By Clint Cooper. Staff Writer. This story appeared in The Times & Free Press on Monday, August 14, 2000 00:00:00
Herschel Spivey's job as a travel agent had taken him many places around the world, but it was his sidelight as minister of music at First Baptist Church in Ringgold, Ga., that got him to Cuba.
When more than 30 members of Mr. Spivey's choir sang in the recent International Choral Festival de Cuba 2000, it marked the largest contingent of United States and Cuban citizens to meet together on Cuban soil since 1952.
As a choir director, Mr. Spivey had received an invitation to the event from Music Contact International, but he never expected anything to come of it until he brought it up in a casual conversation with the Rev. Bruce Sloan, minister of First Baptist. The Rev. Sloan, however, had an interest in
Cuba since his wife's great uncle had pastored there. He thought the trip might work out.
It did.
The choir not only sang in the festival, but it also performed at a friendship meeting and for a worship service at Calvary Baptist Church in Havana. The group was in Cuba for four days, the trip having been sanctioned by the U.S. government and the Cuban Ministry of Culture. The members got a
first-hand look at both the former capital and the Cuban countryside. Many of those described it as a place out of time.
Havana, Mr. Spivey said, reminded him of capitals he'd seen across the Atlantic Ocean.
"It was like going to Europe,'' he said. "The buildings are European in style, and there are decorative statues and artwork all around.''
The difference, the Rev. Sloan said, is that all the buildings needed painting and refurbishing.
"It looked like we were in a time warp,'' he said.
Members of the group said the Cuban people all were friendly and hospitable.
"The people work hard,'' Mrs. Nease said. "They work together as a family, a community and a church to survive. They're not self-actualized, either, like so many people are here. They're just busy.''
The Rev. Sloan said he learned that until 1992 the former U.S.S.R. had supplied 80 percent of Cuba's economy. Now it supplied none, he said, so the still-communist island country has had to turn again to tourism.
Regrettably, he said, Cuba receives little humanitarian help from the United States.
"That troubles me,'' he said, "especially when we help everyone else. It seems like they'd have the same right to an aspirin, but that's not true. I think they're trying to work that out, though.''
Mrs. Nease said Cuban citizens all are given ration cards -- not because certain items are scarce but because of what the government will allow them. For instance, only children up to the age of 7 may drink milk, she said.
"It's hard to look at an 8-year-old and realize they can't have milk,'' she said.
Nevertheless, said the Rev. Sloan, the citizens haven't lost their zest for living.
"They understand their way of government is not what they would pick,'' Mrs. Nease said, "but they say it's what they know. They want to change slowly, not overnight like Russia. They say they want to figure out a way to change intelligently.''
There is no outward animosity toward the United States, Mr. Spivey said.
"There's no anti-American anything,'' he said.
What there is, Mrs. Nease said, is a passion for God - at least in the church in which the choir sang.
"When they sing in church,'' she said, "they all sing. The (Calvary Baptist) church is sort of in the round, and there are balconies on the side. They were hanging out of the balconies singing. It's just such a privilege for them to come (to church). I know God was up there clapping.''
Mr. Spivey said the choir from the host Cuban church was like a professional ensemble.
"They didn't have songbooks,'' Mrs. Nease said, "but all the musicians were so talented. They had two pianists and a keyboard player, a flautist and a violinist. Their level of expertise made us look like rank amateurs.''
However, the Rev. Sloan said he was proud of his choir's work in the country.
"I'm going to brag on the choir of Ringgold,'' he said, "because it was the only American choir to sing in Spanish.''
Mr. Spivey said his was one of the few church choirs among the other community and school choirs in the festival, so singing in Spanish was one way of standing out.
"I felt like it would be more impressive and a better way to communicate with them,'' he said.
He said David Kammerdiener, minister of music at First Baptist in Fort Oglethorpe - and a former missionary to Colombia - was helpful with the choir's effort in learning the songs.
The Rev. Sloan said the trip helped quench his appetite for knowledge of the country in which his wife's great uncle, the late Moses McCall, pastored from 1902 to 1947.
Mr. McCall, who later was pastor for a year at First Baptist in Dalton, Ga., served in Cuba under the then-Baptist Home Mission Board. He started numerous churches there, the Rev. Sloan said, and even had a seminary named after him.
"He was a distinguished Georgia Baptist,'' the Rev. Sloan said, "and I felt like we had spiritual and emotional ties there.''
The Rev. Sloan said Cuba today is considered 95 percent Catholic.
"I don't think it's that high," he said. "They do have a strong Catholic tradition, but they also have a strong evangelical tradition. I think most of them struggle on their own spiritual journey without any major faith.
"I'm glad we went, though,'' he said. "I guess it was kind of like doing our little part in the world.''
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