April 8, 2009 – Kingston, Jamaica…[Nigel Coke/IAD]
More than three hundred of the less fortunate including the homeless in Kingston, Jamaica, were given much needed attention at the Adventist-owned and operated “Good Samaritan Inn” (The Inn).
The Inn, located at Geffrard Place, on National Heroes Circle, near downtown was a buzz of activities early Apr. 5, 2009, offering free medical check-ups and prescriptions, food preparation, hygiene kits as well as a special musical program by students from the Adventist-operated Northern Caribbean University (NCU).
Some 140 persons seen by physicians from the Andrews Memorial Hospital suffered from Diabetes and Hypertension. Dr. Zwadie March from the Andrews Memorial Hospital (AMH) who organized the clinic was delighted to be part of the operation to help those who came.
“I am happy that I could give freely from by profession and I know God's hand was it this whole operation today,” said Dr. March. “A little less than half of those who came for check-up came just to know if they were in health only to realize that they are not-so-well. We were able to provide free prescription from donations from a number of pharmaceutical companies, which were dispensed by a pharmacist from Andrews Hospital.”
“We are delighted to know that we are touching lives on a weekly basis here at the Inn,” said Pastor Adrian Cotterell, president for the church in East Jamaica. “As a church we want to let the beneficiaries of our work know that Christianity is a caring community. It is only by the grace of God that we who are here giving are not the ones receiving, and so we deed it our God-given responsibility to look after the well-being of those who are in need wherever they may be.”
Through the kind assistance of the Kiwanis Club of Kendall, South Florida, clothing and toiletries were given to each person. Members of the club were in Jamaica as part of a humanitarian effort to assist several schools, hospitals and charitable organizations.
Pastor Cotterell further added that “The Inn is not just about feeding individuals. We provide devotion to enrich the spiritual lives of these individuals. They are also provided with facilities for a bath and are able to do their laundry. Some of them have been fitted back into the normal routine of life.”
One such individual is Iva Forsythe, who having lost his two sons both dying at the hands of the police, and himself deported from the Dutch, St Maarten in 1999, found that he had no one and nowhere to live. After being on the street in the daytime he would rest his head in a market in downtown Kingston. Today he is the caretaker for the Good Samaritan Inn, after successfully helping with the building expansion of the Inn.
“I am glad to be off the street,” said Forsythe. I thank the church for the help and support they have given to me. I am caretaker for more than a year now and I enjoy attending church right here on Saturdays.”
The Inn, is operated by East Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (EJC) in collaboration with the Adventist Lay-persons Services and Industries (ASi), and for the past fifteen months has impacted the lives of many street people. It started by feeding 50 individuals on Sundays and has grown to feeding an average of two hundred persons on Sundays and Wednesdays.
