Devon Dick
THE DIASPORA Conference is over and it is now time to evaluate the achievements of the conference and the plans and programmes to sustain the link between Jamaicans a' yard and abroad.
I remember being invited to and attending the first conference held at the University of the West Indies. After the conference, I told the minister responsible that the Church's outlook was being sidelined because the conference's bibliography on Jamaica did not include even one reference on Christianity. I wonder what has changed since then.
Jamaica and the leaders within the diaspora foundation can ignore the contribution that the Church could make to their peril.
Even before the first government-sponsored Diaspora Conference, Jamaican-born Joel Edwards, general secretary of the U.K. Evangelical Alliance, Europe's largest, richest and most influential evangelical alliance, hosted a multi-sector conference at the Jamaica High Commission in London to fashion a strategy of transatlantic cooperation that could lead to a prosperous and peaceful Jamaica.
MISSIONARY OUTREACH
English Baptist missionary, James Phillippo of the 19th century, envisioned Jamaica being the centre from which there would be missionary outreach to Africa, Cuba, South and Central America, because of its strategic location and political importance in the British Empire.
Indeed, Jamaicans have started many missions and churches overseas. The denomination that took this challenge most seriously would be the Salvation Army which spread to 10 other territories in South America and the Caribbean from Jamaica. In 1960, the Jamaica Baptist Union was responsible for churches in Turks and Caicos Islands, British Honduras and Costa Rico, while the Methodists had missions in Panama, Costa Rica and Haiti. The Anglican and the Presbyterians oversaw churches in the Cayman Islands.
In addition, individuals without denominational support started work overseas. Two of those stalwarts were buried in England recently.
There was Rev. Agatha Louise Walker, founder of the Church of God Worldwide Mission, Reading, England. In 2003, the European Theological Seminary awarded her the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for outstanding contribution to the Christian ministry.
Another giant who was interred was Rev. Dr. Oliver Lyseight, founder of the New Testament Church of God in Great Britain. He was also a founding father of the Afro West Indian United Council of Churches and it was not surprising that there was a moving tribute from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. In addition, there was a tribute from the Office of the British Prime Minister and the Jamaican High Commissioner.
Bishop W.A. Blair, national overseer for Jamaica and Grand Cayman for the New Testament Church of God, who got a standing ovation from some persons in the congregation, did the tribute that brought the house down. Happily, he also brought a tribute on behalf of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.
'ROUGH DIAMOND'
Paradoxically, when Lyseight was in Jamaica, he was not highly regarded by the denominational 'powers that be' and perhaps that is why Joel Edwards in his tribute called him a "rough diamond".
But he founded the work in Wolverhampton in 1953 and now there are 100 churches with 12,000 members. One of the moving incidents at Lyseight's funeral was the draping of the coffin by Bishop Derek Webley and Bishop Gooden with the Jamaican flag at the ceremony held in Birmingham. These church leaders identify with Jamaica and have much to offer through cooperation.
We must associate and be in solidarity with church leaders in the diaspora.
With strong linkages and conscious collaboration, there is much that can be accomplished between the Church and the diaspora.
PS: Adam Smith said that when food cheap, wages high and when food expensive, wages low. (Thought for the Day).
Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building'.
