I first visited Dubrocq in 2013, when I was attending Heritage United Methodist Church in Clearwater, Florida. Heritage’s sister church is Iglesia Metodista Herencia Victoriosa (Victorious Heritage) in Dubrocq. At the time, Pastor Chuck Englehardt was trying to re-establish contact with Herencia Victoriosa. I was asked if I wanted to go, and I enthusiastically said, “Yes!”
Little did I know that I would fall in love with the people. I am still friends with Pastora Rebecca Mestre, who was the pastor there at the time.
Dubrocq is located in the city of Matanzas, in the Versailles neighborhood, an industrial area on the western side of Matanzas Bay. It is a poor, working-class neighborhood where many residents work in the industrial zone or at the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant. The church also has a house church mission there, where Pastor Yosvany preaches on Friday evenings.
Herencia Victoriosa Methodist Church was built in 1953 as a mission project of a Methodist church in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. After the Revolution, the church was closed and became a residence for a local family. In 2000, the government returned the building to the Cuban Methodist Church, and the congregation reopened.
My second trip to Dubrocq was in 2015. This time, my wife, Nancy, went to a Dollar Tree store and purchased all the analgesics, antacids, children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen, cold medicines, and other over-the-counter items they had in stock—medicines that were difficult to find in Cuba.
That was our first time bringing medicine. At the time, the shortage was not as severe as it is today, but the church was deeply grateful, and the medicines were helpful. We continued bringing over-the-counter medicines on each trip until COVID-19 brought travel to a halt in 2020.
By 2023, the medicine shortage in Cuba had become much more serious. Sam Martinez began telling people about Blessings International as a way to get much-needed prescription medicines into the country. He had received a large order and asked people to contribute $100 toward the cost of shipping the medicine.
I misunderstood what he meant. I thought he said that if I gave $100, I would receive medicine to take with me to Cuba. I was right about the $100—but that amount was only for shipping. I still needed to purchase the medicine!
Sam is a wonderful and caring person. Since I was already traveling to Cuba and the order he had received was so large, he told me that, for the $100 I had contributed, he would give me 10 kilograms of medicine to take with me. That was the beginning of what has become an ongoing medicine ministry.
Since then, donations—primarily from a Friday morning Bible study, my Sunday school class, and Heritage UMC—have made it possible to continue purchasing medicine for the Dubrocq church to distribute.
We wanted to know what kind of medicine would be most helpful, so Pastor Yosvany contacted the doctor at the nearby clinic and asked him what medicines he needed in his toolbox to serve most of the people who came to him. He gave us a list of about 11 items, and we were able to obtain nine of them. Unfortunately, some of the medicines he needed are not supplied by Blessings International.
Each time a person receives medicine, Pastor Yosvany takes a picture of them and sends it to me via WhatsApp. To date, the church has filled close to 850 prescriptions.
The process is simple. People go to their doctor and receive a prescription. The doctor knows what medicines are available at the church and tells them to go see Pastor Yosvany. The patient brings the prescription to the church, and the church staff provides the number of pills prescribed. If they have questions about the medicine, they are advised to speak with their doctor or a pharmacist. They are also clearly told that the church does not provide medical advice.
What began as a ministry to reach out to the neighborhood has grown into a place people throughout the city of Matanzas know they can turn to when they need medicine. The people of the neighborhood have discovered that Jesus has hands and feet, too.
Now, on Sunday mornings, the church is full.
God has blessed us beyond what I could have imagined. Jesus said to ask, and it would be given, and He has given us far more than I could ever have imagined.
God opened every door, and to Him goes all the glory. I am simply blessed to have been part of it.
I suppose that after that first trip in 2013, I could have thought this was going to be one of those short-term mission trips—a kind of Christian vacation to a remote place where time stood still. I would be back home a week later, able to say, “Yeah, I’ve been to Cuba,” and that could have been it.
But no. This was different.
I fell in love during that first trip with people who love the Lord and serve Him in spite of their circumstances. I see the church of Acts 2 there and the movement of the Holy Spirit. There is a hunger for something that goes far beyond the material things they do not have.
Pastor Yosvany has told me on numerous occasions that the medicine received has saved many lives. But the impact goes far beyond those who receive prescriptions. People are discovering that what they had been told for years about the church was wrong. They are discovering a church that is truly the hands and feet of Jesus.
Lives are changed. Lives are saved. And God gets the glory for His goodness and faithfulness.
Yes, God is good. God is faithful. He is so very good!
