HOUSE CHURCH – IMB president Tom Elliff (center) shares his testimony during a house church meeting in Havana, Cuba. The group meets in the home of Daniel González, pastor of McCall Baptist Church. It is one of 60 house churches established by the McCall church. For 10 years, González was a missionary on the Isle of Youth off the southern coast of Cuba. During that time he planted hundreds of churches on the island where previously there had been no evangelical work. (IMB Photo by Wilson Hunter)
By Will Stuart
HAVANA, Cuba—The recent storm took everyone by surprise. It turned streets in Havana, Cuba, into rivers, lifting manhole covers on water bubbling from drainage pipes unable to contain the surge racing to the sea. In Vueltas, 180 miles to the east, rural roads turned to mush, making it impossible to travel from surrounding villages into the city for the constitution of nine new churches.
“But the Cuban church is resilient,” said IMB President Tom Elliff on his first visit to the island nation this December. “It is like the Royal Palm (a symbol of the island), which jettisons its fronds when a major storm rakes the land and can bend horizontal to the ground and still survive.”
The new churches are a reality whether Elliff, IMB representatives and Cuban Baptist leaders could participate in their constitution or not.
PERSEVERING FAITH
Revolution in 1959 moved Cuba from a dictatorship to socialism. Its economy faltered during the transition. There were hard times. People struggled. Churches were closed and pastors imprisoned.
There was a time “it looked like everything was over,” said Hermes Soto, rector of the Baptist Seminary in Havana. In 1965 the majority of the pastors were imprisoned and a large number of seminary students and young church leaders put in reeducation camps. Soto, too, spent five years in a labor camp. Despite the crisis, the churches remained open under lay leadership.
Yet even in these hard times, Cuban Baptist commitment to international missions remained strong, and they continued to participate in the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.
In 1991 the Cuban constitution was changed, making discrimination based on religious belief unlawful. The government was still reticent to allow construction of new church buildings. Officials said: Open your homes.
“But then the churches woke up,” said Soto. “We had to discover how to react in response to this miracle.”
From 1960-1990, Cuban Baptists started 28 churches. From 1990-93, they started 28 more. After 1993, the number exploded in a church planting movement seen in few other parts in the world. Today, an estimated 900 churches and 6,500-plus missions and house churches can be found across the island. And Cuban Baptists are sending missionaries to other parts of the world.
“I found it surprising, almost shocking,” said Elliff, “to find some of the greatest expressions of faith within 100 miles of the United States.”
He proposes an expanded relationship between Cuban and Southern Baptists. “The thing that astonished me is how much they have to teach us,” he said, “not how much we have to teach them.
“We can benefit from the example of their undying faith … the strength of their faith,” Elliff continued. “They can benefit from our resources … our years of history in missions. Together, we could be a powerful influence for Christ throughout the entire world.”
Sitting with men who God rescued from the most difficult of situations and seeing how they have moved on from there had a profound effect on Elliff.
“It has changed my life,” he said. “I will not view the Christian faith the same … ever again.”
Will Stuart writes for IMB.
