Cuba: Day Two

We had an early morning Saturday - up, breakfast eaten and on the road by 8:15.

We met our interpreters at Calvary Baptist then headed to our work site. Our four days of work were supporting a church in the Tamarindo neighborhood.

The church, approximately 70 members, meets in a home. The owner of the home (standing in the doorway below) told me that he never imagined that God would ask him to give his house to the service of the church.

It was rather neat, honestly - like being in the first century church. The home owner was described as a member who "is giving everything he has joyfully to the Lord." Doesn't that just remind you of a certain passage? (Acts 2:42-47)

Our team got focused for the day's efforts, then headed out to work.

We had a full day of appointments with residents in the Tamarindo neighborhood. Our visits were with the friends and neighbors of the church members. They'd heard the Good News repeatedly and had said no to making a personal decision repeatedly.

But they said yes to a visit from an American.

We worked in teams of three - an American, a Cuban interpreter and a local church member. I actually had a group of four for the first two days, with two church members joining me.

We took a break for lunch at a local home that was authorized to do catering services. The home was lovely and unusually large. Perfect for feeding a tired and hungry crowd of 30+ workers.

And the food was oh.so.good. Knowing that we were eating especially well as a majority of Cubans are dealing with food shortages and rations.

After lunch, we headed back out for more visits.

And unbelievably, for both Kelly and I, every single person we shared with made a profession of faith.

That evening we had a quick dinner at the Comodoro's buffet and crashed...until our 9:30 pm room call to remind us that the next morning was Daylight Savings Time.

Darn. Can't escape springing forward even in Cuba.

Cuba: Day One

I've somewhat struggled with how to write about Cuba.

Our time in Cuba was extraordinary, which means that no ordinary blog post could do it justice. So do I write more or less about our time there?

Complicating matters, I travelled to Cuba without a journal for recording my thoughts. I suppose it didn't matter all that much in the end, since I didn't have much time for writing. However, it's made mentally reconstructing our time in Cuba somewhat difficult.

For lack of a better method, I thought I'd write about our trip day-by-day, relying on our photos to illustrate what we experienced. I'll wrap our trip with some overall thoughts on what God taught us and where we think He's pointing us moving forward.

I met up with Kelly and the rest of our group late Thursday evening in Miami. There were 12 of us in total - 10 participants including the two Hayleys and our two leaders. Five of the team members were from the San Francisco area, six were from the Dallas area and one was from Florida.

We had a bit of orientation over dinner, then headed off to get some sleep because we needed to leave for the airport at 5:15 the next morning.

It seemed a little crazy to me to need to get to the airport so early for our 9:30 flight - until we got to the airport, that is. Our international flight experience definitely began in Miami. The level of chaos rivaled anything that Kelly and I have experienced in third world countries' airports.

After a couple of hours of effort by our agent, we finally had tickets and visas in hand.

Then it was off to the charter flight terminal to wait. And wait. And wait.

Our 9:30 flight left at 12:30.

While on our short 45 minute tarmac-to-tarmac flight, we filled out the customary customs paperwork. Though I must admit that the Cuban translated instructions made us laugh.

Finally we landed in Cuba and worked our way through passport control and the obligatory random questioning while we waited (eternally) for our luggage.

The airport was also the first spotting of old American automobiles - soon to be an all-too-common sight. I eventually had to refrain from taking photos of old cars and crumbling buildings, fearing they would be my Cuba-version of safari zebra photos. Those who've travelled to or lived in Africa will understand what I mean.

It was a couple of hours before we found ourselves headed, via a tour guide-staffed bus, to our tourist hotel, the Comodoro.

Our hotel was definitely tourist-focused, with a full buffet, assortment of restaurants and air-conditioned rooms (a HUGE benefit). What our room lacked was cleanliness - plenty of evidence of the prior occupants remained.

Oh well. We still had plenty to do before bedtime, so the Hayleys tossed their luggage in the room and headed out again.

Where we headed to was Calvary Baptist Church in downtown Havana.

It's a truly gorgeous church, located very near Cuba's capital building. For Baptist history buffs, the building was originally purchased with funds from the Annie Armstrong Mission offering.

We carefully walked up a flight of stairs to the pastor's office - I called it "the upper room" because it honestly was. Complete with too many people crammed in to talk about our upcoming mission efforts.

Our upper room didn't have any railings either - I was in perpetual fear of someone falling over the edge.

However, we managed to get completely through our meeting without anyone taking a plunge from the upper room. A miracle to start the trip, I'd say.

From there, we headed back to Comodoro for dinner (pizza) and a cautious look into our room.

Thankfully, it was clean. A good way to end a very long day of travel and cultural adjustment.

Before I Talk About Our Trip...

...I want to start by talking about the weeks that led up to our trip.

 

10 days before our team left, I flew to Missouri to speak at my alma mater and to meet with a client.

 

5 days before our team left, our merry band of running idiots ran a marathon in Killeen, Texas. More on that in a minute.

 

2 days before our team left, I flew to North Carolina for a conference.

 

1 day before our team left, I spoke at the conference and immediately after my session made a mad dash for the airport to meet up with our group in Miami.

 

Crazy, crazy, crazy times.

 

But back to that marathon.

 

The weather was reasonably warmish-coolish leading up to the Army Marathon. Until marathon morning, that is.

 

It was a little chilly at the start line.



 

Though some people were unfazed.

But it got colder and colder throughout. Strong winds dropped the wind chill significantly. Soon my hands were frozen, red and swollen. Memories of the horrible Icenado Marathon were still relatively fresh on my mind, which is why I stepped off the course at mile 9.5 - I explained all of this in a post not long after the race.

 

Yet I'll have you know that I still stood in the freezing wind at the finish line to cheer for the guys.

 

They had respectable times, though the frozen insides of me do wish they would have run faster.

As it was, I sat with Kelly in a warming tent for about 20 minutes as he was huddled under blankets with warmed bags of saline trying to bring his core temperature back up. Not good.

Even more not good was the long slippery drive home in sleet and slush - all on Texas' untreated roads. We survived, but it took forever.

At least we got home that day. J&S had to stay the night at the side of the interstate and restart their journey home the next morning.

I've had more than plenty of crazy weather this winter.

And more than plenty of a crazy schedule.

I Owe A Full Blog

But until I'm no longer tired and have caught up on laundry...

Cuba:

They Have What?

Kelly describing an office he visited last month:

It was a top-secret place. It made you think of 007.

They even had a palm reader at the door.

Source

Winter - Go Away! - And Other Complaints

These are not the days that we want to savor.

And by we, I mean me.

A long-ago booked marathon was this past weekend and by the time Saturday rolled around, I was already thinking that it was a dreadful idea. Too much on our calendars, too little rest...a recipe for certain disaster.

But add in a late winter storm (early spring?) that arrived in Texas where winter most certainly should have been over with by December and the disaster recipe was fully cooked.

I made it 9.55 miles into the 26.2 course before the icy wind drained all feeling out of my fingers, my head was pounding and I thought I might pass out.

I blame the all-too-recent memories of the Icenado Marathon for my utter collapse. How else can you explain why a normally very stubborn person would so readily agree with the nurse at mile 9 who looked at my red and swollen fingers and suggested I step off the course?

So I was quite glad to see my friend Stacie pull up less than a mile later to cheer for me - I turned her cheer into a ride for the remainder of the race to meet our men at the finish line.

By the way, I was also glad to see her because a few miles earlier I'd seen her, shivering beside her car. The key fob had stopped working and she was locked out of the vehicle. Locked out, unprepared for the wintry blast and a who-knows-how-long-wait to get things fixed.

It wasn't a great day.

Both of our guys were slightly hypothermic by the end of the race. I took some wonderful photos of Kelly bundled in blankets clutching warm saline bags in a slightly-drafty tent (better than the open air and we're oh-so-grateful it was available). I don't think he's like me sharing them.

Anyway.

Two cold men and two women, one slightly depressed woman and the other relieved to not be locked out of a car but still out of sorts, hurried to get on the road.

You see, the storm front that brought a 20-degree drop (in nearly as many minutes) to our race also brought thundersleet, snow and freezing rain deep into the heart of Texas. And we all had to go home.

Kelly and I made it home in just under 7 hours. The drive in normal conditions would have taken us just under 3. Kelly told me I schooled several scared Texas drivers in how to safely navigate uphill icy bridges. I don't know if that's true or not. I just wanted to get home in one piece.

Our friends? As of midday today they were still driving - they stopped to spend the night not far outside of Dallas because the interstate was practically impassable.

But the golden moment of the whole weekend started in the midst of our icy drive home - endless sneezes. After about 2 hours, I told Kelly that I hoped my sneezes didn't mean I was getting sick.

By the time we got home, I knew I was sick.

So that's why I'm here at home, exhausted and miserable, on a week when I really needed both of the days that I was going to be in the office.

I've told myself that I'd do a little work while I'm at home but so far I've had no luck. My eyes are bleary, my nose is raw from blowing and the kitties are insistent that true rest only happens when you hold a kitty.

Ok, that's not such a bad thing.

So here are my requests:

• Winter - go away. We're done.
• Cold - go away. I'm done.
• Schedule - slow down. You're exhausting.

Dive Expedition: We Have an (Donut) Obsession

Kelly said we needed to try another donut shop.

I said that was the last thing we needed to do. However, I still went with him to Max's Donuts in Allen, Texas.

After all, who would say no to a hot, fresh donut after doing speed work on the track? Running has to have some sort of reward.

The signs were pretty clear that this was a popular donut shop. Not since I lived in England and purchased the occasional Krispy Kreme at Harrods have I ever seen such a long and windy queue.

People waited outside. And this was no small shop either.

Even with our early(ish) arrival, the stock had been picked over. It was easy to understand why - customer after customer were buying boxfuls of donut-y goodness.

Here's the reason for our visit: A single glazed donut that Kelly swore was the closest Krispy Kreme-like donut he'd ever eaten (a coworker had brought some to the office the day before):

Our donut came right off the glazing line - just like a Krispy Kreme. That was a good start.

The donut was tender, flaky, lightly glazed and slightly crispy. Delicious!

Because we drove all that way, we also tried their sausage rolls. The jalapeno sausage roll was ok. But not as good as Sonny's. The same was true of their standard sausage roll.

The cinnamon roll was outrageously huge. Good, but (you guessed it) not as good as Sonny's.

So will we go back to Max's? Probably - but probably only when we want a Krispy Kreme type of glazed donut.