A Return Journey Youth to Reunite with Cuban Episcopalians
by David Henson & Debbie Cox
W
hen it became clear that Hurricane Irma was going to strike the northern coast of Cuba in September 2017, a small group of teenagers from Trinity took special notice and immediately picked up their phones. They had friends directly in the path of the Category 5 hurricane and they wanted to check on them and let them know they were thinking and praying for them. Everyone was relieved when word finally trickled out that their friends from Cardenas had survived the storm, and the Episcopal church where just months earlier they had first met
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each other, worshipped together, laughed together, and danced together was still standing. That’s the magic of social media and international mission trips. Many of the students who went to Cuba in 2017 continued to stay in touch with the students they met in Cardenas, Cuba. Suddenly news and events that happened in a foreign country often considered an enemy to the United States became instead news about their friends and fellow Episcopalians. That’s the case with Elliott Hensley, one of two Trinitarians who will be making a return journey to see his friends at St. Francis in Cardenas during this summer’s youth mission trip to Cuba. Since that initial trip in
2017, Elliott said he has continued to stay in touch through various social media platforms with his Cuban friends regularly, especially one of the student leaders in the church named Frank.
