Cubans Need Living Water

“Cubans drink more rum than water.”


Yes, Cubans need to drink more water, but EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, they need to drink “Living Water!”

Last March I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba - one week to Santiago, the center of Sue’s ministry and one week in Havana. There we participated in the “Living Water Conference” where more than 700 pastors and leaders were trained and encouraged to share “Jesus, the Living Water” with all their fellows.
At a second event, held March 23-26, about 530 delegates from all over Cuba attended the BWA’s Living Water conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Havana. Another 1000 people joined the delegates for an evening rally during the meetings. I had the privilege of sharing “The Living Water!” with them.
The Living Water conference in Havana was meaningful, exciting, historic, joyous, liberating, exuberant, and educational, and participants testified to its importance for their lives. We were all challenged to continue our efforts to share God’s great love in Jesus Christ and to do so “having the mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus …”

One of the most powerful impacts this Living Water conference may have on the strengthening of the churches in Cuba, along with the emphases on leadership and evangelism, was the coming together of the four Baptist communities in Cuba: the Eastern and Western Conventions and the Freewill and Fraternidad Baptists. Only those present can understand the deep feelings this evoked, for relationships have traditionally been strained between some of these bodies, and it has been a struggle to achieve reconciliation.

In testimony to the new relationship, at this Living Water conference, true Christian fellowship was experienced even to the extent of the Presidents of the four conventions washing each others’ feet towards the end of the meeting. This was celebrated as a part of a moving foot-washing ceremony where other leaders washed the feet of selected delegates, including an elderly pastor who had been through the fires of persecution in earlier days, a child, a woman soon to bear a child, a local pastor, and a woman delegate from the smallest Baptist group in Cuba. This was consistent with the servant leadership emphases in the conference and a re-enactment of Jesus washing the accumulated dust off His disciples’ feet.

Jesus is the water that brings life to the soul. By drinking the living water one can live and never thirst again. Yes, Jesus is that

Living Water! Just as the physical body needs water to continue living so does the spirit. Without Him the soul will eventually die. The soul is thirsty and we try to quench that thirst with many things that satisfy for awhile, but eventually we get thirsty again. The only thing that can truly quench the thirst of the spirit is the living water, Jesus Christ.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. John 7:38 (KJV)

Please remember that as you continue to support Sue’s ministry, you continue to partner with International Ministries and Sue’s efforts to sharing Living Water to Cubans until we can see “Cuba for Christ!”

Carlos Peralta