By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
- Carlington Wilmot Photo
Former insurance salesman Lloyd Desmond Smith is offering a new portfolio as he now pastors in Trelawny
Theological late bloomers are
persons who at 50 years or older have decided to pursue pastoral or related ministries. Today Mind & Spirit
continues its series on such persons who have answered the call.
FOR 26 years Lloyd Desmond Smith's job was to sell life insurance policies. But he has had a career change. He now urges people to take advantage of eternal life through Christ.
Smith, 64, is the former manager of the Ocho Rios branch of Mutual Life Assurance Company. He left the insurance giant in 1997 just as the storm clouds of a financial collapse were beginning to form. The following year he entered the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI).
The Rev. Mr. Smith is now pastor of the Waldensia Circuit of Baptist Churches in Trelawny. The circuit has two churches, Waldensia Baptist, located in Sherwood Content; and Trittonville Baptist, in Duanvale.
He became a born-again Christian in April 1977 under the preaching of the Rev. Everard Allen, pastor of the Brown's Town Circuit of Baptist churches, in St. Ann. He and his wife of 35 years, Mauva, a guidance counsellor at St. Hilda's Diocesan High School, are the proud parents of four children two boys and two girls. The Rev. Smith and his wife are 'tongues-speaking' Christians, who were heavily influenced by the Charismatic Renewal Movement of the 1970s. They are renowned for their gifts of discernment.
GREAT TIME IN BROWN'S TOWN
The Rev. Mr. Smith was for 20 years a member at Brown's Town Baptist Church 17 of which he served as a deacon. He looks back at his Brown's Town Baptist years with fondness and is thoroughly appreciative of the ministry of the Rev. Everard Allen.
He tells the story how as a mature student, the Jamaica Baptist Union and the UTC tailored a programme for him where he spent two years and five months instead of the usual four years that the degree requires. His programme involved pre and post collegiate training.
The Rev. Everard Allen, he stressed, was and is a stickler for excellence. "So we at Brown's Town Baptist Church were taught some things that would not normally be taught to seminary students. When I went to UTC, I could afford not to do some courses because of the foundation the Rev. Allen's teachings had laid. In fact, the Rev. Allen was often more detailed than the UTC programme."
Born and raised in Westmoreland, the Rev. Mr. Smith is one of the six offspring born to Eustace and Ina Smith. His father was a farmer, his mother a housewife. Both were poor, he said, but ambitious.
CALLED TO MINISTRY
In his teen years, he attended the Anglican Church. Serving in the Anglican church in Westmoreland during the young Mr. Smith's day was the Rev. Canon Weeville Gordon, who earlier this year retired after 40 years of service at St. Matthew's Church, Allman Town in Kingston. Canon Gordon is also the present Custos of Kingston.
One day, the young Anglican rector looked at the young Lloyd Desmond Smith and told him he had it in him to become a minister of religion. In fact, the Rev. Mr. Smith recalls that Canon Gordon wanted to send him to be trained at St. Peter's College ( now defunct) on Caledonia Avenue in Kingston. But, the former insurance executive conceded, he was somewhat of a rebellious teen and pastoral ministry was the furthest thing from his mind.
MOVING INTO INSURANCE
He attended St. Paul's Primary, Moreland Hill Primary, then the Jamaica School of Agriculture. Then he taught for a brief while at the Priory Primary School in St. Ann, before joining the civil service. He worked initially with the then Ministry of Trade and Industry, then he got a job as an agricultural extension service officer. In 1968, he received a scholarship to study agriculture in Germany. On his return, he continued to work with the extension service but soon found that his earnings were not enough to sustain his young family. He got introduced to the life insurance business and stayed with it for 26 years until he became a minister of religion.
As an insurance executive he was often dubbed 'Pastor' by co-workers. He ensured the continuation of devotions on Monday mornings at the branch, which was initiated by an earlier manager, A.A. 'Bobby' Pottinger (now Custos of St. Mary).
PASTORAL INTERNSHIP
He also built a reputation as a preacher, as he did evangelistic work in many parts of the island. He was also for years on the national executive of the Jamaica Youth for Christ. He and wife, Mauva, were also occasional presenters on 'Joy to the Lord' a broadcast sponsored by the Brown's Town Baptist Church on the now-defunct JBC Radio.
During his pastoral internship, he was assigned the Waldensia and Trittonville Baptist churches. By the time he was formally appointed pastor of those churches, those congregations had been without a shepherd for two years.
After he took over, the officers of the two churches told him, "We prayed for a pastor and we asked the Lord not to send a young man because there would be nothing to hold him in the community The Lord has answered our prayers because He has sent a mature person."
And what is it like pastoring the two Trelawny churches?
"It is difficult," is the quick response of the Rev. Mr. Smith. "If I were not a mature person, I would have left. I would not have been able to cope - especially without my background and training."
FACING THE CHALLENGE
The two churches have a combined membership of about 200 and are located in depressed communities. The circuit does not have a manse.
"I have built a little self-contained flat so that I can sleep over some nights. I live in Brown's Town and I have to travel 15- 20 miles to get to my churches - and I have to do this about four times per week. With the distance between church and home, it is difficult to do the level of visitation I believe should be done.
Yet his congregations in Trelawny, which comprise persons mostly over 50, seem cut out just for him as he wanted to work with the aged and the poor.
"I am not the sweet-talking person. Because of my agricultural background, I can relate to grassroots people.
"I believe I am in the perfect will of God by being a pastor. I feel like Moses, because 40 years ago Weeville Gordon spoke with me, and I am now living out and fulfilling his prophetic word."
