It was standing room only when more than a thousand Seventh-day Adventists and visitors participated in a dedication celebration of a new church sanctuary in Camaguey, the third largest city in Cuba.
It was standing room only when more than a thousand Seventh-day Adventists and visitors participated in a dedication celebration of a new church sanctuary in Camaguey, the third largest city in Cuba. Adventist believers were joined at the Feb. 15 convocation by the top Communist party and city officials, the bishop of the Catholic Church and representatives of other religious bodies as the Adventist high Sabbath became a community celebration.
The new Iglesia Adventista de Garrido, or Adventist Church of Garrido, was the latest of the building projects of Maranatha Volunteers International, an Adventist lay organization involved with building projects for the church internationally. Established in the early 1920s, the Camaguey Church had its first dedication in 1957, nearly 46 years to the day of its second dedication.
Don Noble, Maranatha’s president, calls Garrido a “miracle project.”
“When they first brought me to the church, the church had been destroyed by bats. So we affectionately called it the ‘Bat’ church. Bats lived in the roof for a long time and had caused problems, and that had caused the government to condemn the church building. And so the roof was caving in, the walls were falling down. As I walked through the church, I thought: My goodness! They have almost 500 members here. What are they going to do?”
While going through the old church building in 2001, Noble recalls noticing on the back wall a picture of the biblical patriarch Jacob struggling with the angel. “The thought came to me: Why not have this church pray to God and see if God doesn’t provide the same results today as he did before? And so I asked the church to pray and they did.”
A large number of the people came together and prayed all night, and “some miracles came together—people committing a little here and a little there—and all together we were able to build the church. To me, as I look at this church, it’s a miracle church,” Noble says.
It took many months to plan, secure the funding and organize the construction materials—itself a feat in economically challenged Cuba—in order to resurrect the Garrido Church. “Each of the dedications we’ve been involved with here in Cuba has been special. This one’s really exciting to me personally, because I’ve watched this specific miracle take place at this location. When we first came here, I saw no way that we could accomplish this large and beautiful church for the glory of God. But it happened, and a lot of people were involved in that happening, bringing the funds together and the hard work that it took.”
Naturally, the Feb. 15 dedication was a very special day for the Camaguey congregation. “I was walking down the street and met up with a total stranger that told me: Have you noticed those Adventists? They’re crazy! They are tearing down this beautiful temple they had, especially now that religious people are disappearing. They [the authorities] will not let you build again,” recalls Faustinio Munoz, 88, the Garrido’s oldest church member. “And I told him: Crazy? No, [when rebuilt] this temple is going to be too small and the number of religious people will once again increase. You’ll see.”
Migdalia Montes de Oca is a leader for childrens activities at the Camaguey Church. She looks at her new church sanctuary with a vision that this church can make a big difference in her community. “Although we’ve gone through very difficult stages, God has helped us this far. He’s allowed us to be in our country, preaching to others, especially because before, even walking on the street with a Bible in hand was a challenge. Today that has changed; many people want to hear about God’s love, they want to go to church, they want to hear about God.”
For more than 30 years the church in Cuba has suffered extreme difficulties, but it has flourished and emerged as an energetic, excited and positive influence in Cuba. Today, the government is interested in seeing churches involved in solving the country’s social dilemmas, including the increasing crime and drug use, an issue now spoken about publicly. Some see this interaction as a convenient relationship, but the freedom to worship by singing, praying and meeting together opens unimaginable doors for the church that today is more alive than ever.
Daniel Fontaine, president of the church in Cuba, explains that besides evangelism, “the church has certain programs that [as much as we can] we try to implement and help the community, for example, programs to stop smoking, for family growth, to prevent domestic violence and health seminars. “
Fontaine adds that the church continues to “ask for access to the media, such as the press, television and radio so that through them we can communicate with the people. We’ve accomplished some of that, but we’d like to do more. We’ve been promised that it will happen.”
Looking into the future, Fontaine says that there are places where “we still don’t have an Adventist presence here in Cuba, and we would like to establish ourselves in those areas.”
Since 1994, when Maranatha began its involvement in Cuba, 80 buildings have been refurbished and about 100 new churches have been built. According to church leaders in Havana, availability of new church buildings became a catalyst for the church’s growing presence in Cuba.
Now Cuba’s largest Protestant denomination, 29,000 Seventh-day Adventists worship in 560 churches, both large and small congregations—an increase from 117 church buildings nine years ago. Daniel Fontaine says that perhaps as many as 35,000 people come to church weekly. “Church membership has more than doubled since 1994 as a direct result of the work of Maranatha,” he adds.
Joining the Camaguey Seventh-day Adventists for the dedication were Maranatha officials and some of the contributors to the project.
In the mid-1990s Maranatha also remodeled the church headquarters in Havana, the seminary complex including the administration building, dormitories and a multipurpose building with a cafeteria and dining area.