Important shipment of Bibles arrives

José Aurelio Paz, HAVANA, Cuba, October 13, 2003

An important shipment of Bibles reached Cuba, as part of a donation from the United Taxi Heathrow Airport Bibles Societies and other Evangelical ministries and is being distributed among Churches on the island.

Coming mainly from Korea, Colombia, Brazil, the shipment also included other material, such as readings for Sunday School.

These readings, aimed at young people and children, were sent by Cook Communications Ministries and will provide material for 2004-2006. The shipment also included Biblical commentaries.

The Mennonite Church, through its Mount Zion Editorial also sent a shipment of hymnbooks and biographies of Mennon Simons, the Dutch reformer who gave rise to this denomination. Other books include the biography of Mary Jones, the British Child whose love for the Bible gave rise to the British Bible Society, the first of its kind, which will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2004.

The Ben Hiebert Ministry of Canada sent 20,000 Bibles so that Cuban Churches would have access to the Sacred Scriptures for study and for teaching.

For the past 20 years, the Fidel Castro government, through its Religious Affairs Office has permitted the mass entry of Bibles. In the 1970s, during the worst time for Church-State relations the amount declined but Bibles still arrived.

The Bibles are being distributed by the Cuban Council of Churches’ (CCC) Bible Commission. During Pope John II’s visit to the island this group facilitated the entry of a variety of material related to the visit, including 100,000 Study Bibles. The same thing place during the Cuban Evangelical Celebration in 1999.

The Bibles are being distributed based the membership in each denomination.

In Bayamo, in eastern Cuba, this commission recently held a Bible Sciences workshop for the formation of pastors and missionaries with the presence of SBU translators.

At the same time the CCC Studies Center is holding a series of events about a grassroots reading of the Bible from a feminine perspective; joint efforts to take better advantage of the new material.

The World Bible Day celebrations, to take place the first Sunday of December, will be held across Cuba with a central act in one of the main Churches in the Capital city and will include a special moment to give thanks to God for the generous hands that have allowed His word to reach the most remote corner of Cuban territory.