The people of Cuba were already dealing with an economic recession and ongoing recovery from a previous hurricane when Hurricane Oscar flooded parts of the east side of the island in October. Hurricane Rafael then rampaged on Cuba’s western side in November followed by an earthquake in the west.
Electricity, which is normally only available three hours a day, went out completely before Hurricane Oscar came, says Bishop Luis Hernández of the Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church in Cuba. Without electricity, people did not have information about the storm, leaving them unprepared when the hurricane lashed the island.
As a result, several people died, he says. Hernández has not heard about lost lives from Hurricane Rafael, but the damage adds to the economic needs in Cuba that have been getting increasingly worse in the last few years.
Even if the cyclone (hurricane) doesn’t cause human loss of life, it knocks out homes, destroys harvests and destroys electrical systems.
Luis Hernández
Bishop of the Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church in Cuba
“Even if the cyclone (hurricane) doesn’t cause human loss of life, it knocks out homes, destroys harvests and destroys electrical systems,” Hernández says. Hundreds of people who attend BIC churches and their neighbors were affected by Rafael. The earthquake also damaged houses in the communities where many BIC churches are located.
Currently the church is distributing canned meat and hygiene supplies that were prepositioned in the country. A new shipment of MCC supplies is waiting to clear customs in Cuba. Another was being packed at the MCC East Coast Material Resources Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, when Hernández and his wife, Yanaisy Marrero, visited in mid November.
On an ongoing basis since 2015, MCC has supported the BIC church with disaster response, initially by sending funds for local purchases. Since 2021, MCC has been sending containers of canned meat and relief kits, since local purchase became difficult due to severe scarcity.
The BIC Church has distributed MCC’s supplies among its congregations and other denominations in different regions of the island. Then the pastors and church leaders give supplies to people in need in their churches and communities.
“It’s had a very positive impact,” Hernández says. “We’ve gone especially with the meat cans to families that have nothing to eat. When we arrive with this help, many of them burst into tears because they feel God hasn’t forgotten them.”
Many churches have daily feeding programs, he says, using canned chicken in stew, so that it stretches for the whole community. The canned chicken they are using is preserved each year by tens of thousands of volunteers in the U.S. After buying the meat, they gather in sites across the U.S. to help MCC’s four-man crew preserve about 500,000 cans of meat for people in crisis around the world.
Elizabeth Vázquez Delgado, a BIC co-pastor with her husband in Havana in 2023, said she was grateful for the canned meat and other resources because they were able to give them to seniors, children, pregnant women and others in need.
“It’s also been a contribution to our spiritual life because we’ve seen people getting involved, just like in the days of the early church, when they shared bread together and every day the Lord added something new, and this has been a privilege.”
MCC also provides relief kits – a 5-gallon bucket with enough towels and hygiene supplies for a family. Hernandez says people welcome the relief kits because basic supplies are unaffordable to many.
A bar of soap costs 200 pesos, but the minimum wage for a month is 1,500 pesos. So a bar of soap can cost more than 10% of a person’s monthly salary. A flat of 30 eggs costs 3,000 pesos – twice the amount of a person’s monthly salary.
“So if you come to somebody’s house with different hygiene products, with shampoo,” Hernández says, “they know at the store it’s very expensive. We just give it to them for free; it’s a huge blessing.”
María Dolores Pérez Páez and Gregorio Gonzalez Placencia of Pinar del Rio Province received an MCC relief kit after their house was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in September 2022. They both suffer from health problems and are trying to live on his pension.
“We received everything [in the relief bucket] and I still have it—the towels, the shampoo; I have some soap but I’m using it as little as possible, so it lasts,” Pérez Páez says to MCC staff who visited in March 2023. “So, I thank the people who sent me this. I recognize the effort it took to send it, and I want to honor it because when it’s gone, I don’t know where I’ll get more.”
People don’t want to just hear that God loves them. People want to see that God loves them, and we want to be part of that story.
Luis Hernández
Bishop of the Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church in Cuba
Despite the many challenges in Cuba, the church continues to grow, Hernández says. “We live by faith – 90% of Cubans live just hanging on to God.” He adds, “So we confront or we embrace the challenges with joy, knowing the reality, but there is a truth that is above the reality, that God is with us.”
Hernández asks for prayer for the people of Cuba and thanked MCC and the people who donate supplies and pack the canned meat and kits.
“People don’t want to just hear that God loves them,” he says. “People want to see that God loves them, and we want to be part of that story. If we can help Cubans in some way, we are here for that.”
Caption for first photo: Luis Hernández points to Cuba, his home country, on the map at the MCC East Coast Material Resources Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, during a visit in November. Hernández is the bishop of the Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church of Cuba. MCC photo/Andrew Boden
Christy Kauffman, MCC U.S. multimedia coordinator, interviewed them for this article.