July 17, 2000
BWA holds historic meeting
in Cuba; leaders meet Castro
___By Trennis Henderson
___Kentucky Western Recorder
___HAVANA (BP)--World Baptist leaders spoke with Cuban President Fidel Castro in a two-hour private meeting one day after Baptist World Alliance General Council members adopted a resolution encouraging "initiatives to ease sanctions on food and medicineaffecting the people of Cuba."
BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE leaders visit with Cuban President Fidel Castro during a July 8 meeting in Havana. Meeting participants included BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz, immediate past BWA President Nilson Fanini of Brazil, Castro and new BWA President Billy Kim of Korea (BP photo by Jim Veneman)
___The meeting with Castro came on the final day of the BWA's July 3-8 General Council meeting in Havana. Meeting with the Cuban leader were BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz, new BWA President Billy Kim of Korea and immediate past BWA President Nilson Fanini of Brazil as well as leaders of Cuba's four Baptist conventions.
___The BWA, founded in 1905, is a global umbrella organization of Baptists. It represents more than 43 million baptized believers in 110 nations. The council meeting attracted more than 400 international participants from 60 countries.
___The BWA event was the first-ever international Baptist gathering held in the socialist nation of Cuba. The meeting featured simultaneous evangelistic services in 40 Cuban Baptist churches. A public evangelism rally attended by more than 3,000 people reportedly was the first such Baptist event since Castro came to power in 1959.
___Lotz said the July 8 meeting with Castro signals the Cuban government's growing recognition of Baptists' influence as the largest evangelical group in Cuba.
___Emphasizing that BWA participants "were not here to affirm any ideology or government, but to affirm the people of Cuba," Lotz said the resolution opposing economic boycotts recognizes that "the Cuban people are the ones suffering from the boycott." Withholding food and medicine from people in need "should not be used as a form of government policy," he insisted.
___Lotz described conversations with government leaders as a form of "pre-evangelism." Noting that Baptist leaders were able to tell Castro that "Baptists believe in the separation of church and state and are concerned about the spiritual conversion of people," he added, "It's much better to talk than to snipe at one another."
___Lotz said the BWA meeting in Havana and the dialogue with Castro "give credibility and visibility to Cuban Baptists, which is very significant for a minority movement." Cuban Baptists have more than 400 congregations and 900 mission sites, with a total of 38,000 baptized believers in a nation of 10.8 million people.
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