Over Spring Break I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Cuba and serve the Lord. I was such a life-changing experience and I just wanted to share some of my day-by-day experiences with you guys!
Leading up to Cuba I was super excited, but also very scared. I knew that Cuba was a hard place to go as American's, but I didn't realize how hard it truly was. When I realized how dangerous it could be for a 19 year old American girl to travel there, I began to freak out honestly. I thought "Oh great, I am gonna go over to Cuba and get taken and never come back to my family and friends and I am just gonna die there." (Yeah, I realize that thought was probably a little over dramatic, but hey, I am just being honest here and these thoughts really did cross my mind quite often). On March 12, our team was to meet at 10 AM sharp in the Sherman Bible parking lot to head off on our adventure to Cuba. Let me tell you something, March 12th really snuck up on me. One day it was February 2nd, the next it was March 12th, BAM! just like that.
I loaded my bag up with last minute things we had all brought to give away to the Cuban people once we got there, said bye to my family, hoped in the car to head to the airport, and the rest is history. We were off! A new adventure, with people I had only partially known, going to a place I was certainly quite afraid of.
We arrived at the airport, said goodbye to the man who had driven us there, and entered into the airport. Our first stop wasn't directly to Cuba, it was to Canada. And although we rode to the airport with 7 people from our team, we were meeting two more people at our terminal inside the airport, and one more in Canada upon our arrival. The first day would really mainly just be travel (lots and lots of travel), in route to our final destination. We met the two members of our team who live in Houston named Wayne and Pat, and then we hoped on the plane and were off to Canada around 1:30 on March 12. This was it. No turning back. I texted my parents that I would miss them so much and that I would see them when I got back from my trip (hopefully, unless I got taken).
We landed in Canada at about 6 in the evening, and boy was it cold! Coming from Texas, you expect everywhere to be about high 60's/low 70's and sunny, but Canada was definitely not that. Snow on the ground, -3 degrees... CELSIUS. I loved it. We really didn't do too much after arrival, besides meet the newest and last member of our team at the hotel, Dell, who is from Pennsylvania. We also had our last "American" meal, at a restaurant connected to the hotel. It was only 9 by the time all of this was done, and me and the "younger" part of our team weren't really all that tired at all, so we decided to play cards in the lobby of the hotel. That was a super great way to really start off the trip, creating a bond with some of the people that would end up becoming like family to me. I taught them one of my favorite card games, and they enjoyed it, and we just all had a relaxed time before our big week ahead.
When we finished the game, we all headed to bed, and me and my roommate Anna just couldn't go to sleep. Anna is super special to me, we went through discipleship together and she has grown to become like a sister to me. We were the only girls on the trip, and I was so thankful that God paved a way for us to go on this trip together. We laid in bed until about 12 tossing and turning, every once in a while saying to each other, "Hey, are you still awake?" "Yeah, I can't sleep, I keep thinking about tomorrow and how scared I am of entering Cuba." "Yeah, AND being taken." These types of conversations happened 3 or 4 times until Anna and I finally fell asleep, and slept like angels until we had to wake up at 1:45. A solid one hour of sleep really does the body well, let me tell ya! We got up, I zombied my way down to the hotel lobby, hopped on the bus to the airport, and then zombied my way all the way through the airport to our gate. Our flight didn't leave until about 6:30 in the morning, so we had about 4 wonderfully long hours to hang out in the airport. Once the time finally approached for us to board our flight, I was super nervous, but also just so excited to finally be there. We took off, and there we were, on our way to our final destination of Cuba!
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