Why Cuba?

Okay….so I have not written on my blog in a long long time! Honestly, there is never any time. By the time I get home from work I’m exhausted and I literally take a 20 min nap so that I have the energy to continue my evening in all the things I need to do….(Time is a big factor).

But I really do have to tell you about my trip to Cuba! How this came about for me? I really don’t even know except that my Pastor (Renee) was invited to speak at a Church in La Habana through a minister friend of hers. When she told me about going to Cuba, my spirit jumped inside of me and I knew I was going to make this trip. I knew God had orchestrated all this so I could be a part of something wonderful!

Before I knew it I was handling all the arrangements and looking for flights. Everyone I spoke to said “yes you can travel to Cuba via the US…its open now….no worries”. The more I looked the more I realized it was not as open as people think it is. We then had to get special "Religious Visas" since all three of us would be speaking this was a requirement. (The visa for P Renee and myself was actually given to the Pastor on the day before our arrival). There had been a glitch but we knew God would come through for us!

There have been some test flights set up but there is still no consistent flight from the US that arrives there. Thank God for Rick VanCleef! He is my contact in Idaho that has been to Cuba many times and he helped me get all the arrangements done. We were going to go via Cancun, Mexico.

Most of you know that in our Church our Women’s Ministry is “Redeeming Pink”….and we just hosted our Big Women’s Conference in February. We had over 1,000 women attend from all over. Well we were taking our message “PINK – Positively, Impacting your Net for the Kingdom of God” and hosting a Pink Women’s Conference in Cuba at Bethel Church in La Habana. (Remember: Havana is English…La Habana is Spanish).

DAY 1: Who was in our Team? Pastor Jean Parker from Celebrate Life in Idaho, Pastor Renee from Triumph Church and myself.

We left from the Houston airport carrying 9 Suitcases. I knew that in most of these suitcases were items that we had collected as gifts for the 400 women we were going to minister to. I was a little worried thinking for sure we were going to be stopped in Cancun by Immigration and also in Cuba upon arrival. I was the only one that spoke Spanish so the load was on my shoulders. (I hate immigration officers in Mexico), I’ve had my fill of them throughout our travels but I knew I would have to pay them off something because of all the merchandise we had. Sure enough on our first stop in Cancun the game began....even though it was a stop over and we were not staying in Mexico they wanted us to pay taxes on the merchandise. I ended up talking my way through it and paid the officer off a nominal amount. “Thank you Jesus!”

When we arrived in Cuba, again, we were asked to sit in a waiting area until the Immigration officers looked through our bags. We waited for about 1 to 2hours…No one seemed to make any moves towards us and I kept asking when we would be next. finally a very official looking man came in and sat at a desk in the area we were at and I approached him. I asked him for his help as he looked to be someone in authority…he smiled. I told him what we had in our bags and said they were gifts to all the ladies in the church we were going to minister to. He understood and told the other immigration officers to stop wasting our time and let us through. I walked right on, I noticed Pastor Renee had been called to another table and she was showing our conference brochure and explaining about the gifts. She walked on out right after me… The officer that helped me motioned toward her and signaled them to let her through. Now it was just Pastor Jean we were waiting on…but she was able to go through a few minutes later. For some reason throughout the whole trip Pastor Jean was always pulled out of our line since leaving Houston for a security check. We began to laugh about this continuously….

Hallelujah! We made it! Outside the Immigration area we were met by Pastor Faustino and his wife Anita, Rick VanCleef, his wife Josefina, their son Ricardo and a nice gentleman that came to drive us. We greeted each other and off we went in two cars to our hotel. We had left our homes that morning at 5AM and we traveled all day and finally arrived about 10PM. I took a deep breath and thanked the Lord for bringing us here safely! I looked around and felt excited of all that was to come. The cars all around us were “Vintage” we were back in time. 1957….Wow! Our Hotel “Tropicoco” was about 45 minutes outside of the city on a beach. The hotel was somewhat primitive and there was nothing around us but a small store. The roads were dark and not much lights on the highways. We got in kinda late and we were very tired from traveling all day.

We checked in with no major issues….the One bellboy took Pastor Renee to her room first. Then he returned and took me to my room and then Jean. He carried all our bags himself because there was no trolley to put them on and only One small elevator. We were all on the same 3rd floor (the hotel has 4 floors). My room was on the opposite end of the floor from Jean and Renee's room. I took one look at my room which consisted of 3 single beds, a TV on a stand and an a/c. One towel, One Soap, One toilet paper roll…. and I grabbed my key and headed back to the lobby.

We all met back at the lobby to say goodbye to pastor Faustin and his family. We agreed that a driver would return for us the next day at 4PM. Rick Vancleef and his family were staying in the hotel as well. At this point we were famished... but there was nothing open but the bar area. As we sat to drink a sprite with One ice cube….the bellboy came out of the back of the bar and gave us a ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in hard white deli paper that you would see at a butcher shop. I didn’t care what it was I was so hungry because we had not eaten all day. We spent most of our time at the airport waiting in lines and never got a chance to even grab some snacks. You would have loved the look on Pastor Renee’s face when she saw the sandwich….priceless! Immediately I asked them how their rooms were and just got a look with raised eyebrows back from both Jean and Renee. (My sentiments exactly!) I then leaned over to Pastor Renee and said “I’m not staying in that room by myself” She said “Neither are we!” and so we decided it would be safer if we all stayed together in One room. We used the other room for our “assembly Room” for the gift bags we were going to give to all the ladies at the conference. The 3rd room “my room” we never used. ….

Let me also just say that the beds felt like we were sleeping on an ironing board. ..but we were so tired we didn’t care. Until about 3AM... when every time we flipped over in our beds we felt the pain in our body. Pastor Jean spent the night turning over and crying out each time “Help us Jesus!”. It was hilarious! This particular hotel at some point had been a military school and it looked very Russian and very rough for especially to these 3 pampered ladies! But we were grateful and so excited to be in Cuba!



More to come….on Day 2.