wfn.org | Felina's home: 80-year-old disciple embodies God's love for Havana's poorest kids

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7133 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

19-April-2002
02151

Felina's home

80-year-old disciple embodies God's love for Havana's poorest kids

by Jerry L. Van Marter

HAVANA, Cuba - The light streams through Felina's doorway into the dark, dusty street outside her little house in Havana's El Cerro slum.

Like moths to a flame, the neighborhood children come to Felina's living room, a cubbyhole that for more than 50 years has been the only Presbyterian worship space in El Cerro.

Felina is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Havana, but she and her parishioners don't have bus fare to get across town to First Church on Sunday mornings. Even if they had the money, they wouldn't have the time: It's just a five-mile trip, but it's three hours each way on Havana's overtaxed transit system.

So every Tuesday and Wednesday, what little furniture there is on the tile floor of Felina's living room - a wooden bench and a small television set - is pushed back against the white plaster walls, and a small wooden pulpit and a pews of plastic deck chairs are set up, transforming the room into a sanctuary. 

The mission is sponsored by First Church, at 110 years the oldest Protestant church in Cuba. First Church donated the pulpit and purchased the chairs and simple hymnals the makeshift congregation uses. A few years ago, when the roof caved in, First Church paid to have it fixed.

But make no mistake: This is Felina's mission.

More than 50 people, more than half of them children, jam themselves into the little room for worship. "People love this mission," says Felina, who is 80, going on 81. "They send their children because they trust us." 

The official name of the worship and Christian education program is "Mision del Cerro," but everybody just calls it "Felina's room." 

Worship is simple. Hymns sung a capella; testimonies to the goodness of God; songs by the children's choir (directed by a Claudia, a 14-year-old with the voice of an angel); Bible readings; sometimes a homily; always an abundance of prayer.

"Felina's room" started with a pastoral call. 

"People from First Presbyterian Church came to visit when my mother was sick (sometime in the late 1940s)," Felina remembers, "and we prayed. They were two brothers, and their name was Castro. ... I said, 'Why don't we do something regular?' So some young people started to come, and the hand of the Lord has been on us all this time."

First Presbyterian Church has continued sending church members around to help Felina and to maintain the church's connection with the Mision. The Rev. Hector Mendez, First Church's pastor, makes the trip once or twice a month. But the real leadership is provided by Felina and a young couple from First Church, Marta and Juan Carlos  Torres.

Their story is as compelling as Felina's. 

After medical school, Marta, a doctor, was assigned by the Cuban government to a clinic near Felina's house in El Cerro. 

"When I came to live in El Cerro, everything was so different from where I grew up," she says. "El Cerro has a reputation for being a very bad place, and I wondered what God wanted from me.

"So I went to First Presbyterian Church one Sunday to pray to God for something important to do. When I opened my eyes, I was sitting next to Felina, and I started talking to her."

Marta laughs at the coincidence, which her faith tells her was no accident.

"Felina told me, 'If you're looking for God's work, you have an answer - we have a mission in El Cerro, and we need you.'"

Marta and her husband have been co-leaders of the Mision for five years.

"She works in the clinics around here, so is highly respected," Suecia Mendez, Hector's daughter and an important church leader in her own right, says of Marta. "She is an important example for the children."

Tonight is special. Visitors from the United States have come to Felina's room. So a new element is added to the service: The children are asked what messages they would like to send to NorteAmericano children. The answers come rapid-fire:

* "We hope some day you will come visit us, and we'll welcome you with love."

* "We have big hugs waiting for you!"

* "Please take care of each other."

* "Our hearts and hands are open to you."

* From Claudia: "Greetings to you - even though there are differences between our governments, we feel affection for you."

Suddenly all the lights go out. Giggles fill the obviously unsurprised room.

Then a flashlight beam illumines the room with a warm glow. "God is the light of the world," Hector Mendez says. "This is what we have to learn and to preach."

Through the brightest and darkest times of Cuba's recent history, "Felina's room" has been a Presbyterian beacon in El Cerro, a presence as steady and reliable as hunger.

"I have faith God will do miracles," Felina says. "This is the reason for our motto: 'We will persist in prayer and ministry of God's word.'"
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