PAGE FIVE

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A MESSAGE FROM

OUR PRESIDENT

    Our mission trip to Biloxi was a rich blessing in every sense of the word. The weather was perfect, we traveled without incident or delay, and the accomodations provided by Samaritan's Purse were outstanding. We are still adjusting to the shocking devastation everywhere. The city was hit by a twenty- foot wall of water from the Gulf and a back surge from the Bay. The Methodist Camp where we stayed was almost on the beach and had been taken over by Samaritan's Purse as a base of operations. The buildings, miraculously, had escaped destruction but the church in front was completely washed away.

     Our hosts fed us three meals each day, including a wonderful bag lunch that we took to the job site.  We were assigned the task of framing out a house that had been almost totally destroyed - first by termites since 1865 and then by an eightfoot wave and winds from the hurricane. We were able to share God's Word and pray with the owner who came by several times as well as with the neighbors on either side who were living in FEMA trailers.

    One of the special opportunities to show God's Love came about because Anne and Dootsie Jolley, the two women on our team, walked the neighborhood and prayed while we were setting up.  They encountered a homeless young man named Chris. His wife had been killed by a drunk driver just before Katrina and had lost everything during the storm. We shared our lunch with him, paid him to work with us and introduced him to Ken Sides, Director of Samaritan's Purse activity in Biloxi. Ken saw to it that he shaved, showered and had new clothes. What a transformation in a short time! When we left, Ken was working on a place to stay and a permanent job for Chris. Our second team from New Philadelphia left for Biloxi this week and will follow up.

    People are going to this area from all over the US and Canada to help out. We spent a considerable amount of time explaining what a Moravian is.  We were asked if we are the ones who can have more than one wife. I liked Herbert Weber's answer to this question, "No more than three".

    The needs along the Gulf will go on for years. Pray that the Holy Spirit will quicken the hearts of many to respond. If the plans of the BWM work out, we may be acquiring a house in Ocean Springs as a base camp. We might even plant a Moravian church in Mississippi.

    I'll report next month on the Mission Summit taking place in Bethlehem March 3rd thru 5th.

May the Lord pour out His blessings upon you.

Jack Geis

FIFTY YEARS OF SERVICE

    Trinity Moravian Church in Jamaica was opened and dedicated on January 18^th, 1956. The first Sunday service was held on the following Sunday.

    Richmond Park, in Kingston, the capital, was a newly developed housing area, made up largely of professional and business people but the church was strategically placed near the border between Richmond Park and less prosperous areas. Church members came from all the neighboring areas so that the congregation provided a meeting place for people from different social and economic groupings who might not otherwise have met.

    The new congregation was established as part of the celebrations for the 200^th anniversary of Moravian work in Jamaica (1954). Br. S. U. Hastings was called to oversee the project and the foundation stone was laid on December 9^th.

                While the church was being built, services were held in a nearby home so that when the church was opened, communicant membership was already 61, rising to over 400 by 1966, with large numbers of young people and children in Sunday school and youth organizations. Current membership is somewhat smaller but is still over 300.

    Br. Hastings’ ministry at Trinity continued to 1964 when the office of P.E.C. President, which he occupied along with his congregation, became a full-time one. He had also been elected Bishop in 1961. Br. Fred Linyard succeeded him, serving also as a Moravian tutor at the United Theological College of the West Indies until he and the family returned to the British Province in 1973.The present minister is
Br. Trevor Dawkins with Sr. Marion McCreath as supplementary Minister. In the years between, a number of brethren have served the congregation faithfully, but from the very beginning, the strength of the congregation has been in the large number of faithful and highly competent members who have given leadership in the areas of congregation life. Without a capable Board of Stewards and the Board of Elders, ministering effectively to a congregation such as Trinity would be near impossible.

    In more recent years, in addition to the regular worship, the work among young people and with women’s and men’s groups, two of the main outreach services offered by the congregation are a Skills Training Center, where students learn about clothes making and food preparation, and a weekly feeding program catering for around 40 needy people.

    Fifty years on, Trinity continues to witness and serve.