New Zealand Surang Meets a Kiwi

By Julie Belding Surang Kinghirunwatana, from Bang-

kok, Thailand, hadn’t been to New Zealand before. But as one of some seventeen executive

members of the Asia Pacifi c Baptist Fed- eration (ABPF), she got to visit our coun- try when the APBF held its annual board meetings in Auckland on February 10-11. Naturally we took the opportunity to show our visitors around, and Surang is pictured here at the Arataki Vistors Centre in the Waitakeres. No, it wasn’t a live kiwi. But she met plenty of live Kiwis (the other kind) who enjoyed introducing her and her Asian colleagues to our New Zealand way of life – including the barbecue, the pavlova, and the hongi (a Maori form of greeting where noses touch). The APBF meetings in Auckland were hosted by Carey Baptist College, who

Above: The APBF Executive Committee that met at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zeland

Below left: Surang with the Kiwi

also organized a colloquium, “Building Asia-Pacifi c Partnerships for Church and Mission,” for the Asian visitors on Thursday, February 9. Here they were welcomed by members of the tangata whenua (fi rst people of the land) with a special powhiri, or Maori welcoming ceremony. On Sunday, February 12, after the meetings ended, some of us worshipped at the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle where John Kok of Kuala Lumpur, the APBF vice president, preached.

I was reminded what a truly multicultural

country New Zealand is. We saw this at the colloquium, where – besides the Asian visitors who themselves represented eight countries – there were guests from

Cuba Cuban Baptists Aim for Growth Christians in Cuba, including Baptists,

continue to make strenuous efforts to grow amidst obstacles and diffi culties. According to Jose Miguel Mendoza,

vice president of the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba (CBCO), Protestant Christians on the Caribbean island nation aim to have one million new members and plant 100,000 new house churches over the next few years. The emphasis is being placed on house churches as the government has not been granting building permits for new church buildings. The initiative is being led by the CBCO, which

10 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE

invited other church bodies in Cuba to join this major evangelistic thrust.

The CBCO, one of four Baptist groups

on the island, has planted 30 new house churches and baptized approximately 300 persons in the past year. This brings to 323 the number of churches in the CBCO, 70 of which are house churches. These house churches are to be distinguished from cell groups, which are already part of an existing congregation, and many of which meet in houses. Some churches, Mendoza says, have as many as 60 cell groups that meet in homes.

In order to meet the increased demand for pastors and

church leaders, the

convention has increased enrollment in its two seminaries in Havana and Santa Clara to approximately 400 students spread across the main campuses and satellite campuses in other provinces. After two years of basic training, the students choose their specialty, whether to be trained as pastors, mission workers, children’s workers, etc. Some students, Mendoza explains, are engaged in church planting during their training. All seminary students are placed to work alongside a congregation or to work in a

Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Korea. We saw it at a special evening at Remuera Baptist Church on Friday, February 11, where Korean, Samoan and Indian groups entertained us. It’s always good to be reminded that we are part of a much larger family of Baptists. Of course the APBF is just one of several groupings of Baptists worldwide. But it is a huge grouping. It consists of 55 Baptist conventions from 20 countries, worshipping in more than 25,000 local churches from Sri Lanka to South Korea, Nepal to New Zealand, India to Fiji. Praying and singing

with Christian

brothers and sisters from around the world gives us a taste of what heaven will be like.

Julie Belding is president of the Baptist

Women’s Union of the South West Pacifi c. Reprinted from the New Zealand Baptist magazine