The Seventh-day Adventist Church, now Jamaica's largest denomination, has undergone a major reorganisation, adding two new fields - the North East Jamaica Mission and the South Jamaica Mission, to better handle its numerical growth.

President of West Indies Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Pastor Patrick Allen said the North East Mission covering the parishes of Portland and St Mary, will become operational on August 1, 2006, while the South Jamaica Mission consisting of the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth will be operationalised at a later date.

Four new regional leaders have been elected, between July 5 and 18, to serve three Conferences and one Mission in Jamaica for the next four years, Allen also disclosed.

They are: international tele-evangelist, Pastor Glen Samuels - president of the West Jamaica Conference consisting of the parishes of St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover and St James; Pastor Adrian Cotterell - president of the East Jamaica Conference consisting of the parishes of Kingston, St Andrew and St Thomas; Pastor Everett Brown - president of the Central Jamaica Conference consisting of the parishes of Manchester, Clarendon and St Catherine; and Pastor Arlington Woodburn - leader of the newly formed North East Jamaica Mission.

"We have elected a solid team of local leaders, who we are confident will support the mission of the church and guide the workers and members into a closer relationship with God," Allen said. "With the organisation of the new field, there will be more efficient pastoral care and better administrative supervision," he added.

The Mandeville-based West Indies Union Conference counts some 240,000 Seventh-day Adventists in Jamaica, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands.

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