Friends, please hold Cuba in your prayers.
For twenty-seven years, First Baptist has been bound to Iglesia Bautista William Carey in Havana — relationally, financially, prayerfully. Since our January pilgrimage, the situation has worsened dramatically.
This week, all eleven million Cubans lost electricity at once. A church member wrote me via WhatsApp yesterday: "I think this is the beginning of the end because it can't get any worse. We are holding on." No water. No fuel.
Richard Rohr names great love and great suffering as the two paths that break us open to transformation. William Carey Baptist Church is walking both.
And they are walking it with extraordinary grace. Pastor Sarahí wrote yesterday that the church is rehearsing for Holy Week — choir, theater, poetry. "Every Sunday," she says, "we become musicians, poets and artists for the Lord."
I'm struggling to know what to pray. The president's offhand remark about "taking" Cuba appalls me. And yet friends there tell me: "Our government doesn't care about the people. In Cuba, you don't live, you just survive."
So I keep returning to this: Loving God, protect and care for our sisters and brothers in Cuba, and bring them the best possible future.
A few weeks ago in worship, Becky Waugh shared a beautiful reflection about her January pilgrimage experience. Click here to read her reflection.
With grief, hope, and solidarity,
