Cuba - the hope of nations!

Cuba, the hope of nations! Cuba - what an experience! Never could I have imagined something quite like it! Cuba - the interesting and unique Caribbean island! The streets are filled with vintage old cars (those you want to hire to go to the drive in with), horses and carriages, bicycles and motorcycles, and even those with side cars! Tiny old houses fill the city of Santiago de Cuba, where some walls crumble to the ground and old wooden doors and rusty steel frameworks welcome you at every door. Hundreds of street vendors are selling their Cuban delicacies for a few Pesos, shouting out their special for the day. Homeless dogs that run in the streets and eat some of the crumbs left lying in the streets by the hundreds of Cubans who are always roaming the busy streets. From morning to night, groups of people are playing dominoes and all kinds of board games with circles of onlookers watching who will win this time around, and street musicians fill the streets with their lively music, welcoming smiles and irresistible rhythms. It is very noticeable how there is no big difference between rich and poor. There certainly is people who you can see struggle a lot more than others, but you don't really notice any extremely rich Cubans. And if you do, it is because they wear new clothes or drive a car - because by driving a car, that maybe has been received as inheritance, makes you extremely fortunate! As many people probably already know - Cuba is a communist country. Maybe there is some of you that also  like me, don't know a lot about communism. But now I was privileged enough to spend almost four weeks in such a country. Maybe like me, you only learnt the definition thereof in school, and you are able to describe to someone else what it is and how it works. But something I realized in this time, is that even though I experienced it, living in their streets, eating their food, drinking the chlorine treated water and having conversations with some of the Cubans, I will never truly know what it feels like living on their communist island. Hope... What is hope? One if my own definitions for it is: the light that you know exists and that you have the opportunity at any time to reach it or to live and dance in it. Maybe you have the hope to have a bright future, with a satisfying job, maybe to have a husband or wife one day, or a loving family. Or maybe to travel the world and experience great adventures. Or receive a degree or three. Or to reach a certain goal of monthly income or a position in the company you work for, or church or women's club. Or to own a small cute house decorated exactly in the way you like it, or own a beautiful mansion that you can be proud of, and that you can completely call your own. I know that in the worldly way my mind is working, a lot of these things are part of the 'hope' for my life. But when you spend time with these Cubans, some things make you think... One morning during our stay in Santiago de Cuba, our team did a prayer walk through the city streets, down to the port. It was a beautiful morning! Tiaan mentioned a few things that we can focus on praying for: the church, the youth department, the government and the  city itself. While walking I had the two most indescribable experiences. Firstly I experienced God just confirming an assurance He gave me when I prayed whether I should do Global Challenge or not, and way back in last year, I told God that if I am going, I am going to be really scared. And it was as if the Lord just told me in such a loving way that just the way that He is with me at that moment and throughout my time in Pretoria, He is present at all the places I will be going! And how I experienced that while walking through the unfamiliar streets of Cuba! And secondly, I had a very different experience from some of my teammates... Where they got words of JOY, I had this heaviness of hopelessness in my heart over this country. And even though I know that God can change a city and country any way He likes, the feeling of hopelessness what the people should be experiencing pressed on my heart. Just to think that all of the cute children passing me in their school uniforms (which looks the same for every school by the way) don't really have the opportunity to dream so big and beyond any boarders, because the limits placed over their lives is so extremely heavy! I prayed for hope in this country and then never really paid much attention to it again. Until our last prayer walk a few days ago. During our stay in Cuba, us as team started listening to some identity teachings from Mars Hill church. Wow, it was really amazing to hear once again what special identity our mighty and all powerful God gave to us as sinful small human beings. One of the teachings was about asking what do we find our identity in. Do we say: I am a mother, I am an athlete, I am unhappy,  I am a doctor, I am divorced, I am sick, I am rich, I am a student, I am strong? What defines me? Where do I get my identity from? If something is taken away from me, does my whole identity change? Do I find my identity in my spouse, or my career, or my money or in my physical abilities? Can I honestly say that these things describe me, but it doesn't define me? Do I expect God to give me all the "good" things in life? But what is good? Aren't I making certain things my idol by telling God that I will be happy if I am healthy, or if I am married, or have children or if I can have a degree or good food to eat? I believe that we can ask these things from Him, because He is a loving Father who listens to us and wants the best for us. But that is where things change.... He wants what is best for us. Only He knows what that is! And then it comes back to my last prayer walk experience... While walking, the question came: What do I define as hope? To have the hope of, unlike the people of Cuba, to work at any place of my choice after I studied, to have the choice of monthly food I will eat, and not be 'forced' into eating certain things because other things are just way to expensive to afford (they have a little book they take to the market where the shopkeeper should mark off that they received their monthly rice and things that everybody receives), or actually having the opportunity to choose my wardrobe because I can afford to buy new clothes, or being able to afford toilet paper because four roles doesn't take  6% of my monthly salary. Or the hope that I am able to travel to other countries and experience a variety of new things. Or having the opportunity to freely use the Internet or choose to maybe buy my own house or houses in an area I choose, which is not given to me by the government even though it falls apart or had to be divided by the children of the house because one house stays a family house. Or feel like I am worth something when I live in a country, because the jail sentence for killing a human is actually longer than killing a cow. Does this mean that I have the opportunity to do, feel and have all these things that I have hope in my life? Do I need to look at the Cuban people and think of hopelessness? Where do I place my hope? If I have none of the above mentioned things, will my hope in life still be as bright a light as I see it now? Will I be able to see that light and be able to dance in it? Because 99% of all Cubans will maybe never see another country because the average person receives about 15 CUC (a street cleaner receives about 12 CUC, and a doctor 20 CUC), and they might be having a daily experience of feeling mistreated, because their neighbour might own a far better or prettier and bigger house than them, not because they studied more or worked harder, but because the government gave them that house, and that it is almost impossible to buy a house, and as I understood, you can never own more than one. This might be a reason why their definition of hope may totally differ from mine. And that is where I really hope that God will redefine my definition of hope in Him! Because I believe that the hope He talks about in His Word is not the kind of hope I have formed in my mind over the years. Jesus is the Hope that is perfect. The hope of living in His presence daily, bringing His Kingdom to earth, and one day be with Him for ever and ever. Isn't that the hope He intended for the nations? The hope we can have in Jesus Christ. I learned so much from my new Cuban friends! Even though some of them would looooove to see another country, or get married, or own their own house, they still find joy in their circumstances. For instance Besaida who opened her house for us to eat in daily, Benedia who cooked for us each and every day, Maggie who played such a major motherly role during our stay in Cuba, and her twin sister who barely know us acted as the girl's bodyguard for a whole day, Emilio who brought our food to us wherever we are working and taking us to see some beautiful parts of God's creation and sharing his wonderful family with us, Jessica and Jennipher who are two young people who have a heart for kids, worship and serving, Deileen and her sister who opened their restaurant for us, George who is always ready with a joke and the whole youth community who made my birthday super super special by hosting such a massive Cuban party for me. I will never ever forget that! And that just shows that their hope is rooted much deeper than my understanding can now comprehend. Because they loved us without holding back, without expecting anything in return, and always acted out of a place of joy, care, and a hope that can only be rooted in our Saviour! If all the "hope" for my future in all the ways I always imagined it to be, is taken away, may I always have a perfect hope in my Lord Jesus! 1 Tess 1:3 " We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by HOPE in our Lord Jesus Christ"