Cuba Filter of Hope
Spring 2024
This past spring break, 14 students and five mentors traveled to Cuba for a mission trip organized by Filter of Hope. FoH is a missionary organization that seeks to provide clean water for families in impoverished countries by distributing special water filters. Oftentimes, the image of Cuba you might see in our pop culture is this vibrant, colorful island but behind the touristy places and vintage cars, Cuba is a poor country and many people suffer because of lack of food and clean water. Many of the homes we visited had no electricity and were made with scrap metal and wood. The average Cuban makes $20 a month, and the price of chicken is around the same here, so you do the math; chicken is a luxury.
Though there is a great physical need, there is a greater spiritual need. Many are hopeless and lost without the hope of a better life that Jesus provides. So, in addition to providing the water filter (which is completely free for the families), we had the opportunity to meet their spiritual need by sharing the gospel using the filter as an illustration of how we are like dirty water and how the filter is like Jesus.
During this one-week mission trip, our day consisted of a morning and afternoon distribution, where we visited around 3-5 homes for each distribution. We met the family members of each house, and we showed them how to install the filter and how to use it. Then we transition into sharing the gospel with them so that they could make a salvation decision. After the distributions, we had fellowship time with our team and had a lot of time to plan for the next day. On the last day, we took a trip to explore a national park in Cuba and ride horses! Overall, this mission trip was a great opportunity to see how Cubans lived and to grow in my ability to share and present the gospel to strangers of a different nation.
I went into Cuba hesitant to share the gospel but I left very energized and wanting to share the gospel with my friends back here in Seattle. Seeing the dedication of the Christians I met there and their zeal for the gospel was inspiring because day in and day out I saw them working hard in engaging their people in spiritual conversations and serving their communities alongside us.
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