Cuba: Adventist Church allowed to use sports facilities; hundreds are baptized

Santiago/Cuba | 17.04.2008 | APD | International

For the first time in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cuba, the Polivalento Stadium in Santiago was the venue for an evangelism crusade presented by Mark Finley, re-knowned evangelist, television speaker and vice president of the Adventist World Church. The series drew more than 2,500 people each night.

At the crusade's conclusion the Adventist church was given permission to use the city's olympic size pool in Santiago to hold a baptismal ceremony, where 235 people were baptized. Another 565 visitors of the crusade were baptised across the island.

"The church in Cuba is working in an extraordinary way, well organized, and is well centered towards the mission of the church" said Pastor Melchor Ferreyra, field secretary for the church in Inter-America, who travelled to Cuba for the event.

Seventh-day Adventist work began in Cuba in 1904. The first church was organised in 1905 in La Lisa, near Havana. By 1922 several Adventist elementary schools were established in different part of the island. The first secondary school opened 1922 on a small farm in San Claudio (Oriente province). All Adventist church schools were prohibited by law in 1961. In 1935 Adventist radio work began in Havana over the station "La Voz de Atalaya" (The Voice of the Watchman) with a Spanish-speaking program. After 1959 the radio broadcasts have been discontinued due to imposed government restrictions.

Today, more than 30,000 Adventists -- half of whom are young people -- live in Cuba. There are 272 Adventist churches and a theological seminary, church officials report.

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