I have had a fervent and committed faith since I converted to Christ in 2010. On 12 December 2012, I began to attend the Fuego y Dinámica International Apostolic Ministry Church in Camagüey, here in Cuba, where I worked as a children’s pastor. The church is not registered by the government, and so that’s when the persecution began.

From the beginning, I had a very special experience with God, and I never pulled away from him again, but being a member of an unregistered church was hard for me. It took a lot for me to overcome my fears because everybody I knew spoke very badly of what happened inside the church. It was only after I could see from my own experience that we were not doing anything illegal that I stopped being secretive about it.

Another challenge was explaining this to my family. They did not understand, and many of our relatives distanced themselves from us. Following the last church demolition that the government carried out, we had to close the house of prayer because political police agents intimidated all the members.

As we resisted the pressure, those same agents visited our neighbours in order to socially isolate us. I had to endure a lot of humiliation from my close family. It was a terrible time…

Yusleysi Gil Mauricio is a socio-cultural studies graduate in Cuba. She and her husband are supported by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). To support the work of CSW, visit csw.org.uk or call 020 8329 0010

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This is an extract from an article published in the July/August 2021 edition of Reform

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