September 22, 2010… Mandeville, Jamaica…Nigel Coke/IAD
One hundred and twenty-four days after being voted by the Executive Committee of the Inter-American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (IAD) — on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 — the North East Jamaica field was inaugurated as a conference. The official declaration was done at the inaugural session which is being held at Camp Don, Robins Bay, Jamaica on September 20, 2010.
In making the pronouncement, Pastor Israel Leito, president of the church in Inter-America said that the road to conference status by North East Jamaica was an unusual one.
“What is taking place here tonight is extremely unusual,” said Pastor Leito. “In the recent history of the IAD, no field is born as a conference. Most fields start their submission as ‘field’ and then they grow to a mission and then a conference. This is the second field in the modern history of the vast IAD – Panama being the first – that has shown such maturity, dedication and readiness that it can go from a field directly to become a conference without being a mission. It gives me great pleasure tonight after the constitution is adopted, and on behalf of the World Church, as a vice president of the General Conference to stand here and declare, this is a conference.”
The change in status is in recognition that the field is now capable of operating with the level of autonomy and self-sustenance afforded to Conferences, and is an acknowledgement of the Field’s stability in leadership, membership, and finance.
“It has been my privilege to work as the Leader of this field up to this point,” said Pastor Arlington Woodburn who currently serves as field leader. “I pray that God will continue to use the leadership and members of this Conference to work and expand His kingdom.”
Earlier in the evening, Pastor Leito, in his keynote address to the delegates, members of North East Jamaica Conference, admonished them not to sit idly with what God has blessed them, but to continue the work of growth and development to hasten the coming of Jesus Christ.
Created Aug. 1, 2006, as a field, it grew with in baptisms, the planting of new congregations and the development of its educational institutions and facilities. The newly conference is now the fifth conference in Jamaica and the eighth in the West Indies Union.
Pastor Derek Bignall, president, and the other officers of WIU along with Pastor Leito, are overseeing the procedures of the session.
The North East Jamaica Conference currently has over 25,000 members worshiping in 103 congregations. It also gives administrative oversight to three schools.
