5th Conclave on the Intersection of Christian Faith and Science, Santiago de Cuba, May 2007

In May of this year, I was able to travel to Cuba with a good friend to present a paper at the 5th Conclave on the Intersection of Christian Faith and Science, held at the 2nd Baptist Church of Santiago de Cuba. My paper was presented in my terrible Spanish, but for me, it was a great experience. My paper:

Raising Scientists in the Missionary Generation--English

Formando Científicos de la Generación Misionario--Español (Draft)

All pictures below are "thumbnails." Click on a picture to see a bigger copy, afterwards, use your browser's back arrow to return to this page. If you see any pictures that you want a higher resolution copy, just email me. A couple of the pictures have a "d" at the beginning of the name. In these cases the picture is one taken by my friend. Most pictures have 1-3 Mbyte originals

Havana!

We arrived in Havana and were picked up by a great friend, Pastor Martiz, after he helped us secure tickets to Santiago we went to his house had coffee with his wife, Milagros, and visited his church near the airport the Iglesia Bautista Filadelfia.

We then headed over to see my friend Aldaberto's mom

We then headed over to the Calvario Baptist Church in downtown Havana. This is also the location of the Western Baptist Convention of Cuba headquarters.

Finally, at the end of a long day we were able to make our way to our main goal, Santiago de Cuba! (btw we found out that we could have gone straight to Santiago from Miami with a specialized charter that only runs on Wednesdays. This would be much cheaper and more convenient if you don't want to go to Havana. Try ABC Charters )

Santiago!

My first order of business was attending the Conclave at the 2nd Baptist church of Santiago.

It was a great experience to be with a group of fellow Christians and talk about academic issues. My paper went well and seemed to be well received.

 Here is the conclave:

This was Professor Aldolfo Ham, a well know medical professor from Havana and a outspoken Christian.

This guy kept getting up am making long comments, taking over the microphone and podium, even though he was not an invited speaker.

His name is Eduardo Roca and it turns out that he is a Physics professor at the main university in town. Who would have thought it? We ended up developing an immediate friendship and I look forward to visiting him again.

On Friday night we had a "Gala" with singing, poetry reading and a great violinist. They might have done this on a greatly limited budget, but they really put their heart into making it a great conference!

We had a nice Casa Particular that we stayed in on one of the main streets, only three blocks from the 2nd Baptist church. It was a very relaxing place.

Our other work in Santiago was working with the churches. we spent a great amount of time with Pastor Rolando in his house-church. Here are Sunday services:

Bible check! Who brought their bible?

We had a number of great meals with pastor Rolando and his family, wife Elizabeth, sister-in-law Lizeth and son Samuel:

Here is another lay-pastor and the director of a bible institute in Santiago, Gabriel. He gave the sermon Sunday morning:

Here are some of the cell groups that are meeting around the city.

Finally, my good friend was invited to give greetings to the congregation at the 4th Baptist church. (better him than me!)

Afterwards we had a nice visit with the pastor of 4th Baptist, Rev Osbel Gutiérrez and his family.

At one point the Pastor of the 2nd Baptist Church and my host, Pastor Elmer Lavastida took me to San Juan Hill. it turned out to be about 5 blocks from my house and I could have walked it easily! What an amazing historical place. The US presence in Cuba at this time just permeates the history of this city. Here I am with the pastor in his study at home. Very comfortable!

The lower area where the Spanish surrendered:

The actual hill:

There was a great view from the hill and the tower:

The statues to the Spanish, the Cubans and the Americans:

There was not much business and the guards were pleased to show us around:

In a couple of places there were these holes in the ground on the hill:

I was told that these were air vents to feed air into the honeycombs that permeated the hill, and the other hills that surrounded the city. They were supposedly built in response to treats from the US and they wanted to be able evacuate the city. Macabre!

My friend and I had an opportunity to look around the city during a break in the visits:

Down at the Harbor:

The sign is for the 1st Baptist church of Santiago:

We ran across a group of kids playing Baseball in the Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría:

All too soon we had to leave and return to Havana: The little towns along the coast look very invitiing:

We landed in Havana and immediately went to Guanajay with our new friend Luis: 

Here is Luis:

Guanajay!

We stayed with Luis and his wife Mercy and son.

Yes his son was watching Veggie-tales! Here is where Luis works and one of his best friends:

Luis was raising pigs nearby. He apologized for their dirtiness, but they were having water problems in his neighborhood.

We came to Guanajay to install a water purification system at the First Baptist church of Guanajay

We got everything working rather quickly with the help of a large number of the leaders of the church. What a great group of Christian men! Here is Luis, his Pastor Ramon Interian, the water system and me:

Reading the new manuals . . .

The picture that the guy is studying is from my trip the previous year to Santiago. Now we are waiting for the Chlorine to clear out and determine if it is working well enough . . .

While we wait my friend and I were able to visit the near-by pueblo of Villegas with pastor Interion from the church in Guanajay.

It was a tight fit for my friend who is taller than me, and he had to fight with the roof liner to add to the comfort:

This is the Baptist church for this pueblo of ~200 people:

That's right. That was the church! (See any needs that they might have?)

Havana

Having completed everything we could in Guanajay, we returned to Havana and waited until the next afternoon to catch our return flight to Miami.

We stayed at the Casa Humberto in Habana Viejo (Old Havana). The location was great and the people were wonderful, but the beds were the worst that I have ever slept in in Cuba:

Our flight was in the mid-afternoon so we killed time walking around our house:

Here is the Capitol near the center of town:

Here we are over at the Hotel Nacional. Even though we were not guests, if you look like you know what you are doing, you can go out on their bluff overlooking the Malecon (road along the harbor.)

We also went down to the harbor. The ship is from Uruguay.

Other various places around town:

Finally we had lunch with Pastor Martiz and his daughter, Elda, and son-in-law Vincente before we went to the airport to come home. Pastor Martiz's daughter was the most amazing cook. We could not understand how Vincente could be so skinny with that food.

Goodbye, Cuba, until next time . . .

Please keep all the Christian Believers in Cuba in your prayers!

All pictures above are "thumbnails." Click on a picture to see a bigger copy, afterwards, use your browser's back arrow to return to this page. If you see any pictures that you want a higher resolution copy, just email me. A couple of the pictures have a "d" at the beginning of the name. In these cases the picture is one taken by my friend. Most pictures have 1-3 Mbyte originals