For more than 20 years, St. Mark's has cherished a sister parish relationship with St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Itabo, Cuba. Each year, members of St. Mark's travel to St. Mary's with medicines and gifts for the people of St. Mary's. We support St. Mary's with financial resources which have provided critical renovations and additions to the church. Each week during our worship services, we pray for the parishioners of St. Mary's whose lives and ministries are linked with ours.

Laura Magevney, Christian Formation Director, leads a mission group to Itabo this summer to provide Vacation Bible School for the children there. If you'd like to know more about the trip and how you can help, email Laura.

At a Diocesan fund-raiser for Cuba missions in Cedar Key, Bishop Griselda talked of immediate and future needs of Itabo and the Diocese of Cuba. The immediate need is to buy the property adjacent to St. Mary’s in Itabo, to renovate the buildings on the lot and to fence the entire property for protection. Her future vision is to plant mission churches in two nearby cities, provide the villages with education about environmental sustainability and to build day camps for Cuban children. St. Mark’s is planning to assist both financially and physically in raising up these mission churches and day camp facilities.  

What started in 2004 as a 2,000-square-foot
organic garden behind La Iglesia Santa Maria Virgen in Itabo, Cuba,
grew to a community-wide project that empowered people and spread to
vacant lots, yards and other dioceses.

"A small group of people, in small places, doing small things, can
change the face of the earth," is a popular saying in Cuba, said
Bishop Griselda Delgado Del Carpio of the Episcopal Church of Cuba.

Delgado, formerly the rector of Santa Maria Virgen, shared the story
of her parish's garden during a presentation here Dec. 7, the first
day of the inaugural Episcopal Climate Justice Gathering.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_126095_ENG_HTM.htm