MILLERSBURG -- Jeff Moran's idea of a summer getaway is toiling alongside others in third-world countries.

On July 18, he will leave for his third mission trip to Cuba, where he will help Pastors for Peace distribute six bus loads of material aid to poverty-stricken areas of the country.

"Generally, in order to go to Cuba you have to get permission from the (U.S.) and jump through a lot of hoops, but this group doesn't do that," Moran said. "They say, why should we ask permission to help people?

"They openly defy the U.S. embargo on Cuba."

Pastors for Peace has a Friendshipment to Cuba for which the group has five buses that travel the U.S., gathering computers, educational supplies, medical equipment, supplies and medicine, books, sports equipment, musical equipment,Bibles, food, tools and home supplies.

There is a particular emphasis on construction supplies such as plumbing, carpentry, electrical, masonry, painting and protective gear.

This year, Moran said the group also is planning to pick up a number of Personal Energy Transportation (PET) devices -- hand-propelled wheelchairs such as those made in Columbia.

"That's what I'm hoping to be part of," he said.

Moran's previous trips to Cuba in 2008 and 2009 were through United Methodist Volunteers in Mission; the group did not have any trips planned this year that fit with his schedule, so he found Pastors for Peace's Friendshipment Caravan.

"In 2008 my wife and daughter and I went to a Methodist Church camp in Central Cuba for eight weeks doing general labor, digging to put in utility lines," Moran said. "The second trip was in a village in the south where we were constructing a home for the pastor of a new Methodist congregation."

Although that kind of activity may not sound like the ideal vacation to a lot of people, for Moran it is perfect.

"I've been on a couple trips to Europe -- visited castles and taken the tours -- and that's fine, I enjoyed those," he said. "But on the mission trips you work with people and get to know the people themselves and see, I think, a more real view of their world.

"You get in a ditch, shoveling mud with someone eight hours a day, you really get to know them. It's just a more satisfying experience for me."

The relationships built in those ditches, he said, are the best part of his summer vacation of choice.

"During the 2008 trip I took my guitar with me, and one worker told me a story about wanting to learn to play when he was young. He tried tying fishing line around the uprights on a backless kitchen chair but that didn't work so he tried tying fishing line around a 1-by-4 and that didn't work either, so he had to give up," Moran recalled. "So I left my guitar with him.

The following year we took a day trip back to that camp ... as soon as he sees me, he looks up and says 'Praise the Lord.'

"That's why you do these mission trips," he concluded. "It's an opportunity to change people's lives, and the person's life that gets changed the most ends up being yours."


Jeff Moran of Millersburg helps dig a ditch for utility line placement in central Cuba in 2008. On July 18 Moran will leave for his third consecutive summer mission trip to the third world country, this time with Pastors for Peace.