Bryan Fischer

Director of issue analysis and host of "Focal Point"

July/August 2014 – Cuba is an island of mystery. American travel to Castro’s communist fiefdom is infrequent and cumbersome, despite its proximity to the United States.

Last spring, three AFA staffers – John Riley, Fred Jackson and I – were hosted by Trans World Radio to see firsthand the gospel at work in that shrouded land. Direct travel to Cuba from the U.S. is prohibited, except for limited humanitarian missions, so we flew to Panama and then to Havana.

Fidel Castro’s revolution launched in 1959, and by 1962 Castro had officially declared Cuba a communist country. Persecution of the church was not far behind.

For example, in 1965, Castro rounded up an entire seminary class and detained them in a concentration camp for three years. Alberto Gonzalez was one of those students. In the camp, he was sustained by TWR broadcasts, which had begun in 1964. Alberto, today a Baptist pastor in Havana, was the one who greeted us at the airport and sacrificed his time to show us the challenges of today’s Christians in Cuba.

Fortunately, in recent years, restrictions on public worship have been relaxed somewhat, and registered churches can meet openly, though still under the watchful eye of authorities. We also discovered a flourishing fellowship of 5,000 house churches scattered all over the island.

Luis, a blind pastor in the house church movement, showed us how he walks through his small home at night, radio held to his ear to find the best place to pick up the TWR signal. He came to faith in Christ through TWR, and now shepherds 11 house churches, all devoted to ministering to the disabled. Too poor to own a car, he and his wife hitchhike to the churches he serves.

As a young Christian, it was Alberto’s dream to move to the U.S., and he could have done so in 1985 when Cuban expatriates brought him for a visit. He got the shock of his life. At New York’s Times Square he witnessed this nation’s decadent plunge into pornography, and in Greenwich Village he smelled the aroma of marijuana. It was his first ever exposure to both.

He soon realized that this land he had perceived as a Christian paradise needed revival more than Cuba did.

In Los Angeles he was invited to fulfill his dream – to pastor a church in the Cuban community there at a salary perhaps 20 times what he was making in Cuba. Yet he could see only the faces of those who depended on him for spiritual nurture back at home. Unable to abandon them, he returned to his calling, his Cuba, where he remains a highly respected spiritual leader among the people he loves. 

Christ over Cuba
A spotlighted statue of Christ is visible all across the city of Havana. It was dedicated on Christmas Eve, 1958. Fifteen days later, Castro’s revolution reached Havana, and that same day, lightning struck the statue, severing its head from its body – perhaps an ominous sign of what was to come. The statue has since been repaired – perhaps a foreshadowing of a brighter future.

TWR sends its signal into Cuba from towers on Bonaire, a Dutch-affiliated island off the coast of Venezuela. The signal covers most of Cuba, but does not reach Havana on the western end of the island. TWR is seeking funds to boost its signal and make it strong enough to blanket the entire island. Who knows how many others like Alberto and Luis await that signal too?

For more information or to help TWR cover Cuba for Christ, visit twr.org or call 919-460-3700 or 800-456-7897 (7TWR).