Go to Cuba in June!!

[roody]

Join the IFCO/Pastors for Peace 19th Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba - June/July 2008

Between June 14 and July 14, 2008 the 19th US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan will travel on 15 different routes to visit more than 125 US and Canadian cities. We will travel in school buses, trucks, cars and a bookmobile to Cuba via Mexico with medical and educational supplies donated by groups across the US and Canada as a collective challenge to the US government‚s immoral. Inhuman and internationally condemned blockade of Cuba .

We will spend 8 days in Cuba in fellowship with our Cuban brothers and sisters, attending and participating in cultural events, and visiting social projects such as organic farms, homes for the elderly and health centers including the Latin American School of Medicine where 120 US students from economically deprived communities are training to be doctors under free scholarships provided by the Cuban government. We will meet and learn from Cubans at every level about the problems caused by the blockade and the ways they have creatively responded.
We will then return to Texas via Mexico, proudly declaring our travel to Cuba and our opposition to the blockade and ban on travel to Cuba

Pastors for Peace believes and teaches, by word and by deed, that Cuba is not our enemy. All the great faiths of the world call upon us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. When Jesus Christ was asked Œand who is my neighbor?‚ he responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan, who ministered with loving compassion to one very different from himself, even at great personal risk. Today the Cuban people are truly our neighbors.

19th US-Cuba Friendshipment schedule
· JUNE 14-28 Caravan routes - educational events and aid collections in the US and Canada.
· JUNE 29 ˆ JULY 2 Participant Orientation in Texas.
· JULY 3-4 Border crossing into Mexico – travel to Tampico – load material aid onto cargo ship
· JULY 5-12 Fly to Havana - educational program in Cuba.
· JULY 13 Return to Tampico - travel to Mexico/US border.
· JULY 14 Reverse Challenge, cross back into Texas.

Our website www.pastorsforpeace.org <http://www.pastorsforpeace.org/> gives further information

JOIN US!
You can join the caravan as we pass through your community. Many past caravanistas say the time traveling through the US, meeting and staying with local community activists across the US, is as important a part of the experience as the time in Cuba. If your time is limited, you also have the option of making your own way down to join us in Texas on June 29th

For more information and/or a caravan application
Email: [e-mail]



IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE
418 W 145th Street, New York, NY 10031
tel: [phone] - fax: [phone] - email: [e-mail],
www.ifconews.org <http://www.ifconews.org/>

[Judi Lynn]

1. Be with you in spirit. What an opportunity for anyone who can participate in person.

It would be great to get away just to meet the people in Texas, too, to hear their observations from their previous trip(s).

Have a safe, meaningful trip to the posters who may join them, and we will all hope this time next year the whole situation may have improved dramatically. Don't give up hope, whatever you do.

The world's had a run of bad luck since the 1950's, wouldn't you say? Maybe that's all due to change, even as we post.

Will be looking forward to hearing more about this caravan as it proceeds. Best wishes, and safe passage.

[roody]

2. I am not going this year.

I hope other DUers go.

[Judi Lynn]

3. That could happen. There are others who have gone, as well, who

have mentioned it in passing over the years here.

Maybe next year things will be entirely easier for Pastors for Peace, with any luck at all. Wouldn't that be outstanding?

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Giving To Pastors For Peace Is Good Thing

I believe that giving to Pastors for Peace is a good thing. Whatever my disagreements with other DU'ers about the political and economic structure of present-day Cuba, I believe that supplying medical supplies to people in need is the right thing to do and makes for good karma. Furthermore, I believe that the hard-line exiles' hostility to NGO aid programs like Pastors for Peace is un-Christian and does nothing whatsoever to further the long-term interests of the US as a whole.

For all of us who think it's time to drop the travel restrictions for US citizens and resident aliens wishing to visit Cuba as well as the trade restrictions, giving to Pastors for Peace then saying that you did it is a thoroughly enjoyable way of annoying the hard-line Cuban exiles and native-born US Cosmic Commie Killers.

:evilgrin:

[roody]

5. It is tax-deductible. Delicious!