Participant Blogs

Our time in Cuba was almost like a time warp going back to the early 1950’s, vintage cars, horse carriages, music on every comer, no internet and street vendors everywhere. What an experience and privilege to have had a month in Cuba. We faced the language barrier with body gestures and our Spanish booklets. Embraced every moment and laughed a lot with those first country giggles when you still in shock that you’ve left South Africa. In Cuba we slept our first night on the airport in true global challenge style and then slept a night in Havana. The following...

Cuba Luke 10 Journey   Our time in Mexico has come to an end and we’re waiting for our flight from Cancun Airport to Cuba. We’re sitting at a table playing cards. Geoff’s telling us that the pastor in Cuba did not come back to him and that the Lord has leaded him to that we do a Luke 10 Journey instead. I’m to team up with Vilandre and Geoff with Quinton. We arrive in Cuba 3pm the morning and to save some money we slept on the airport and took a taxi to a guest house at 7pm. We...

Santiago, a bustling city filled with motorbikes, trucks, horse carriages, musicians, street dancers, stray dogs, food trollies, markets and anything in between. There's no room for a misplaced foot . You can delight in a local delicacy about every 50m and the cheap ice-cream brought out that ice-cream-loving-kid in all of us. Our host church was right in the centre of Santiago. The youth members of the church, who received us, are living examples of God's love in them for other people. Cuba was the first country on our year journey and everyone struggled with missing loved ones back in home....

The journey of grace started in Russia and by the end of Cuba while sitting in a coffee shop drinking coffee that tastes like sea water and being told to keep quiet by the waitress because we laughing too loud, God concluded the first part of an unending series of His grace. A friend asked me what grace means to me... Well everyone says, 'by the grace of God I can be here today,' then obviously  it's the power of God that allows good things to happen to us and through us... Clearly I didn't understand, so I asked  God to...

Two different worlds in one month. Russia: cold and quite people Cuba: hot and open people   The first three days in Havana were really hard for me, because the hot weather and the long walks made me so exhausted. So from this point I started to hope that the next three weeks will go quickly. After a twelve hour truck drive and first meeting with the Gladios members I started to enjoy this time. We had the privilege to build new friendships with them and work in the organisation and their church. In our free time we discovered Santiago...

One month in Cuba... The realization that we would be in a communist country for a month dawned on me like a cold shower on a winter's morning. To be perfectly honest, I had a multitude of preconceived ideas before coming to Cuba. Prejudices birthed out of ignorance and lack of knowledge. Biases that could turn one month in a foreign country into a month of turmoil and negativity.