Mandeville, Jamaica…[Nigel Coke/IAD]
The Seventh-day Adventist church in the West Indies began celebrating its 100 years of growth and development earlier last month and continue the celebration by kicking off a special 100-day long season of prayer and praise on Aug. 2.
The occasion got off to a good start with the addition of a new field in the territory. The new North East Jamaica Mission was officially organized Aug. 1 in response to the rapidly growing membership in the region.
“With the organization of the new field, there will be more efficient pastoral care and better administrative supervision,” said Pastor Patrick Allen, president of the church in the West Indies.
Pastor Allen said the new field will serve to intensify evangelism efforts in the area.
“History has shown that whenever there has been a new field, growth and development have always resulted,” he said.
Pastor Allen thanks God for the growth in the church in the West Indies, especially over the last 20 years.
“God has been good to us and has taken us thus far by faith,” he said.
The organization of the new field was preceeded by the election of Jamaica's four regional church leaders, who will serve in their respective positions for the next four years.
“We have elected a solid team of local leaders, which we are confident will support the mission of the church and guide the workers and members into a closer relationship with God,” said Pastor Allen. “It bodes well for our union and the Adventist Church in general as we achieve growth spiritually, numerically and in other areas.”
The newly elected leaders are Glen O. Samuels, re-elected president for the West Jamaica Conference; Adrian Cotterell, re-elected president for the East Jamaica Conference; Everett Brown, re-elected as president of the Central Jamaica Conference; and Arlington Woodburn, newly elected president of the North East Jamaica Mission.
During the 100-days of prayer and praise, a special scroll will be passed from field to field for display.
The scroll contains the goals of the “Tell the World” initiative and the union's strategic plans of promoting spiritual growth, asking for divine wisdom, involving church members and recapturing the prayerfulness and primitive Godly spirit of the early pioneers.
The West Indies Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which is headquartered in Mandeville, Jamaica, oversees the operation of all the Adventist churches in the Caribean territories of Jamaica, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands. With the present configuration of the Jamaican fields, the Union now comprises five conferences, four missions, three institutions and nearly 240,000 church members.
For more information on the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the West Indies, visit www.wiunion.org
