The people of Cuba were already dealing with an economic recession and the ongoing recovery from a previous hurricane when Hurricane Oscar flooded parts of the east side of the island in October. Hurricane Rafael then ravaged Cuba’s western side in November, followed by an earthquake in the west.

Electricity, normally available three hours a day, went out completely before Hurricane Oscar came, said Bishop Luis Hernández of the Brethren in Christ Church in Cuba. Without electricity, people did not have information about the storm, leaving them unprepared when the hurricane lashed the island.

As a result, several people died. Hernández has not heard about lost lives from Hurricane Rafael, but the damage adds to Cuba’s worsening economic needs.

“Even if the [hurricane] doesn’t cause human loss of life, it knocks out homes, destroys harvests and destroys electrical systems,” Hernandez said.

Hundreds of people who attend BIC churches and their neighbors were affected by Rafael. The earthquake also damaged houses in the communities where many BIC churches are located.

The church is distributing canned meat and hygiene supplies that were prepositioned in Cuba, and a new shipment of MCC supplies is waiting to clear customs there. Another was being packed at the MCC East Coast Material Resources Center in Ephrata, Pa., when Hernández and his wife, Yanaisy Marrero, visited in November.

Many churches have daily feeding programs using canned chicken in stew, so that it stretches for the whole community.

The chicken is preserved each year by tens of thousands of volunteers in the U.S. After buying the meat, they gather at sites across the country to help MCC’s four-man crew preserve about 500,000 cans of meat for people in crisis around the world.

This year’s meat canning season is under way. The first stop of 2025 will be in Goshen, Ind., Jan. 6-17.

In Havana in 2023, Elizabeth Vázquez Delgado, a BIC co-pastor with her husband, was grateful for the canned meat and other resources given to seniors, children, pregnant women and others in need.

“It’s also been a contribution to our spiritual life because we’ve seen people getting involved, just like in the days of the early church, when they shared bread together and every day the Lord added something new,” she said.

MCC also provides relief kits: a five-gallon bucket with enough towels and hygiene supplies for a family. Hernandez said people welcome the relief kits because basic supplies are unaffordable to many.

A bar of soap costs more than 10% of a minimum-wage earner’s monthly salary. A flat of 30 eggs costs twice the amount of a monthly salary.

“If you come to somebody’s house with hygiene products, with shampoo, they know at the store it’s very expensive,” Hernandez said. “We just give it to them for free. It’s a huge blessing.”

María Dolores Pérez Páez and Gregorio Gonzalez Placencia received an MCC relief kit after their house was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in September 2022. They both suffer from health problems and are trying to live on his pension.

“We received everything [in the relief bucket], and I still have it — the towels, the shampoo. I have some soap, but I’m using it as little as possible, so it lasts,” Pérez Páez said to MCC staff who visited in March 2023. “So, I thank the people who sent me this. I recognize the effort it took to send it, and I want to honor it because when it’s gone, I don’t know where I’ll get more.”

Despite the challenges, Hernández said the church continues to grow.

“We live by faith,” he said. “Ninety percent of Cubans live just hanging on to God.”