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Devastated in the Havana hotel explosion, the historic Calvary Baptist Church—like many other congregations across the island—will face a drawn-out battle with the government to restore its building.
On May 6, an explosion rocked a heavily transited corner of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana). The almost century-old Hotel Saratoga, set to reopen the following week after extensive renovations, was left in ruins.
Media coverage centered on the iconic hotel, and images of the massive damage to the building and to the buses and other vehicles on the street in front of it circulated around the world. A week later, the final number of those killed by the explosion, including children, elderly people, and a pregnant woman, had reached 45, with more than 100 people hospitalized because of injury. Officials put the blame on the accidental ignition of liquid gas.
Government officials and state media coverage focused heavily on the hotel, which is owned by a tourism company belonging to the Cuban military, but also mentioned damage to surrounding buildings, including a school and some apartment buildings.
Absent from all state media coverage has been any mention of the catastrophic damage to Calvary Baptist Church, which shares a wall with Hotel Saratoga, or the total destruction of the home of an elderly retired couple, both Baptist leaders, which was sandwiched between the church and the hotel.
Calvary Baptist Church is one of the most historically important religious buildings on the island. The church, established in the late 1870s on the site of a former circus, was the first Baptist church in what would later become the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba. In addition to the sanctuary, church buildings house a seminary and administrative offices for the denomination.
At the time of the explosion, 18 people, including three young children, were inside the church facilities. Miraculously, despite the collapse of the dome of the sanctuary ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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