When I was sixteen years old there was political unrest and problems in Cuba. I was raised in a farm environment on the farm my family owned. We lived a simple life next to a village. Most of the people from the village worked on my grandpa’s farm. Suddenly things changed. I was taken in the middle of the night to a labor camp. It was hard. We had to work 12-15 hours a day with no pay. It wasn’t really a prison, but it was a place where you can’t get out. In the camp with me, there were also Doctors, poets, writers, and thinkers. Some were pastors who were there because of their faith. The pastors introduced me to Christ.
I had a little New Testament that I used to bury in the ground. That was the only thing I had to read and I didn’t want them to take it from me I would place it in a little plastic bag and hide in the ground at the root of a tree. I would read it when no one was around. I prayed to God, “If you deliver me from here I’ll serve you for life.”
Political prisoners could go to another country if they had a Visa. Even though I wasn’t in a prison but in a labor camp, I took advantage of that because I was under the status of a political prisoner, so I was able to get a Jamaican Visa. Jamaica took me in. Then I was able to come to America as a political refugee.
I started working at the bank. I started as a Teller and was promoted all the way to Operations Officer before I went into full-time ministry. I have now been in the ministry for 30 years, preaching in Latin America, holding crusades and festival events. My life has never been the same. I couldn’t ever imagine, from being in a little village in the middle of nowhere that I would have done what I’ve been doing for the last few years.
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