Destination Cuba: Faith like a child

July 7-8
By Mandy Cloninger

Our help has multiplied several-fold! We arrived at the Trinity United Methodist Church Thursday morning and already the whole baseball team from the church was anxiously awaiting our arrival. It’s such a wonderful story to share about how God used the power of prayer to answer a very specific prayer that we were not even aware of. A member of our church and a special friend of missions was generous enough to donate some t-shirts, baseball gloves and balls to the Cuba team to bring on our trip.

When we arrived at the church earlier this week, we shared with the Pastor that we had some baseball equipment to share with them and how would he like to handle it. He introduced us to Javier, who cleans the church. Javier does not have any children of his own, but he has adopted the boys in the neighborhood and set an example for them. This is his own personal mission; he said it gets them off the streets and keeps them out of trouble. He invites them to church, teaches and coaches them, and he leads the boys’ baseball team from the church. Javier shared that they are one of the few teams who do not have uniforms, and they’ve never had any equipment of their own to practice with. Well, today we answered a prayer that we didn’t even know existed. And the boys from this team have been with us almost every day this week, working along side us, scraping paint, painting, cleaning, carrying rocks and teaching us about faith like a child.

Dan was initiated into the mission fold as he led his first devotional on his first mission team. We discussed Mark 10:14-15, “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them. ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’”

We are here to build relationships with the children, be role models, set examples and simply provide a memory that will connect with them for years to come. As Rebecca shared, we help to build their relationship with the unseen, the ever present, ever faithful God. By teaching a child to paint at church, like Mike did, it will provide a memory that may provoke a feeling for that child some time from now. It will be the mystery of how God will use that experience to shape and mold him or her a later date.

The children who are active in this church are already examples for us and their peers; the acolytes (as we would call them who collect the offering at each service are young girls about 12), as they return to the front of the church after the response to the word, one of the girls leads the prayer in front of the entire congregation her lips pressed to a microphone, and it’s not just a 30 second prayer either. Similarly in the prayer service on Tuesday night, Linda observed Omar, one of our little boys we have connected with all week, beating his chest, eyes closed tight in prayer, and several members actually had youth from the church praying for him or her in groups. 

Cuba

Carlos, one of the boys from the baseball team was helping paint, and he slipped and fell down while working; his shoes and hands were covered in paint, and Rebecca picked him up and carried him to sit down. Someone brought a wet rag, someone a glass of water, and Mike took off his shoes to wash the paint off. Carlos did not want anyone to take his shoes off; he was most embarrassed because he had holes in his socks, little did he know many of us walk around in our own holey socks.

All his friends comforted him, and we did our best to do the same. Rebecca encouraged the children to pray for him, and the kids gathered around as Carlos was lying down on a church pew and put their hands on him to pray. Carlos ended up being just fine, and from what I heard Carlos ended up with a new pair of socks too.

Friday was a carnival of stimulation! As our work was winding down at the church, we prepared for a program with the children from the church and neighborhood during the afternoon. Most of the morning was spent finishing up painting, preparing paper, pencils, vocabulary words and just playing with the kids who have been hanging around all week with us. The afternoon was filled with the sights and sounds of probably close to 130 children of virtually every age, and we had singing, dancing, a message from the bible, un poco teatro con un payaso (a little theatre with a clown), group games, musical chairs, face painting, hula hooping, jump rope, language lessons in English and Spanish and much, much more.

Bruce is a doctor from Jacksonville on our trip, and he had a stethoscope to share with the kids, and taught each child to hear his or her own heart beat with it. He said their faces and eyes lit up with wonder when they heard their own heart beat for the first time. As Belinda described child-like faith, she said, that children live from their hearts, they are full out in it, and that’s how God wants us to be, to be in love with him and in love with life.

Linda shared that she felt part of our team’s mission is to show the children what the life and body of Christ is like. Part of what we have shared with the children has been helado and dulce (ice cream and candy). It might seem simple or like something silly to share with a child, but what breaks your heart in Cuba is this is not something these children have access to, and in fact, it is something that has to be purchased on the black market. The stark contrast of access to the simplest things like toys, candy, ice cream, toiletries and more, is something that has deeply affected many of us. Childhood just doesn’t seem the same without the sweet milk from el helado running down your face and making you sticky all over on a hot afternoon.

Linda made the parallel that we share the “sweetness of this life in Christ” with the children. The windows of the church are always open in Central Havana, and everyone in the neighborhood can hear that God is good, and as Slater shared, the children can hear the joy, the laughter, and they want to be a part of that.

We encourage you to have faith like a child to enjoy the sweetness of this life in Christ with the joy and wonder of the first time you felt your heart beat with the joy of the Lord in it.