The Joy Of Belief

It has been my privilege to travel frequently to Cuba over the years, speaking in Cuban churches and falling in love with the Cuban people. Cuban Christians are among the most gracious, joyous, and persecuted people I've ever known.

Baptism is an especially significant time for them. This is when they declare to the government and the world that they follow Jesus. This is also when their society marks them as Christians and treats them accordingly. Baptism is their entrance into a world of constant persecution.

They are assigned to the worst jobs. Their children get the hardest military assignments. Their families are followed, harassed, and sometimes much worse. Such is life for a believer in a country whose government is officially atheistic.

During one of my trips to Cuba, I was invited to participate in a mass baptism service. Despite the suffering they would face, more than one hundred new believers decided to take this step of public obedience. The church's baptistery was not nearly large enough for the crowd, so we traveled by flatbed trucks and open buses to a lake on the outskirts of the town.

Each of us who were baptizing waded out thirty or so feet into the shallow lake, then turned to face the crowd gathered at the bank. Soon, candidates began sloshing out to us. The first person I was to baptize was a young woman being carried through the water by a man I presumed to be her husband.

I was surprised that she wasn't walking on her own, as the lake was not very deep, and assumed that she was afraid of the water. He handed her to me. I took her in my arms, spoke the baptismal declaration over her, and immersed her.

When she came up out of the water, the joy on her face was beyond description. She shouted "Hallelujah!" and raised her arms victoriously into the air.

I handed her back to her husband, who took her in his arms. When he did, he raised her up out of the lake.

Then I saw that she had only one leg.

Surviving in her society with such a disability would be challenging enough for anyone. Doing so as a baptized Christian would make her life difficult beyond belief.

But if you had seen her face and felt her joy, you wouldn't wonder if God was real in her life and soul.

Or if he could be real in yours.

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