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In Midst of Hardships, Cubans Catch Mission Fever

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HAVANA -- Missions into and out of Cuba is booming, thanks to changes in U.S.-Cuban relations and relaxed travel restrictions. Some church leaders are even calling it a missions tsunami. 

Brian Stewart, a missionary to Cuba with Action International Ministries, leads pastoral teaching teams on short-term trips to the island throughout the year.

He told CBN News that since President Barack Obama announced his intent to normalize relations with Cuba last December, he's seen a "tremendous increase" in interest in short-term missions.

"Many say they've felt a burden for Cuba for decades," he explained.

Now that it's easier to travel there and awareness is heightened, many American believers want to go and support the Cuban church.

"Any leader who's excited, who's trying to find where to be involved in the world, to take his church to an exciting piece of Christianity -- they think of Cuba," Jason Carlisle, director of Hispanic Moblization for the International Mission Board, told CBN News.

Still, Carlisle and other mission leaders are cautious, urging Americans to go primarily as learners and encouragers.

"We have to understand the Gospel has been growing tremendously in Cuba for the last 15 years," Carlisle said. "So it's not like we're going to this closed country where the Gospel has not reached.  It has. The believers are growing incredibly, just amazingly.  House churches are being planted everywhere."

Missions strategists are beginning to realize just how quickly the Cuban church planting movement has grown. In the last 20 years, it has started more than 15,000 churches.

Word of Their Testimonies

The movement takes advantage of what normally would be considered liabilities: a shortage of space, resources, and funds.

Instead, the church in Cuba has grown using simple tools like the Bible, new believer testimonies, cell groups, and house churches.

Carlisle explained how Cuban believers "reproduce" so quickly. 

"You take the living Word of God. You teach it to people. You share the Gospel. They become disciples. You disciple them [and then] you begin to start house churches," he said.

A Christian-owned farm in the Cuban countryside showcases the Cuban church's passion and creative approach in sharing the Gospel. The farm helps to fund a mission school that trains church-approved candidates for a year and then sends them to unreached areas of the country.

Pastor "Juan" founded the school in obedience to a calling from the Lord. He told CBN News, "The vision of opening a school for missions was planted in our hearts by God."

He seized on a unique moment in Cuban history in 2008 when the government gave land to farmers. He took on fields plagued with thorny vegetation to fulfill a vision for a self-sustaining ministry.

Today, close to 100 alumni of the school have established new churches.

"We don't have a luxurious building or classrooms," he said. "And these could be some obstacles to do the work of the Lord. These could be reasons to say, 'I can't do anything.' But this doesn't stop us. We are moved by the vision and passion that we have."

A Sending Nation

That vision and passion has led to a global focus for the Cuban church. Despite limited resources, it has started a missions movement of its own and has begun sending Cuban missionaries to other countries.

Pastor "Julio" told CBN News, "Cuba is a missionary country. As a matter of fact, we've been preparing for many years to send people to other countries, but our obstacle has been our economy."

"We want to fulfill the prophecy that many missionaries will go to the nations," another pastor told CBN News.

Missions experts marvel at how God has uniquely prepared Cuban Christians. The hardship they have endured living in poverty helps tremendously in adapting on the mission field.

"The needs, the scarcity that we've gone through have been preparing us to go," Pastor Julio explained.

"What Cubans have grown up in is what can be reproduced in just about any country of the world, particularly in areas that are harder to access because you don't have a lot of resources, you don't have to take a worship team," Carlisle noted.

Cuban Christians also understand how to multiply the church using simple methods of church planting that require few resources.

In a telling sign, the International Mission Board (IMB) recently finished a multi-year effort that brought in Latin American mission teams to Cuba to observe church planting and discipleship work.

The IMB hopes other Latin American countries can learn from Cuba's successes and imitate its tremendous church growth.

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim