Local church forms ties between Federal Hill and Cuba
by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com
Cuba. It’s a term that might bring up images of cigars and Fidel Castro. And for those whose memories stretch back far enough, a missile crisis.
For members of the Light Street Presbyterian Church, the memories are much more concrete, much more specific, much more recent, and include new friends, shared worship and an increased understanding of another part of the world.
Over the past several years, the Federal Hill congregation has formed a sister church partnership with the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cabaiguan, a small town located in the central part of Cuba. Recently, a small contingent of the Baltimore parish members traveled to Cabaiguan in order to help celebrate that parish’s centennial.
The choir of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cabaiguan, Cuba, celebrates the congregation’s 100th anniversary. Members of the Light Street Presbyterian Church traveled to Cuba to celebrate its sister congregation’s centennial.
Photo by John Walter
Light Street Presbyterian Church received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department allowing church members to travel to Cuba for religious purposes. Church members Bonnie Cosner, Carol Eshelman, and JoAnn Ruther, and their pastor, Rev. Roger Scott Powers, made the trip.
“Primarily, it was about building relationships,” said Powers. “Relationships between members and pastors of churches here and there.”
The visitors stayed in dormitory-style arrangements that were part of the Cuban host church. During the days and evenings, they met in parish members’ homes for Bible study, observed and participated in mission projects and attended worship services.
The Cabaiguan church, according to Powers was a middle-class church in Cuba.
“People in Cuba are having a rough time economically,” said Powers. “They’re living on the edge trying to eke out a living. They’re struggling against the economy.”
Cuba in itself is something of a conundrum. There are, according to Powers, twice as many doctors as in the United States, but a lack of access to the medications that will allow them to successfully treat patients.
The things Americans are able to take for granted, such as the ability to stop at a drugstore and purchase an over-the-counter pain reliever or antibiotic spray, are rare in Cuba.
“We would bring medicines with us,” said Powers, “just over-the-counter things. Just a bottle of Tylenol, things that you would find in the local CVS. That sort of thing helps them a lot.”
The economy is crippled by sanctions, as well as by myriad other problems. It makes the city a curious combination of old and new.
“You do see people traveling by ox carts,” Powers says. “You also see them driving very old American cars, from the 1950s.”
The educational system is good, but jobs are scarce, he adds. “They have a lot of people there who have received great educations under the Cuban system, but the jobs aren’t there. So you’ll have professors who should be teaching at a university who are raising pigs to make ends meet. Or there will be one job at the university and it will be shared by three people. These people are doing the best they can with what they have.”
The Light Street church, by comparison, is “quite a bit smaller” than its Cuban sister, according to Powers. “And there are more children than we have in our congregation.”
Still, there are common threads that bind the parishes together. Because the Presbyterian church in Cuba was founded by American missionaries over a century ago, there are shared ideologies. But beyond that, says Powers, Light Street and the Presbyterian Church in Cabaiguan can find plenty of common ground.
“We’re both really welcoming churches and I think theologically, we’re very similar.”
This is the second trip to Cuba for Powers and some of his members, and he has every reason to believe the relationship will continue with further visits and increased communication.
There is much the Baltimore congregation can learn from the members of its sister parish members, he adds – chiefly from the way those people display a sense of optimism in the face of troubled times.
“They are wonderful, friendly, joyful people who are struggling under a system that is broken,” he says.
Note: Light Street Presbyterian Church, 809 Light Street, holds Sunday worship at 11 a.m. All are welcome.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Not long ago the New York Philharmonic went to North Korea to perform. Cuba is the only place on earth where people from the United States need a permission slip from the federal government to go for a visit. What are they so afraid that we’ll see? How bad life supposedly is there? Of course Cuba has any number of problems, but somehow the society manages to work despite many obstacles.
Considering everything, from geography to population magnitude and more, Cuba and the United States are not and cannot be equal. Cuba’s government certainly does limit democratic rights. But in a situation like David and Goliath, Cuba does what it feels it must to defend itself. Look at Iraq today and you can see what Cuba would look like if it were “liberated” by Washington.
In Guantanamo, the world can see what legal system Washington would impose on the rest of Cuba if only it could. In Guantanamo, which is United States occupied territory, prisoners are held without trial for years, and are told they could be held indefinitely even if not found guilty there. In this context, Cuba’s defensive measures should surprise no one.
My father and his parents lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1942. They were German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and not political left-wingers. That family history is where my own interest in Cuba comes from.
Cuban society today represents an effort to build an alternative to the way life was under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who ran Cuba before Fidel Castro led a revolution there. No one complained about a lack of human rights and democracy in those days, but U.S. businesses were protected.
Some things work, some don’t. Like any society, Cuba its flaws and contradictions, as well as having solid achievements. No society is perfect. But we can certainly learn a few things from Cuba’s experience. I think we can learn more than a few. If we want to bring freedom to Cuba, the best thing we can do is practice what we preach.
We should all be free to visit Cuba. We can visit China and Vietnam, even North Korea, Syria and Iran, why can’t we visit Cuba and see it for ourselves? Cuba is our neighbor and we should simply normalized relations with the island.
Thanks for your report, which I am pleased to have received.
Walter Lippmann