NCC group witnesses results of humanitarian aid to Cuba
9/14/2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York
NOTE: Photographs are available with this report.
By Carol Fouke*
HAVANA (UMNS) - As the Rev. Bob Edgar toured the Emergency Polyclinic in Old Havana, he kept having flashbacks to 1998, when his 31-year-old son was critically injured in a single-engine plane crash in Maryland.
Doctors in the Havana clinic's intensive care unit were describing their need for portable emergency equipment, including defibrillators and ventilators. They explained how a few minutes' delay in getting help to someone can make a difference between life and death.
"Right now, this polyclinic doesn't have portable intensive care equipment at all," said Dr. Alexei Lopez Fontanills. "We can get to someone within minutes, but sometimes we can't get him or her back to the emergency room in time."
His words hit home with Edgar, who was touring the clinic with a National Council of Churches (NCC) delegation.
"As the doctor talked, I was reliving the crash, which left my son Rob burned from his chest to his ankles, his back and two legs broken," Edgar said. "He was saved because the paramedics knew what to do and had the equipment they needed."
The polyclinic tour strengthened the resolve of Edgar, a United Methodist elder who serves as the NCC's chief executive, and other delegation members - including a sports doctor who quickly grasped the polyclinic's needs -- to intensify the NCC's program of humanitarian assistance to Cuba.
Cuba's doctors, all highly trained, face daily the stress of working with minimal equipment - a shortage resulting from the U.S. trade embargo.
"Going through the clinic, I recognized how precarious their situation is," reflected United Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert of Nashville, Tenn., a former NCC president who now is ecumenical officer for the denomination's Council of Bishops.
During eight years of collaboration with the Cuban Council of Churches, the NCC has sent 49 shipments of food, medicine, medical equipment and supplies to Cuba. The supplies, sent through the NCC's relief arm, Church World Service, have a market value of up to $9 million.
The Old Havana Emergency Polyclinic, which serves a population of 10,000 and sees between 200 and 250 patients daily, has received a substantial portion of that assistance, doctors said. The list includes medicine, drainage and suction pumps, wheelchairs, X-ray cassettes, a crash cart, a defibrillator, lead aprons, an oxygen regulator, an EKG machine, bandages, surgical and exam gloves, sutures, thermometers, scalpels, needles, insulin and much more.
"We use the EKG every day," said Dr. Guillermo Betancourt Peña, "and just last Friday, the defibrillator saved a woman's life. As emergency room doctors, we thank you. Without your donations, we would be doing nothing."
The polyclinic was perhaps the most sobering stop on the NCC delegation's Sept. 2-7 visit to Cuba. Invited and hosted by the Cuban Council of Churches, the delegation's 12- to 15-hour days also included joy-filled visits to four overflowing Havana churches and the dynamic, ecumenical Matanzas Theological Seminary, plus tours of a center for children and adults with Downs Syndrome and the Latin American School of Medicine.
They held a cordial, first-ever NCC delegation meeting with Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, had two intensive working sessions with Cuban church leaders and met with representatives of both the Cuban and U.S. governments.
They also delivered 1,500 Church World Service "Gifts of the Heart" school kits for primary students in Cardenas, hometown of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez. The boy dominated headlines this year as his Cuban father and Miami relatives fought over whether he should be allowed to return to Cuba.
Building on the foundation of a relationship spanning more than 40 years, the Cuban Council of Churches last December sought help from the NCC to ease Elian's return to his father. NCC representatives visited Cardenas in early January and hosted Elian's grandmothers when they came to the United States later that month, then kept pressing through all the case's twists and turns for Elian to return home.
"I felt the visit to Cardenas brought full circle to our involvement," Edgar said. "We brought the school kits - assembled in U.S. congregations - as a symbol of our love and affection for all the children of Cardenas."
Elian's father, grandmothers and great-grandmothers were at the Cardenas Museum for the presentation of the school supplies. Then they accompanied Edgar, Talbert and the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, a Methodist who is adviser to the CWS executive director, along with several Cuban council officials, for a quick visit to Elian's school and some private time together.
Talbert concluded the meeting with a benediction and prayer for peace. "I felt honored to share this experience," he said afterward. "I had watched the whole Elian saga unfold from a distance. In Cuba, I experienced how extremely grateful people are for the two ecumenical councils' work together to bring a peaceful end to this tragedy."
Edgar noted that the delegation was offered the opportunity to see Elian, but in respect for the child's privacy, chose not to interrupt his class.
"We hugged Elian by remote control," he said. "We could see he was happily returned to his family, and that was enough for us. We were glad to learn his life finally is getting back to normal. Juan Miguel said he can ride with his son to school on his bike and not be stopped every minute by well-wishers."
It took "too long" for Elian to get back home, Edgar said later, "but a positive aspect was that as the councils of churches worked for his return, many people in the United States learned about Cuba and the churches here. Americans are hungry to learn more, to come to Cuba and to end the hostility between our two nations."
The U.S. and Cuban ecumenical councils pledged to launch a new project of exchange among citizens of their countries -- including a program for dialogue and reunion of Cuban families -- and to increase pressure for normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States. The NCC has called repeatedly for normalization since 1968.
"The embargo should be lifted now," Edgar said at the delegation's closing news conference. "This should not be left to a future administration. We don't need any more negotiations. The reasons for the embargo have passed. The United States has relations with countries around the world with which we have differences. Lifting the embargo is important for both Cubans and Americans. We call on President Clinton to act and work with the Congress to make it happen now."
NCC delegation members participated and preached in Sunday morning worship in four Havana churches - all of them fast growing and high energy, with "under 40s" constituting the majority of members. Faith has boomed in Cuba during the last few years. Protestants now represent more than 50 percent of the Christian worshiping community in Cuba. According to the Cuban Council of Churches Studies Center, 300,000 Protestants and 280,000 Roman Catholics worship regularly in Cuba, though many more Cubans are baptized Catholics.
On Sept. 3, Talbert preached during Sunday morning worship at University Methodist Church, where the Gospel was given expression through drums, dance and drama, hymns of praise and celebration of Holy Communion.
Nearly 700 worshipers packed the sanctuary for the 9 a.m. service, which was the first of two services and lasted nearly three hours. About 30 congregants were awarded certificates for having completed the second in a three-part, yearlong discipleship class leading to membership, and 10 others came forward to profess their faith in Christ.
In his sermon, "Touching Lives," Talbert recalled the story in Mark 1:40-45 about how Jesus had dared to touch and heal a leper. Tying that to a personal experience, the bishop told of a young pastor who had touched his own life "in my early years, when my African-American people were the untouchables, shunned and set aside as second-class citizens."
"Jesus touched someone, who touched someone, who touched someone, who touched someone ... who touched me," he said. "As you go out from worship, commit yourself to reaching out to touch the untouchable, created by God, and invite them into the community of faith."
Edgar, preaching at the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Luyano, used Luke 5:1-11 as his text, and explored how we learn the most lessons, and catch the most fish, in the "deep, fast water."
"We in the church are called to fish in the deep water," he said. "God is calling all of us, not necessarily the smartest, quickest or richest, to be about building God's Kingdom. The leadership is us. God is choosing ordinary people like us to do the extraordinary things that need to be done in the world."
The worshipers at the Luyano church that Sunday included 15 members of a Houston Presbyterian congregation, "here to live and work with other Christians," Edgar reported. "They weren't here with the agenda of changing Cuba's political system, but to see Cuba's needs and share Cuban Christians' commitment to Christ. They return home as ambassadors of love and neighborliness."
He cited this as a model for the NCC and Cuban Council of Churches' envisioned program of citizen exchanges. "We would like delegations of Cubans to come to the United States to speak, teach, preach, sing (and) show there's a rich religious tradition here in Cuba."
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*Fouke, a member of the National Council of Churches' communications staff, accompanied the delegation to Cuba.
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