Never Lose Hope

Jailed for his faith in Castro’s Cuba, a young pastor learned to live holding on to God’s hand.

“When those enormous doors slammed behind me, I got the impression of having entered a hostile and alien world; it struck me that I was being dragged down into the very bowels of hell.” This is how the story begins of a young pastor, separated from his pregnant wife, who is suddenly thrust behind bars because of his religious convictions. There he became acquainted with a dimension of life previously unknown to him. A jail can be a dark swamp where freedom, hope, and even human dignity are compromised, but it can also be a place where God’s light shines even more brightly in contrast with the darkness. There, the faith he had cultivated as a child led him to see in those cells the birth of an underground church.