Dear members and friends,

A great and surprising spiritual awakening is happening in Baptist churches in Cuba right now! Since 1990, the number of churches in Cuba has grown by 450%. The number of baptisms has risen by over 500%. The number of prayer groups and total church memberships have climbed in equally high numbers.

After decades of harsh restrictions, “the church of God has risen from the ashes,” says a retired Cuban church leader who witnessed the remarkable change firsthand. “In God’s time, the hearts of so many people have been opened up to the goodness of the gospel.”

The good news is that our church’s support of the World Mission Offering (WMO) is helping to fuel the growth of the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention through financial and global worker support and through International Ministries (IM)-sponsored pastor conferences.

The better news is that there is a lot that we can learn from Cuba’s spiritual revival. For example:

• Youth ministry is thriving through camping and sports ministries, concerts and youth rallies in the streets of Cuba’s cities and towns.
• Spirit-filled outreach is yielding abundant fruit through evangelistic campaigns, undergirded with fervent prayer and fasting.
• Discipleship is spreading through numerous house churches and cell groups of prayer.
• A new generation of leaders is growing through faithful teaching at seminaries and lay training centers.

And perhaps the best news of all is that Cuba’s spiritual awakening is but one of many thriving ministries run by IM partners and more than 1,800 long– and short-term global workers in more than 70 countries around the world. Through your gifts to WMO, International Ministries is praying, equipping, serving, proclaiming, teaching , inviting, healing and encouraging in the name of Jesus.

Our 2016 Grace Baptist goal is $2,500. Whether God is calling you to GO as a global volunteer or worker or to GIVE of your financial resources, let us join together in touching as many lives as possible around the globe. Give generously and expectantly to the WMO as, together, we help people everywhere come to Christ, grow in their relationships to God and change their worlds through the power of the Holy Spirit. We will receive the World Mission Offering at Grace Baptist on October 2 and throughout the month of October.

Your servant for Christ,

Steve Longenberger

Chair, Board of Missions