Cuba - Day 6

Our team ate something bad in Santa Clara and everyone got sick, so we have had some down time in Havana.  The men were sick on day 4, and the ladies came down with it on Day 5.  While I had some down time I was able to read quite a bit of David Well´s, Courage to Be Protestant.  I highly recommend it, as it gives an overview of the evangelical landscape that is most helpful.  Then Wells assesses the effects of culture on evangelicalism and calls us to be courageous in our confessional faith as Protestants, since the term evangelicalism has been so watered down that it no longer means much.

Yesterday, however, the men were able to tour Havana.  We visited the Baptist convention office which is located in the Calvary Baptist Church building.  While Dr. Victor Gonzalez, the convention president, finished up some work, the men and I took a quick walk around the capitol building and around the square. 

The highlight of our Havana stay has been our visit to the seminary.  The Baptist seminary is over 100 years old.  When it was originally conceived, the Baptists had bought enough property to build a university, a hospital and the seminary.  The rector of the seminary told us that in God´s providence, they were only able to construct the seminary, for if they had built the hospital and the univeristy, they would surely have been taken by the government after the revolution.

The seminary is doing a great work, training over 140 pastors on their campus, plus another 400 plus on extension campuses.  Please pray for our brothers here in Cuba.  We had a wonderful time of prayer on the roof of the seminary overlooking the city of Havana.

Today, we will travel to a Baptist camp to see the facilities.  Then we will see what the tourists see when they come here - the best beaches on the island.

Please continue to pray for us.  Pray for our health and safe return home.