“Did you hear what that Americano said to me? Did you put him up to that?" demanded a Communist Party official to our host pastor.

I didn’t plan on riling up local communist leaders on our trip to Cuba, but we found ourselves in front of Cuban newspapers and on television, so it seemed like I shouldn’t waste the opportunity.

Our collegiate worshiping community this year traveled with nine students to Cuba for our alternative spring break. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union (which essentially functioned as Cuba’s client ruler), Cuba has crawled toward greater economic, political and religious freedom. From the perspective of someone from the United States, Cubans are quick to point out that we are called Americanos and that the continent of North America is far more than Los Estados Unidos. On the trip, I was hoping to learn more about how average Cubans are trying to gain greater freedom. As a pastor to college students, I was particularly interested in how local churches were a part of this movement. Christianity was essentially driven underground by the Communist government in 1962. Private religious practice was still permitted, but Christians were barred from the government, higher education, and any job that had to do with the “mind.” Think teachers, psychologists, and the like. Churches had much of their property confiscated and many ministers; even previous supporters of Castro found themselves persecuted and marginalized by the new regime.

In 1992, after extensive meetings with the Communist Party and the Castro brothers, those laws were formally repealed. Since then, Christian churches have gradually climbed back from the brink of extinction in Cuba. Unofficial and sporadic persecution and discrimination by the Communist Party still exists, but any Christian in Cuba will tell you they are much better off than they were before 1992.

Yet given that history, I imagined Cuban Christians would be at the forefront of agitating for liberal democracy in Cuba. I imagined that despite the hardships, they might have supported some sort of democratically motivated embargo by the U.S. government. However, of the Christian leaders I met, no one even hinted at hoping for an end to the Castro regime. No one wanted the embargo to remain. This confused me.

I asked one pastor, a convert to Christianity, if gaining more freedom was important to him. He responded that more freedom would be nice, but what he’d really like is to be able to find yogurt and eggs. Economically, Cuba is doing far better than it was in the 1990s, but between the U.S. embargo and the inept state-run economy, many basic goods aren’t just expensive – they’re often impossible to find.

Before our trip, I assumed that “freedom,” this sacred American word, would be prized to all people as I was taught to believe. Freedom is supposed to be more important than anything else. Y’know, give me liberty or give me death! Yet I realized that given the choice between more freedom and more toilet paper, it’s very easy to feel like one needs more toilet paper.

Watching a propaganda concert in Havana, the kind replete with bad dancing, pre-recorded applause, and slideshow about a journalist’s “Favorite Moments with Fidel,” I had a hard time understanding why Cubans put up with all of it. Most Americans thought that with the fall of the Communist Russia, the fall of Communist Cuba wasn’t far behind. Yet for all the revolutionary overreach and violence, there were reforms by Castro that undoubtedly lifted the country out of extreme poverty. Cubans seem to appreciate the revolution for the good it did. They gripe about the aging Communist Party much in the same way Americans gripe about politics in Washington D.C., and blame the U.S. embargo – whether accurately or not – for much of their current woes.

Therefore, when faced with that unexpected televised meeting between the students, our host pastor, and a handful of Communist Party officials, I decided I should do politics the Cuban way – by pestering. Through our student interpreter, I asked to the local head of the Communist Party that as a favor to this burgeoning new relationship we were forming, if she would help our host church get back the last of its confiscated property. Like a true politician, she hemmed and hawed. The pastor of our host church has been pestering her for years already. I told her we were eager to check up on their progress when we returned next year.

The availability of justice, like freedom, toilet paper, and yogurt, will be a gradual process. We can’t make the democratic revolution happen in our own American image, but for the sake of justice we can pester those in power. Both their government…and our own.