Cuban Testimony

Adventures of Faith in Cuba

It was 1988, we were living in Bogota, Colombia, and one morning, my wife told me a dream she had that night, and told me that in the dream, we were walking down a street, and Fidel Castro appeared to us along the way, and we realized that we were in Havana, Cuba. Well, at that time, Cuba was not open to tourism, and well, it just seemed like an interesting dream to us. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba entered such a difficult time economically that the regime was forced to open the doors to tourism, as they were literally about to starve to death.

We moved to Venezuela shortly after that dream, and already in 1996, I was in my car driving towards Caracas, from a city nearby and when I arrived at the main avenue, at the entrance, I found a large billboard that said "Welcome to Havana", I literally felt that I heard the voice of the Lord telling me... "Welcome to Havana." When I returned to where we were staying I told my wife about the sign, and we both remembered the dream she had had, and we understood that the Lord was inspiring us to go to Havana.

We had a small album, with photographs of the social work we were carrying out in Caracas, of visiting the poor neighborhoods, distributing food to needy families, giving guidance to those who asked for guidance and advice, and we arranged it so that we could take it to the Cuban Consulate. We also showed part of our musical presentations in the neighborhoods, etc. trying to emphasize the social part of our work, which was actually a front to do what we were really doing, which was to win souls for the Kingdom and help all those who were receptive to the Gospel message, to live a life in communion with God. Of course, we didn't mention that part of evangelization in the brochure, since we knew that the Cuban regime wouldn't want to have us there if we went as a Christian group. What we thought was that since the need of the Cuban people was so great due to the economic position they were in, then it was very likely that they would allow us to go to the island.

So that same week I visited the Cuban Consulate, where they treated me very well, listened to me carefully and received my documentation. They told me that, that very same week they would send my documents to Havana and that I could return the following week to see what would the response of the Cuban government would be. So a week later I returned to the consulate, where again they received me very well, but they asked me to return next week, because they still had no answer. For the next six months, I visited the consulate, every week to find that I was always given the same answer. So I thought: What if I go as a tourist and see the situation more closely by myself? So I bought two tickets, one for my daughter Ana, the eldest one who was already 19 years old, she had experience winning souls and as it is best to go two by two, we then went to Havana Cuba. At the consulate they gave me a 20-day tourist visa, so our return tickets were booked and reserved for the day our visa ended.

We arrived in Havana around 7 pm. We stayed in a hotel that we booked when we arrived at the airport, which charged us $75 a night. The most rundown hotel I had ever seen. And the food, was hard to eat. The next day we started walking through the streets, to get to know the city. It gave me the impression of walking through a city that had just come out of a war, the streets deteriorated, but the people was very sweet, friendly and very receptive. During those walks I took the opportunity to share some leaflets with the Gospel message, which had brought with me to Havana. On the third day of these walks, a man named Pedro approached me and after a couple of hours, he convinced us to visit his house. He was a medical traumatologist surgeon, and had been part of the guerrilla army that accompanied Fidel in the conquest of Cuba, and after then the regime conquered the island, they put Pedro to study medicine, and once graduated, he started working at the Havana Hospital. We learned that the salaries for the vast majority of Cuban citizens was only $5 dollars a month, but since he was a doctor, he had the highest salary on the island, which was $25 dollars a month. Well, once in his house, which was very modest with only one salon, with kitchen, dining room and living room all together plus his bedroom and a bathroom, there he invited us to stay, with him. I asked him: Pedro, but there is only one room, where are you and your wife going to sleep? He showed me a kind of plank that was over his room where he had an extra bed, and he told me: there. I consulted with Ana, we prayed and asked the Lord for his guidance, and we ended up accepting his invitation, since we had already paid $225 dollars at the hotel, and Pedro was not asking us for a single dollar. So we moved into his house. Well, we noticed that in their house there were no basic things, such as toilet paper, soap of any kind, or toothpaste, or food in the kitchen, the water that was in the house was in all kinds of containers and had to be used carefully, so that it could last, since the water came for a couple of hours every other day and at that time all possible containers were refilled. The next day we also noticed that there was nothing to eat. At around 10 a.m. a hand entered through one of the windows facing the street and threw two loaves, which was the daily quota of bread. Well, Pedro and his wife told us that Cubans can only buy food in a store that is on the same block from the house, or the one closest to the one to which they are assigned to, and that they had a quota of food so that they could only buy this amount for each adult: three kilograms of chicken per month, 3 kilograms of pork meat, because beef is only sold in exclusive places for tourists, 7 eggs per adult per month, a liter can of oil per month, several kilograms of rice, pasta, one soap per adult, several boxes of cigarettes, matches, several kilograms of white sugar, etc., so well, I asked: Pedro is there a supermarket where tourists can make purchases? Peter said to me: Well, yes, would you like to go there; I said, of course let's go. So we left immediately and found out how the transport worked. We went to the bus stop, and we got in a line of people waiting for the bus, which arrived an hour later, and it was called “El Camello”, which was a truck that had been transformed into public transport and which had kind of like a loin on top, and that was the reason why it was called “el camello”, “the camel”. Well, as we were in summer, we were sweating, and the "camel" arrived quite full and we entered in line and in order. Inside we saw that there were only two rows of about seven seats next to the windows, and all the passengers had to travel standing up, because the bus was totally full, and we were all standing all glued to each other and sharing all the sweats of everyone. Hallelujah. Well, once we reached the supermarket, I noticed that it was only for tourists and Cubans were forbidden to enter, but Pedro was able to enter with us, because he was our guide.

I'm not going to go into detail about what the supermarket was like so as not to lengthen the story, but there we made a purchase of a little more than $120 dollars, but we bought the things that normally a middle-class family buys in almost any country in the Western Hemisphere, beef, chicken, butter, brown sugar, real coffee, since the coffee that Cubans consume, is a mixture of half coffee, with half roasted lentils, since it is cheaper for the State, than providing pure coffee, and Cubans are already used to it, we also bought milk which is also only for tourists, since the State only provides a glass of milk for free, to each child up to 7 years old. Well, also got cleaning products for the house, as well as soaps, shampoo, toilet paper, toothpaste, chlorine disinfectants, etc.

Well, both Peter and his wife were extremely grateful and Maria, that was the lady's name, offered to cook for us. Maria told us that she had converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses three months ago, and she showed us the Bible that had been given to her and that she had in the house. Peter told us that he respected Mary's desire to join the JW, but he was not a believer and that he believed in the JW even less. So that afternoon I sat down with her and helped her to read from her Bible, so that she would see what the Bible says about how Jesus is not only the only way to Heaven, but that as the Only Begotten Son of God He is also intimately united to the Father, as God, and that the Holy Spirit of God is also God, He is the guide of the Church in this world and dwells in the being of all believers in Christ, and also that under the New Covenant that Jesus instituted, we believers in Christ are now Children of the Most High, and we have the privilege being called Children of the Most Holy God, and as Children we can come freely before our loving Heavenly Father, and that Jesus Christ is our only mediator between us and the Father. Also that our salvation is only through faith in Christ and not by our good works. Mary was very inspired with what she had learned, and that night she went to her weekly meeting with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, so the next day, at dusk, two of the deacons of the Church appeared to confront this man (me) who was teaching “strange doctrines” to their sheep. We sat together in the living room of Peter's house, and I had the opportunity to share with these "elders of the congregation" by answering all their questions with biblical quotes, and trying to help them see that their "doctrine" has no basis in Scripture.

So they told me that the Main Elder of the Congregation wanted to hold a meeting with me, with other members of his congregation, elders and deacons, next Saturday afternoon, for which there were only two days left, and I said yes, sure. So that Saturday, we met, there were 6 of the leaders of the church of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Maria, Anna and me. So with the great care and affection, I had the opportunity to explain with much more details the points I had shared with Mary, indicating to them that even from the “Bible translation" of the Jehovah's Witnesses, they could not refute the points I had shared with Mary, in the end I invited them to do say prayer together with me, but they explained that Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to pray with members of any other religious group. So in the end they got up, said goodbye very cordially, and left. That was the last time I saw them. I wonder what they did after our meeting, but I'll know that when I'm in Heaven.

(To be continued)

The first few days at Pedro's house, he took us to where the "Revolution Committee” is located, with the office for "Religious and non-profit Organizations". There the secretary of the president of that office attended us, he let us know that he had seen and read the documentation that we had sent asking for the Regime's permission to establish our center in Cuba, and told us coldly: You should know that here in Cuba, the State is atheist, we do not believe in God, and we do not need Him at all, besides the State takes very good care of the welfare of all Cubans, especially children, who have a free glass of milk provided by the State, until the age of 7, in addition to providing the best education for the population, so the percentage of illiterates in Cuba is below 5% of the population, so it is obvious that the type of social work that you carry out in other countries, is not needed here, and we hope that you have the ability to understand our position, so our answer is clearly: No! ... I thought, well, it seems that you have not gone out to take a walk on the streets of Cuba and see the desperation of the Cuban people. And it is obvious that since they have tried to drive God out of the island, it is not surprising the poverty, not only material, but also spiritual, that they have reached. However, demon cults and witchcraft enjoy complete freedom on the island.

So we left the building and began to walk through the streets of Havana, when suddenly I saw a temple that said Temple of "The Church of the Salvation Army"... So we went into the Salvation Army’s temple and the pastor was almost finishing the service. So Ana, Peter and I sat in one of the pews and waited until the end of the service. Once the members of the congregation had left, I approached the pastor, and he and I had a little conversation. I showed him photos of our work in Venezuela, and he asked me if we could have an appointment, he and I alone, the following Wednesday, and we agreed that he would come to pick me up at Pedro's house, since I gave him the address, and so it was. That Wednesday he came for me punctually. I got into his car, a “Lada” a Russian car, and after he made several laps around Havana, he drove to a beach somewhat far from the city. He parked the car and we walked at least half a kilometer along the beach away from the vehicle, and once there, he turned around, looked me in the face and said... Okay... Now we can talk. The first thing he told me was that the only reason he invited me to go out with him was that when he saw the photos of my family, and of my children, he thought, this man does not look like a state agent, I want to know what are you doing here in Cuba? I told him about my evangelization work in other countries, and that the “Central Committee of the Revolution” had denied us permission to come to Cuba.

The pastor explained to me in detail how the regime treats Christian Churches. Basically the regime closed all the churches after Fidel took power in Cuba, including the Catholic Church. Foreign missionaries were deported, and priests and pastors of other churches were forbidden to preach, or evangelize, and some received heavy persecution. The temples were all closed, and the Catholic churches that were large, were converted into ”Museums of the Revolution“, since the regime declared Cuba as an “atheist" nation, however African religions such as Santeria, and others like it were allowed to operate freely. After the economic chaos in Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union, at the end of the eighties, Cuba was forced to open up to tourism, so as not to starve to death. So that forced the regime to allow the opening of the churches again, and in this way all Christian tourists would have the opportunity to visit a church if they wished. But the opening was allowed only to Christian denominations that had been registered in the system, before the year 1959. He told us that all churches are watched very closely, and that you never know which of those attending a service are spies of the regime. Any priest or pastor who speaks ill of Fidel Castro, or the regime, or communism, immediately loses permission to speak in public, or to preach in his church. The distribution of religious literature on the streets is also totally prohibited. And of course there is freedom to own a Bible in your house, although they are no Bibles in any stores, and most churches don’t have many of them. We learned that when the Bibles arrive at the Havana airport, there was a group of soldiers in charge of collecting the Bibles and burning them before they leave the airport. Coincidentally, one of the members of the church was part of those Bible burners, and when the shipments of Bibles arrived, he would manage to hide at least one or two boxes of Bibles, and then sell them to the pastor. Also all the priests and pastors of churches were constantly monitored and a good number of them received persecution or went to prison for talking too much. And that was the reason he took me away from everything, because he was afraid that we might be being watched. He gave me his phone number, and asked me to be very careful with Pedro, because he told me that he was afraid that Pedro could be a spy informant of the regime

From then on I understood why people were afraid to approach me when Pedro was with me, so from then on I was always looking for excuses to ask Pedro to let me go out alone. So, we used those two weeks to talk to the people we met along the way, and I had the luxury of distributing 40 small Gospel tracts, which I brought smuggled, among those who were receptive. As our return tickets were stamped with the reservation for the day of departure from Havana, that day we got up very early to go to the airport which was about forty minutes from where we were. We took a taxi which took us to the airport, but before leaving Pedro's house I thought: I have the money for the taxi, 60 dollars for the departure tax, 30 for each of us, and I had about 250 dollars left in my wallet, and I thought, although we have bought all the necessities for Pedro's home during the days we stayed in his house, I decided to give all those dollars away to Pedro, and we prayed with them before we left their house.

So we were inspired going to the airport since we had felt watched all the time, and we wanted to leave that feeling behind, so we arrived at the airport two hours before the flight departure, and we found a line of passengers and we were last. Well, to our surprise, when we arrived at the counter and handed over our tickets to take the plane, the attendant told me: we are very sorry but the plane is already full, and you will not be able to travel today. I complained and explained that our reservations had been made previously and that we had the right to travel, that I did not understand how they could give our seats to someone else while we had our reservations tickets sealed. Well, the manager came and explained to me, here in Cuba even if you have your reservations made, you have the duty to confirm that you are going to take the plane the day before, and since you did not do that, you will not be able to travel today. Then I told him: Okay, then, we'll take the next plane to Caracas, and he said, very well I'm going to book your tickets again, but know that you have to confirm that you will take the flight the day before, so that you don't miss your flight again. Then I asked him: When is the next plane leaving for Caracas? Then he looked at me and said: within a week, after seven days. Until then, have a nice day.

I turned around and saw Ana's face, and she began to cry with some despair, and she asked me, "What are we going to do now?" I thought, I don't have a single dollar in my pocket, because I gave everything I had to Pedro, and now I have no idea what we are going to do. So I did what I always do when I don't know what to do, and I asked the Lord, Father, what do we do now? Help us…

We sat on a bench at the airport that faced a window that looked out, I looked up at the sky, and I said to myself... Alejandro, stop thinking and give the Lord a chance to tell you what you should do now. Ana was just crying sitting next to me. I tried as hard as I could to stay still and pay attention to what was coming from my heart to my mind, and suddenly I thought: could it be that I still have the number of the Salvation Army pastor with me? I looked in my bag, and suddenly I found a card where I had written it down and I went to a payphone that was at the airport and called him. He answered and I told him what had happened to us, I told him that we were sitting at the airport not knowing what to do, he paused for a couple of minutes and said: Wait for me there, I'll pick you up in about an hour, let me see… I'm thinking to see what I can do for you. So we waited for him, when he arrived he took us to his vehicle that was parked near the airport, to my surprise I realized that the car did not have the front glass. We sat down in the car and started the journey towards Havana, he told me that a couple of days ago, he was driving on the road behind a truck, when suddenly a stone that flew out hit the glass of the car and broke it into pieces, and that's why we had no front glass. It was raining and between the small drops of water and the wind were hitting our faces, we had to cover our faces the best we could, the pastor told me that there were no spare glasses for his car in Havana, and that they had already been ordered at a vehicle distributor but that he would have to wait at least a month. We praised the Lord together for a few minutes, and then he said to me: I have an aunt, who went crazy two years ago, she was taken to a sanatorium, but she has an apartment that has been abandoned, ever since. My dad had the keys her apartment in his house so I passed by his house and my dad agreed to lend them to me, so here they are, he gave me a little key fob and said here you have. But he continued saying, as you can imagine, I do not know what state of the apartment is, but we will arrive soon. We arrived in “Habana Vieja”, or Old Havana, and there we entered a building that looked somewhat devastated, like all the other buildings in Old Havana, we went up to a third floor... and we walked to the apartment, we opened the door and when we entered we realized that everything was completely covered with dust, since it had already been abandoned for a couple of years, and the pastor said to me: well, I have to go now, but I'm going to stop by this afternoon to see what I can do about food, we'll see what God does to helps us.So there we were, a dining room and kitchen of about 30 square meters, whose room was towards the back of the apartment and it was dark, because it had no window, the bathroom was even more hidden behind the room, and it was totally dark. The apartment was furnished, and there were at least a dozen dolls, all of which had somewhat evil faces, so the first thing I did was to remove all the dolls, and put them all inside the fridge, which was empty. There was also no water or electricity, so I felt lead to go outside the apartment and see if I could find help somewhere, so I went out and knocked on the door of the apartment right in front to ours. Immediately a dog started barking like crazy, and after a couple of minutes, a lady half opened the door of her apartment and after giving us a good look, she went out into the hallway and listened to us. I told her we'd be her neighbors for a week, and asked if she could help us with some water. She nodded, invited us into her apartment and opened the door to her bathroom, where I could see that she had lots of pots, pans, and her bathtub full of water, and she took a bucket of water and told me, here you go. She explained to me that since the water arrived for two hours only one day yes and the other one no, when the water comes, we had to store it as much as possible so that we could have water. So we went back to the apartment and thank God, the electricity had just arrived and we could see inside the room. I'm not going to explain how we did it, but with that bucket of water the Lord helped us to leave that apartment sparking clean. In the bedroom, we carefully took the coverlet that was on the bed on all four sides, and folded it very carefully since it had a little more than an inch of dust all over it, so we put it carefully inside the closet and closed the door. But when we finished the cleaning, we were sweating, since it was still summer and it was very hot. So I knocked on the neighbor's door again and thanked her very much for the bucket of water, but I asked her if she would be so kind as to give us a second bucket, since we wanted to wash ourselves, and she gave us a second bucket of water, with which Ana and I managed to take a bath each, half a bucket for each.

The pastor came to see us that afternoon and said: I have a friend who works as the manager of the restaurant of the "Hotel Inglaterra", I told him what had happened to you, and after thinking about it a little, he told me that he was going to arrange it so that you can stop by the hotel three times a day, go to the restaurant, and talk only to him, and he will sit you at one of the tables and provide you with breakfast, lunch and dinner, daily, the only detail he asks us is only that we do not talk to any other innkeeper, if someone approaches us and asks us something, just tell him that he the manager is attending you personally.

So we praised God with all our of our hearts and that same evening we went to the Hotel Inglaterra, which was relatively close to where we were. As everyone who saw us knew that we were tourists, we could enter the hotel no problems, since Cubans cannot enter hotels for tourists, unless they work in the hotel’s staff and with the proper uniform. The restaurant was very elegant, and the food was excellent, so that week we ate like kings, without having to do shopping, cooking or washing dishes, completely free. Hallelujah! God knows how to do it best.After dinner that same night we went to our neighbor, I knocked on her door, this time I had my guitar in my hand and I asked if we could come in, she was very inspired she made us enter and sit in the living room, and we met her son who was also there, he was 18 years old, and his girlfriend was visiting him. I started playing and singing my songs about God's love, and the young man started asking me all kinds of questions about God. He had never had a Bible in his hands and the only Bible he had ever seen was in a Catholic church where his group of students had been taken on a field trip. The only thing he knew about God, was what he had heard from the atheist teachers at school, and he believed in “evolution". So that night with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, both the lady, Andres, which is the name of the young man, his girlfriend and his mother, all opened the door of their hearts to the Lord Jesus and were born again that night. Hallelujah!

The next few days we learned to keep water in the containers that we found in “our apartment” the two hours when the water arrived. So then, Andres began to bring his friends one by one to his mom's apartment, so that we could get to know them, and we started winning them to the Lord and started getting all of them together teaching them about the Bible, that same week a small congregation of about 8 new believers began to form. During the day we would visit some of Andres' mom's friends in other of the apartments of the building, and we not only talked about God's love, but I took the advantage of praying for all those who were sick and tell them about God’s great love. I counseled some of them to put away the demonic figures they had in their homes, as Cuba is full of devil worshipers. So this was the beginning of our small community there in Cuba. After those 7 days when we took the plane back to Venezuela, I understood why the Lord made us miss the flight that last week, and I could only cry for the joy I felt of having been able to share the Lord with so many precious people…

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