Sunday morning, as I mentioned, the churches in Matanzas had a combined service. They rented several minibuses and vans to bring in some of the people from the mission churches. The church meets under a tin roof in what would be the yard of a house; there’s no way you could get 600 people in there. It was packed with the 400 or so that were there.

They asked Steve Ridgell and I each to speak. Tony Fernandez also asked one of us to be prepared for some baptisms; the mission churches can’t get enough water together to baptize, so they use the baptistry at the church in Matanzas. I argued from 1 Corinthians 1 that a local person should do the baptizing, but Tony insisted that that was not their tradition. We gave in… this time. Steve spoke on Bartimeus; I talked about Jesus healing the paralytic that was lowered from the roof.

One touching moment was when a woman in a wheelchair was among the 9 that came forward. I had been a bit uncomfortable talking about paralytics with her in the audience; it really touched my heart when she came forward.
I had to carry her into the baptistry as she only had one leg. Rarely have I seen such joy as someone gives themself to God.
All in all, Sunday morning in Matanzas, Cuba, was a wonderful time.