Story number 2 for 24 Feb 2003

(Cuba)–Meanwhile, Fidel Castro says his country is and will remain socialist. Equally firm are the global responses that have devastated Cuba’s ability to climb out of poverty. In light of the challenges, CAM International’s John DeCoster finds the tenacity of Cuban believers inspiring. “There is no way that you can get a permit to buy land or build a church, but there is a permission granted for starting house churches. So, everywhere we’ve gone, all these churches have between 25 and 25 house churches. They’re not allowed to evangelize in public, they cannot pass out Christian literature in public, but apparently, other than that, they do quite well.” DeCoster says due to a lack of resources in Cuba, they’re providing libraries to several pastors to equip the church for outreach. “We select a good number of books designed for leadership, sermon preparation, all those good books. Many of them designed for workers in those churches over there.”