I just came back from my 15th trip to Cuba leading another team from The Outreach Foundation. I am usually asked a simple question by those who are surprised to hear that there is a Presbyterian presence there: “Oh, really…how did you find the Church there (i.e. what is going on with it)?” My simple answer: “I find that it is persevering…”
Often you meet a person on these Cuban journeys who seems to embody this like Mercedes Cardenas, an 89-year old elder in the village church of Sabanilla. Rail thin, with thick glasses and an effervescent personality, this Afro-Cuban retired school teacher models an inspiring life of faithfulness – of perseverance. She remembers the first Presbyterian evangelist who came to town in the 1930s when she was a small child.
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