabel Muller, age 20 at the President's wife's ball

This is one of my favorites!

 My Abuelo's Wedding

 My Abuela and Abuelo Isabel and Elio 

On their Honeymoon

Isabel at 18 when she was at the teacher’s academy

That's my dad in the front, shooting his gun at the camera.

 

I will be meeting lots of family for the first time and I know it will be very emotional for me.

 

Aside from my family there, I hope to experience a profound spiritual connection, working with the Methodist church, to help restore a part of the Seminary in Havana and experience how God is moving through the people there.  Most of all, I am really excited that I will be sharing this entire experience with my mother, Drema, who is leading the trip.  She is an amazing person and I am so proud of her.

 

As I begin packing for our trip, I am reminded of a book I read in High School entitled The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.  It is a story about soldiers at war and the book uses the things they have to carry as a metaphor for many things they go through in battle and in their pasts.  It is quite an interesting suitcase that I will carry.  I cannot help but think about these items and they what they represent.  What do they signify and who will they affect?  I think back on the stories of those who had to leave Cuba and how little they were able to carry.

Here it is.  This enormous and ominous bag of things.  Necessary and unnecessary.  

 

Maybe a third of this bag contains my personal items.  The rest are items to bring to family members and to share with the people at the church.  In this bag I have packed: towels, sheets, work clothes, sneakers, antibiotics, toys for children, candy, boxes of macaroni and cheese, lots of soap, baseball stuff, a huge first aid kit, paint rollers, paint brushes, hangers, sandpaper, tooth brushes, a blood pressure monitor, books and since there is more space I am sure we will be cramming in much more.

 

Sounds totally random right?  Well it is, in fact, totally random.  My items I planned quite carefully to make sure I bring only what I need and that it is lightest weight stuff possible.  The medicine, first aid and blood pressure monitor have specific people in mind and purposes.  But everything else is kind of the story here.

 

Macaroni and cheese?  Well the people are starving in Cuba and when you hear their stories, a majority revolve around food.  The macaroni and cheese is high in calories and fat and for them it is an extra special treat.  Quality soap is hard to come by so we bring lots of it.  And I am sure you can image toys and books are sparse.  They have so little of so many things... THINGS THAT I TAKE FOR GRANTED EVERY SINGLE DAY... That anything that we have that we can take that is durable and in good shape is like giving a new and treasured gift for the recipient in Cuba.

 

I am getting to the point where I think about this experience and what it’s going to be like and I become extremely emotional.  It's hard for me to contain my excitement, fear, sadness, and overall emotion for what it will be like to see the country I have heard stories of my whole life.  This seemingly mythical island that has rooted itself so deeply in my family.  My arrival will be a symbolic homecoming for my family and to meet all those who I know only through pictures will be a very precious moment.

 

Exactly one week from today, we will have arrived in Cuba and walking through customs with the things we will be carrying and embarking on this great adventure.

 

Peace, Love and Hope,

 

Angelique Muller

Come Sing With The Choir

By Suana Delaney, Alto

Let me tell you about my experience with the Chancel Choir at Hyde Park United Methodist Church. I am a single adult and I have to say that it is the best and most joyful thing I do. The Holy Spirit is moving in me when I sing. It is also a great educational experience. Penny is an awesome director and brings her talent and tender touch to everything she does. The music is divine. Singers are special people and the Saints of our Lord Jesus Christ. We welcome new members who want to learn and grow with us, or renew their faith. I promise you will be warmly embraced by our choir family.

Editor's Note: Click here for more information about traditional music at Hyde Park United Methodist.

 

40 Seconds

By Matt Horan

It took about 40 seconds.

"Almighty God," the Bishop prayed, "pour upon Matthew Paul Horan the Holy Spirit, for the office and work of an elder in Christ's holy church.  Amen."

"Matthew Paul Horan, take authority as an elder to preach the Word of God, to administer the Holy Sacraments, and to order the life of the Church in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

A Foretaste by Doug Roland

    

Easter weekend we were treated to four nights in a lovely little cottage located on a very large family farm just outside Pietermaritzburg.  The farm animals were fenced.  The wild ones were not.  There was an old school on the grounds from apartheid days when farmers provided some education to the families who worked there.  Today it is used as a conference center. There is also a family chapel dating from the late 1800's.

    Our friends from Tampa and faithful Hyde Park members, Rocky and Lisa, shared the cottage with us two nights before leaving for Cape Town.  We said our goodbyes and drove back to the cottage. th remainder of our stay was unscheduled space and time, time to be surrounded by God's creation with no itinerary.

    We think that, for the first time in our lives, we did not go to church on Easter Sunday.  We had planned to but didn't.  We were exhausted.  When I awoke and my brain re-booted, I sensed that it was Easter and stopped moving. I stood there, staring aimlessly at the kitchen, while being firmly gripped by the magnitude of what happened that same morning long ago.   For those few moments, I simply let the spirit work, fixed in my place. It was like no other day. As a small child in Indiana, I had a part in the community Easter sunrise pageant. Over the years  I have been caught up in multiple church services, family dinners, Easter egg hunts, lilies and photos at a flowered cross on Easter Sunday.  This day was different. I was taken up in the meaning and not by the trappings of the day.

    I left my reverie and walked to the window. The sun, now low on the horizon, cast golden beams, leaving long shadows across well tended grounds, touching the top of distant hills and the nearby bush. I moved out to sit on the patio and watched a large family of nyalas (small antelopes)  appear slowly from the bush for a morning stretch and small snack.  A few monkeys joined them, then went about their own business.  Other members of the peaceable kingdom ambled by as the morning continued. The only sounds came from unseen birds up in the the ancient trees.  

    There, in rural Africa, thousands of miles from home and all that entails, I tried to comprehend the intersection of this visual and spiritual feast.  I sat there until dusk, feeling as much a part of the creation as the living things around me.  

    We have a way of literally squeezing the life out of our days with our busy-ness and determination to cease the day, as if we owned it.  This absorbs all our attention and causes us to miss transcendent moments, moments of profound peace, of communion, of the things that are not "in" the world.  (cf Rom. 12:2)  Praise God for his extravagant grace.

 

Are They a "Homeless" Family?

By John Barolo

I wasn't sure if there were really more homeless people or if I just began to see them more frequently. At least that's what I have thought while driving down the streets of Tampa lately. It's easy for people to get help if "they want to" right? I know about places like Metropolitan Ministries and the Faith Cafe, don't they?

Then I saw the recent statistics from the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County and they blew me away. I had no idea that over 17,000 people in Hillsborough County are homeless and most of them are from here. It's the largest number of homeless people in the entire state of Florida.

So do we do nothing because there are just too many? No. We have to do something. Where do we start? What small things can I do that can actually have an impact? Representatives from the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough Country will be coming to speak 6:30 - 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 15 in the Chapel at Hyde Park United Methodist Church. The "Homelessness | How Do YOU Respond?" event is free and open to everyone. Find it on Facebook.

Below are some photos and stories of real people who live nearby that may not be the stories you thought you knew. You can click to read the rest of their story. These are only some of the stories at the Homeless Coalition's website.

Hopefully you can join us for the event, but if not, please find out how you can respond to homelessness in Hillsborough and help break the cycle.