Cuba (MNN)—Mission Cry exists to evangelize the world by distributing free Christian literature to spiritually-needy people, sending Bibles around the world since 1956. In recent months, this has included sending their Spanish New Testament Bibles to Cuba, according to Mission Cry President Jason Woolford.

“We haven’t got to go to Cuba a lot, but we’ve had the opportunity to send 10,000 Spanish Bibles into Cuba and the surrounding areas,” says Woolford. “We’ve had the chance to put them on a container in Florida, getting to Cuba and then starting that distribution.”

Cuba is number 26 on World Watch’s list of 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. Church leaders and Christian activists who criticize the Cuban regime can face interrogation, arrest, physical violence, and imprisonment; the government often refuses to register new churches, forcing many to operate illegally, which makes them vulnerable to fines, property confiscation, and demolition.

“Our Mission Cry partner there on the ground, he has been beaten, he has been kidnapped and arrested, multiple times, and yet he continues to go back and distribute the word of God,” says Woolford.

According to the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit, crime is also increasing at an alarming rate. However, that’s not deterring Woolford.

“Crime’s on the rise due to economic hardship and a shortage of food and medicine and fuel. And so it’s so exciting to know that we have the word there, giving it to people that are in a bad way, those that are being persecuted, and then hopefully reaching those that are doing the persecuting and seeing a difference,” he says. “We’re going to continue to trust God and minister regardless of the violent crime and scams and targeted violence against people distributing the Word of God like our guy.”

“When we see the word of God being distributed, when we see lives being changed, if you can imagine stuff going out from Cuba to Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia—seeing how God’s using that as a hub is truly miraculous.”

To learn more about the work Mission Cry is doing and how to support it, go to missioncry.com.

 

Header Photo courtesy of Mission Cry.