wfn.org | [PCUSAnews] Profiles in Partnership

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

Note #6334 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

01015

Profiles in Partnership

U.S. Presbyterians connect with Cuban brothers and sisters

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - Among the best-kept secrets in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
are the thriving partnerships between seven PC(USA) presbyteries and the
three presbyteries of the Iglesia Presbiteriana Reformada en Cuba (IPRC),
also known as the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba.
  The PC(USA) was instrumental in the founding of the IPRC more than 110
years ago. The two churches enjoyed an extremely close relationship until
the Castro revolution of 1959. Since then, the PC(USA) has continued to
support the IPRC despite hostile relations between the two governments and
severe economic and travel restrictions.  And since the mid-1980s, PC(USA)
presbyteries have established seven formal partnerships with the three
presbyteries of the IPRC and the Cuban church's national council.
In addition, the "Presbyterian Cuban Connection," an informal network of
U.S. Presbyterians with an interest in mission in Cuba, works with the IPRC
and the PC(USA)'s Worldwide Ministries Division to promote greater
understanding and cooperation between the two churches.
In November, for the first time ever, representatives of all seven PC(USA)
presbyteries and the Presbyterian Cuba Connection met with their Cuban
partners at a "Celebration of Partnership" at CANIP, the IPRC's national
conference center outside Santa Clara, in the center of the island nation.
Each of the presbytery partners shared successes and failures, hopes and
challenges with all the others.

	Cascades Presbytery and Central Presbytery

The Rev. David Crow, who serves on the staff of Cascades Presbytery, was an
Air Force reservist in the early 1960s when the Cuban missile crisis brought
the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.  He
fully expected to be called to active duty, perhaps to go fight in Cuba.
Now, 40 years later, he is deeply moved to be coming to Cuba as a
peacemaker, helping U.S. Presbyterians understand and support the rich
heritage and current mission of the IPRC.  "Coming here now in peace is a
powerful experience," he says.
Cascades' partnership with Central Presbytery is relatively new;
conversations between the two began in 1997. Since then, Cascades has sent
several visitation teams to Cuba and a number of IPRC teams have come to
Oregon as well.
This personal touch has proved most effective, says the Rev. Beverly Crow,
interim pastor of Moreland Presbyterian Church in Portland, Ore. "Our church
was not interested in Cuba," recalls Crow.  "It only cared about local
mission. Then Dora came as an International Peacemaker (a program of the
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program). I cannot believe the power of a one-day
visit. Now my church loves Dora, and Cuba!"
Cascades and Central are pairing congregations up in one-to-one
relationships.  It's that kind of intimate contact that cements commitment
to partnership, David Crow says. "Our challenge," he adds, "is coordinating
our funding and visitation decisions in ways that enhance and don't impede
the mission of Central Presbytery and its churches."

 
	Chicago Presbytery and Havana Presbytery

The partnership between Chicago and Havana was established in 1988, after a
visit to Cuba by the Rev. Paul Rogers, a former executive presbyter. Since
then, more than 100 Chicago Presbyterians have visited Cuba, and several
IPRC delegations have come to the Windy City.
A Cuban partnership was "a natural," says the Rev. Muriel Miller, associate
pastor of Hickory Hills Presbyterian Church and chair of Chicago's Cuba Work
Group. "Our presbytery is very diverse, we have one Cuban pastor and our
current presbytery moderator, Sam Acosta, was educated at the Presbyterian
seminary at Matanzas."
In addition to visits and congregation-to-congregation relationships,
Chicago includes information about Cuba and the partnership in each issue of
the presbytery newsletter.  Presbytery representatives are also active in
Washington, lobbying for an end to the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
Perphaps the most interesting aspect of the Chicago-Havana link is the
partnership that has been established between Matanzas Seminary and
McCormick Theological Seminary. The seminaries have exchanged students and
faculty, with Cuban and U.S. professors team-teaching classes, and McCormick
has helped stock the Matanzas library.
"This partnership has been a real blessing for us," says Daniel
Rodriguez-Diaz, "because we are culturally limited and challenged. We must
explore theologically and in mission what it means to be the church in
different cultures and circumstances."
The Cuban church has also been changed by these partnerships, says Orestes
Gonzalez Cruz, the IPRC's treasurer. "I believe a relationship of stability
between Cuba and the U.S. will be seen in my lifetime, and these
partnerships will have a great influence on that."
The Rev. Jan Van Lear, pastor of Berkeley-Hillside Presbyterian Church and
moderator-elect of Chicago Presbytery, agrees. "We don't know where we're
going in these partnerships, but we know we must go there, and God will show
us the way."

	Long Island Presbytery and Havana Presbytery

The partnership between Long Island and Havana has the deepest roots.
Although the formal partnership was established in 1989, correspondence
between the two presbyteries began in 1981. and visits back and forth
started in 1984.
"One of our first decisions was to bring women and youth to the U.S. for the
PC(USA) trienniums (Presbyterian Women's Churchwide Gathering and the
Presbyterian Youth Triennium)," says Martha Porter, a member of Long
Island's Cuba Work Group and a frequent visitor to Cuba. "And we always plan
those trips so they can come to Long Island and share their experiences with
us." More than 250 Long Islanders have visited Cuba, and about half that
many have come to Long Island from the IPRC.
The impact the Cuba partnerships have on young people is a personal reality
for the Rev. John Best, pastor of Montauk Presbyterian Church and chair of
Long Island's Cuba Work Group. It was while attending language school in
Cuba that his 16-year-old son rediscovered the church). "The experience was
life-changing for me," Best said, "because my son, an aspiring filmmaker who
was not involved in church, was able to film and learn about the wider
church that he wasn't aware of before."
 
Another recent project, headed up by the Rev. Linda Clements, brings IPRC
women pastors and laywomen to Princeton Theological Seminary for the
seminary's annual clergywomens' conference. The Rev. Dick Ploth, a former
executive of Long Island Presbytery who is now interim pastor of Sag Harbor
Presbyterian Church (and Clements' spouse) says leadership development
programs and raising funds for capital and mission needs of the
financially-strapped IPRC are key to the presbyteries' partnership.
The heart and soul of Long Island's involvement with Cuba is Lucy Fetterolf
of Huntington, NY. She was recently honored by First Presbyterian Church of
Havana for her tireless efforts on behalf of the PC(USA)-IPRC partnership.
She views the partnership as "a single community of faith working together
here and there to serve our one Lord and church."
When partnerships are successful, Arce says, "there is always a person,
chosen by God, to give a special character to a ministry. For us in Cuba,
Lucy is that person."

	Monmouth Presbytery and Central Presbytery

A very different kind of personal touch prompted the partnership between
Monmouth and Central.  A member of Monmouth adopted a Cuban orphan several
years ago, and began asking the presbytery to explore a renewal of its
relationship with Cuban Presbyterians, a relationship dating back to when
the Cuban Presbyterian Church was part of the former Synod of New Jersey.
This new partnership, following on the heels of a relationship between
Central and Transylvania Presbytery in Kentucky that fell apart, is being
pursued cautiously. "We don't want to repeat the worst of our history," says
the Rev. Kate Killebrew, an associate executive for mission with Monmouth
and West Jersey presbyteries. "We want to create a new relationship of
justice - and dancing! We have exchanged visits and are learning to trust
and be honest with each other."
The Rev. Carlos Wilton, pastor of Point Pleasant (N.J.) Presbyterian Church,
is optimistic. "We're new at this - we're just trying to broaden the
experience of this partnership from a few visitors to a larger crowd," he
says.
Elsa Hernandez Alfonso of Central is pleased so far. "We are very happy with
this growing child," she says. "Our partnership is like a bridge - a symbol
of a separation that no longer exists by God's construction. This bridge is
not made of bricks, iron and wood, but with foundations of love, respect and
unity. We join our hands day-by-day to build more bridges of love."

	Santa Fe Presbytery and the IPRC Council

Santa Fe Presbytery has taken a different tack, establishing its partnership
not with a presbytery but with the national synod of the IPRC. With just
more than 30 congregations in its three presbyteries, the IPRC has a modest
structure and program, but is still very important in Cuba.
"We are a decentralized church, but we are living in a centralized state,"
explains the Rev. Carlos Emilio Ham, the IPRC's general secretary, who also
is pastor of Luyano Presbyterian Church in Havana. "So all things must come
through the synod council - permits for people to come and go to and from
Cuba, and financial support from outside the country. We relate to more than
20 different organizations around the world, and, of course, the U.S. is
more complicated because of the embargo."
The Santa Fe-IPRC partnership began in 1990 with a visit to New Mexico by
the Rev. Carlos Camps and the Rev. Hector Mendez.  The next year, Santa Fe's
moderator, a Cuban, led a delegation of five people from Santa Fe to attend
the centennial celebration of the Presbyterian Church in Cuba.
 
Among other activities, Santa Fe has been instrumental in the development of
CANIP, the national conference center of the IPRC. The presbytery receives a
Cuba Partnership Sunday offering to fund its support of the IPRC. One church
in Santa Fe designated one-third of its recent $300,000 capital campaign for
the IPRC, which used the funds to complete a dormitory at Matanzas Seminary.
"All visits and financial support are determined by the IPRC," says the Rev.
Jaime Quinones, a former General Assembly vice-moderator who is retired from
his position as Hispanic ministries staff for Santa Fe. "We try our best to
steer congregations who want partnerships to the places of greatest need."
Santa Fe also emphasizes children, points out Susan Smith, chair of the
presbytery's Committee on Special Relations. "We have letters and pictures
going back and forth between here and Cuba all the time," she says, "because
we all know future generations hold the key."

	South Louisiana Presbytery and Matanzas Presbytery

As Long Island's relationship with Cuba is personified in Lucy Fetterolf, so
is South Louisiana's in Nell Johnston. Undaunted by a "very disappointing"
exploratory meeting in the mid-1980s that drew only five attendees, Johnston
almost single-handedly built support for a Cuba partnership that was aided
greatly by a visit to the 1986 General Assembly by Hector Mendez and a
similar visit in 1987 by Carlos Camps. The partnership was finally launched
in 1988. It was the first formal partnership between the PC(USA) and the
IPRC.
Since then the partnership has flourished, with more than 100 visits by
South Louisiana Presbyterians to Cuba and return visits by more than 50
Cuban Presbyterians to South Louisiana. All 15 Matanzas congregations are
partnered with South Louisiana congregations, and the presbytery also
supports the Matanzas Seminary in a variety of ways.
"Our goal," Johnston says, "is to share mutual faith and build bridges of
understanding." And although it is important, money is really secondary, she
insists.  "If we sent only money, what have given of ourselves? Johnston
asks. "Is there any sacrifice from us in that? What do the Cuban people know
of our hearts, if all we send is money?"
Plans for the near future include a visit to Cuba by a delegation of
students from the campus ministry program at Tulane University in New
Orleans, and the sponsorship of two Cuban young people to attend this
summer's Youth Triennium.
"Some day we'll have to raise a monument to Nell (and Lucy)," says Camps.
"There is such a lack of information or bad information about Cuba that the
work South Louisiana has done is not easy."
He also agrees with Johnston that the money and materials is not most
important when it comes to partnerships. "It's not the dollars or the
medicines, but to open the horizons of relationships between us, to see the
face of Christ in each other."

	West Jersey Presbytery and Matanzas Presbytery

"We're just starting, so there's more potentiality than history," says the
Rev. David Cassie, executive presbyter for West Jersey Presbytery. "We start
with much in common," he adds, "because we both include both rural and urban
areas with much poverty and injustice, which is contrary to what Christ
desires."
 
The West Jersey congregation in Cape May (N.J.) had a partnership with the
church in Cardenas prior to the presbytery partnership; Killebrew smilingly
calls it "a baby before the marriage."  A presbytery committee is now
meeting and consulting with partners in Matanzas about how to proceed with
the relationship.
The Rev. Erasmo Nieves-Perez, pastor of the predominantly Puerto Rican
Bethel Hispanic Presbyterian Church, says his congregation is living the
future of the Cuban partnership. "We are most of us Puerto Ricans but now,
we have a dozen Cubans, and there will be more. We have to open the doors."

	The Presbyterian Cuba Connection

The Presbyterian Cuba Connection is a loose-knit, unofficial organization
that tries to focus attention on U.S.-Cuba Presbyterian relations. It is the
brainchild of the Rev. Dean Lewis, a longtime national staff member in the
area of social justice who is now "retired" in Santa Fe.
"The Cuba Connection grew out of a partnership consultation between the
PC(USA) and the IPRC in 1995," Lewis recalls. "We identified education,
coordination and financial support as the three primary goals to pursue.  We
now have about 400 people involved in one way or another."
The Cuba Connection publishes a newsletter about the activities of the
church in Cuba, and raises funds for projects chosen by the IPRC Synod
Council.
The relationship between the Presbyterian Cuba Connection and the Worldwide
Ministries Division is cooperative but not without tension. Admitting that
the Presbyterian Cuba Connection is "a rare beast," Lewis says, "I think
we've come to a pretty good understanding and trust in each other about what
we're trying to do."
Coordination is essential, says Julia Ann Moffett, WMD's coordinator for the
Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. "These relationships between churches
and presbyteries change all the time. We always need more listening, more
sharing. We are the church, and these relationships cannot be private - we
must think about them in the whole context of our churches."
As the number of presbytery and other relationships grow, Lewis envisions a
"partnership of partners" that will encompass presbyteries, congregations,
seminaries, individuals and groups such as the Cuba Connection. "We dream of
a time," he says, "when all partners work together and share, so that
bilateral partnerships become a unity."

_______________________________________________
pcusaNews mailing list
pcusaNews@pcusa.org

To unsubscribe, go to this web address:
http://pcusa01.pcusa.org/mailman/listinfo/pcusanews