From Cuba to Miami: an unplanned pilgrimage

In January 2025, life for pastors Obed and Alay Martinez changed dramatically. Carrying only the luggage they needed for a short trip, they flew from their home in Cuba to Miami. They were visiting their children and grandchildren, who had lived there for 20 years. “When I saw my grandchildren for the first time in years,” Obed said, “they cried, ‘Abuelito!’ [‘Grandfather!’] After a confused moment, I realized I was Abuelito.”

Obed and Alay planned to finish registering for permanent residency, a process their children started. But Donald Trump’s post-election threats to deport illegal immigrants scared them.

Fearing what ICE has done since last January – even arresting some U.S. citizens and legal immigrants – they decided to stay in Florida. They were afraid that if they left, they might never see their family again.

“We feel relieved away from the pressure cooker of Cuba’s horrible scarcity,” they told my wife Rose and me. But at the same time, they miss their friends and congregations.

Mixed messages

Rose and I spoke with our friends on WhatsApp in March. They described the U.S.-Cuba relationship as “somewhat confusing.”

Obed explained: “A U.S. government agency has sent $6 million for food relief and assisted the Catholic Church’s food delivery efforts. Also the Salvation Army, Catholic churches, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and Assemblies of God have sent money, containers with bicycles, food, toys, clothes and shoes. The U.S.’s Chargé d’Affaires for Cuba, Mike Hammer, has met with Catholic and evangelical clergy assessing their deepest needs.”

But U.S. executive statements are perplexing. Obed volunteered, “Trump often makes threats to take over Cuba, but the media reports contradictory statements two days later. We believe Marco Rubio; he says, ‘I’m in conversation with the Cuban government and the Vatican.’ He sets out conditions for the government: ‘Reform the economic system, permit free enterprise, hold free elections; release 1000 political prisoners.’ The Cuban government confirms those talks, but so far has released only 50 prisoners.”

Alay added, “Cuba is suffering societal exhaustion and deterioration. Banditry is rampant, and [so] people protest, rejecting the government. Youth suicides are rising.” Obed knew a man in his thirties, in Jaguey (hah-GWAY), who recently took his own life. Despite this, “the government [wants] to hold onto power,” Obed said.

Obed’s story

I first met Obed and Alay in August 1985 when I travelled to Cuba on behalf of Christian Reformed World Missions (now Resonate Global Mission). In two weeks, I visited the 13 Christian Reformed (CRC) congregations in Cuba and met many Cuban CRC leaders. I’ve returned 15 times, always deepening relationships. The first two times I visited Cuba, Obed was eighteen years old. I stayed in his parents’ home in Jaguey Grande, a city of 50,000 with industries of citrus and banana production and quarries for construction materials.

Like all Cuban youth, Obed attended Cuba’s boarding schools. While he was often the school’s only Christian, Obed was respected and often engaged teachers and other students in spirited theological conversations.

Following his father, Erelio’s calling, Obed graduated from Matanzas’ Evangelical Theological Seminary. He pastored three CRCs until 2011, when he and his wife, Alay Gonzalez, moved to Cuba’s Moravian denomination, which has 12 congregations scattered across the island. Alay served the CRCs and Moravians as a laywoman until being ordained on August 27, 2016 with Tania Sanchez, the first two women pastors in Cuba’s Moravian Church.

Until January 2025, when they travelled to Miami, Obed and Alay pastored Jaguey’s lively Moravian church. Members packed their home’s garage on Sundays and mid-week for worship, Christian education, and food assistance to vulnerable families and seniors. Alay and Obed initiated Sunday Schools, adult Bible studies and theology classes in all twelve churches, programs never known before in Moravian congregations. They still remember one glorious 775-kilometre trip to Guantanamo to baptize 50 new believers.

Life in Miami

Obed and Alay spent forty years pastoring in their homeland. When they left, their Cuban congregation was profoundly shaken, but understood the choice. A young man whom Obed had trained was installed as pastor.

After 15 months in Miami, “We’re haciendo la vida [building a life].” Both have found productive jobs and live in a small apartment. On Sundays, they occasionally help at a Hispanic Moravian church. Alay, a splendid cook, prepares meals at a local school and works part-time at a Marshalls department store.

Unused to physical labour, Obed works night shifts at Home Depot, organizing and stocking shelves with hardware. He has crowned himself Rey de Tornillos y Tuercas, the King of Bolts and Nuts. During breaks, he talks with colleagues about Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

Compared to Cuba, “daily life is so much easier,” Alay said. Back home, the hours-long queuing for food had gotten worse: “Now people can buy most food only at expensive government-run stores accepting only hard currency.”

“Where do people get hard cash?” I asked Alay. “Relatives and friends overseas send money,” she said. Remittances – money sent by family overseas – are estimated to sustain anywhere from a quarter to three-quarters of Cuba’s families, with most of the remittances coming from family members in the U.S. and arriving in small amounts. “Without those remittances, people rarely have two meals a day – mostly just breakfast.”

Like many ex-pat Cubans, Obed and Alay send food which is delivered to personal addresses in three or four days via a specialized export business. (According to the World Food Programme, Cuba imports 70 to 80 percent of its domestic food.) Obed and Alay sent solar panels to Obed’s family in Jaguey, for the congregation. “Now they can charge phones, run lights and the refrigerator.”

Obed explained that the Cuban peso has fallen sharply in value. “Cuban wages can buy almost nothing. . . There’s galloping inflation.”

Pray!

Obed is still the gutsy guy from boarding school days. In 2024, when he met Jaguey officials with other clergy, he heatedly challenged them: “In this economic system, you pretend to pay us; we pretend to work. Quit blaming the U.S. blockade for everything.”

As pastors, Alay and Obed urge Christian Courier readers, “Only God can change leaders’ minds. Our government doesn’t serve people and doesn’t have the tools to fix the culture. PRAY.”