St. David’s Pilgrimage and Mission Trips to Cuba 2018-2019

St. David’s partnership with the Episcopal Church of Cuba began in October 2017 when several parishioners attended a dinner in honor of Bishop Griselda Delgado del Carpio of Cuba at St. Thomas Whitemarsh. It was followed by a pilgrimage to Cuba in 2018 to learn more about the church in Cuba, and to understand the bishop’s mission and vision for the 46 Episcopal churches spread across Cuba. In 2019, St. David’s traveled to Cuba on two mission trips to help install water purification systems in Episcopal churches and partner with a companion parish. St. David’s works in coordination with the Friends of the Episcopal Church of Cuba (FECC). The FECC coordinates all efforts of U.S. churches with the bishop’s office in Cuba.

February 2018 Pilgrimage to Cuba:

Havana, Matanzas, Varadero, Limonar, Trinidad and Cienfuegos

The day following the October 2017 dinner gathering with Bishop Griselda, our pilgrimage team met with her for breakfast. She shared her vision to have water purification systems installed in every Episcopal church in Cuba so clean water could be provided for the parishioners and their surrounding communities. After a few group meetings learning about Cuban customs and obtaining our religious visas, our group of sixteen headed to Cuba. We spent several days in Havana walking around the old town and learning about the history and culture of the Cuban people, led by a Cuban tour guide. We visited the Cathedral in Havana where we met with Bishop Griselda and a group from the Community of the Cross of Nails (founded in Coventry, England for reconciliation from WWII). We attended a service together in the Cathedral and went out to dinner as a group. During this time, we met The Rev. Mark Pendleton and Rick Miessau who were working to provide and install water systems in Cuba. St. David’s would later work with both men. The Cuba Ministry is about relationships and your will see how they weave throughout our partnerships.

Our travels took us to Matanzas to visit the Theological Seminary and a church in the small town of Limonar. We visited a community that had worshiped in their worn sacristy for 28 years after a hurricane blew away their church. We saw how faith and hope carried this congregation through the Cuban revolution to today. We spent the night in Varadero and traveled to Trinidad the following day. Next we went on to Cienfuegos where we visited The Rev. Gilberto Junco, the rector of La Inglesia de San Pablo and his family. We worshiped together and his congregation shared a service with lively music. We shared fellowship and The Rev. Junco showed and told us how his water purification system worked in their community. Then it was back to Havana and our flights home.

January 2019 Mission Trip: Ciego de Avila, Moron, Ceballos, Luyano, and Havana

Missioners: Amy Allen, Maryanne Boettjer, Dana Hall, Bailey Kimmel, Lois Redmond, Leslie Roy, Karen Sheep, John Tyson, and Elizabeth Vandiver from St. David’s and four members from the Clean Drinking Water Team (CDWT) lead by Rick Miessau.

Nine parishioners from St. David’s traveled to central Cuba in January 2019 with the CDWT from West Palm Beach, Florida. A St. David’s Cares Outreach Grant for three water purification systems allowed us to work with the local priests and congregations and together the systems were installed in Episcopal churches in Moron, Ciego de Avila, and Jiqui.

The trips started well with no problems getting the parts for three water systems and other supplies through customs at the airport in Camaguey. Our first stop was in Ciego de Avila to visit and work with The Rev. Yohanes Cobiellas, his wife Mariella, Hilmer Delgado, the resident plumber, and their congregations. We did have a challenge with our bus transportation and a washed-out road making it impossible to travel by bus to the third installation at the church in Jiqui. Using Cuban resourcefulness, Mariella figured out we would install the water system in Moron first, aided by the priest and the plumber from Jiqui who were able to travel by car to Moron to meet us. They could take the third system back to their church and install it themselves. We could install system number two in Ciego de Avila the next day, all the while keeping to our tight travel schedule. With each installation we shared fellowship and meals and celebrated the clean water made available to the parishioners and their communities. While in Cuba, Leslie Roy led the effort to distribute 65 Days for Girls kits and taught the girls and women in four communities (Moron, Ceballos, Ciego de Avila, and Luyano, Havana) how to use and care for them. These kits provide a safe, washable alternative to keep females in school or at work when menstrual care products are not readily available or too expensive.

Our next stop was Havana where we visited Bishop Griselda and her staff at the Episcopal Cathedral. We discussed our wish to continue to partner to provide additional water systems in Cuba. We explored Havana to learn more about the history and culture of the city. Sunday service was celebrated by the mission team at La Resurreccion Church in Luyano, Havana. While there we saw the water system that a St. David’s grant funded in May 2018 and was installed by the CWDT. We brought replacement filters and UV bulbs and walked through maintaining the system with them.

November 2019 Mission Trip: Havana, Ciego de Avila, Rodas

Missioners: Jim Bennett, Melissa Biondi, Maryanne Boettjer, Bud Billips, The Rev. Maurice A. Dyer II, Dana Hall, Whitney Kellett, Cheri McCaslin, Lois Redmond, Leslie Roy, and John Tyson from St. David’s.

In October 2019 Bishop Griselda and the founders of the FECC came to visit St. David’s to meet our parishioners and share news from Cuba. St. David’s awarded the Cuba Ministry a 2019 St. David’s Cares Outreach Grant for three additional water purification systems. Shortly after her visit, eleven St. David’s parishioners headed to Cuba to start a companion parish relationship at Iglesia Santa Maria in Rodas by working together to install water purification equipment.

Given the political situation between the U.S. and Cuba, this trip was more of a challenge. All flights from the U.S. now needed to fly into Havana and we learned the airport had a new head of customs. We arrived at the airport with eleven suitcases and containers filled with equipment for three water systems. Unfortunately, customs decided to hold all containers with plumbing equipment for the duration of our trip. On the bright side, we arrived on the day Havana was celebrating the 500th anniversary of its founding and we were greeted with fireworks.

Our first days in Havana were spent visiting with Bishop Griselda and her staff at the Cathedral, working with customs and exploring Havana. The priest leading the Cienfuegos and Rodas congregations was The Rev. Gilberto Junco, who we met on the first trip in 2018. While in Havana, we had two busses breakdown on us. Resourceful as ever, we soon had a school bus to take us to Cienfuegos and Rodas. The Rev. Junco rode with us from Havana to Cienfuegos where we settled in and prepared for our work. The bus we used on the second trip arrived with the same bus driver and our plumber Hilmer Delgado was also there from Ciego de Avila to get us on our way and work with us. We headed to Rodas to install the water tank and spackle the walls that would hold it high to provide water pressure. We painted the church, weeded the churchyard, ate our meals alongside our fellow Episcopalians and celebrated our work on the last day with a service led by The Rev. Junco and The Rev. Maurice A. Dyer II.

Despite the circumstances, we used the resources we had, pivoted, and had a very moving and successful trip. Additionally, we brought and distributed 70 Days for Girls kits along with children’s Spanish Bibles, Books of Common Prayer in Spanish, a microphone system for the church, vitamins, baseballs, and gloves.

Most of all, our trips have helped us build our relationships with our fellow Episcopalians in Cuba. We’re thankful for all we learned from them about our faith, hope and resourcefulness which helps us all as we navigate our daily lives in these divisive political times.

2020 – 2022 update

The water systems were released from customs in March 2020, just before COVID-19 hit. The additional two water systems couldn’t be installed due to COVID-19 restrictions, but will be distributed to other Episcopal churches soon.

In early 2020 the St. David’s mission team raised enough money to combine with the Outreach grant to enable the Cathedral to purchase a new bus for travel throughout Cuba. They were incentivized after their experiences with buses in Cuba and the knowledge the Cathedral bus was over forty years old!

Unfortunately, days after Cuba was welcomed back into The Episcopal Church in March 2020 by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in Havana, COVID-19 shut down the world. Despite significant health, political, economic, and communication challenges, St. David’s has stayed in touch with our partners in Cuba exchanging prayers and sending funding for food and medicine during the pandemic. In January 2022, travel slowly returned to Cuba. The St. David’s Cares Outreach Grants funded water system supplies and medicines that were taken to Cuba by The Rev. Mark Pendleton of Christ Church, Exeter, NH along with supplies from his church.

Bishop Griselda and FECC founders returned to St. David’s in October 2022. She provided current news, sharing that the political and economic situation in Cuba remains dire. We hope to travel to Cuba in 2023 to continue our water ministry, share fellowship with our partners and procure a new bus. It will be based at the Cathedral in Havana to dependably help connect the churches as well as the missioners who travel throughout Cuba.