MONTEGO BAY, St James

Part of the Christian duty has always been to spread the word of God far and wide and for over five years the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) ministry has been doing just that.

The missionary training school, with campuses in Montego Bay and Mandeville, has been training missionaries responsible for spreading the word all over the world in such faraway places as Albania, Gambia, Israel, Sudan, Uganda, Suriname and Senegal and in neighbouring islands of Cuba, Nicaragua, Bahamas, Guyana and Haiti.

However, their work is not well known and each year the number of Jamaicans entering the programme is less than they expect. This, according to Dave Harper, director of training, and Marion Jacobs, acting director of the Montego Bay campus, is something they are hoping to change.

“Each year, most of the persons we have entering the programme are from overseas,” said Harper. “This year, we are hoping to change that by sending an appeal to persons who believe they have a calling in their life and would like to serve the Lord by travelling the world and spreading the message.”

Jacobs feels that one of the reasons they have not been able to attract more Jamaicans is because the ministry is non-denominational and depends on attracting persons from various denominations who may already have their own individual church ministries. YWAM is a multi-national organisation which operates in more than 149 countries around the world.

Each is convinced, however, that Jamaican Christians have a duty to spread the gospel of Christ in much the same way that they have carried the island’s culture throughout the world. “Jamaica in fact has a rich heritage of missionary service,” explained Jacobs, who has been with YWAM since 1995 and has been to missions in China, Hong Kong, Sudan and Uganda, to name a few.

She tells the story of Joseph Merrick, who was co-pastor of the Spanish Town Baptist Church, and a parishioner, Andrew Fuller, a skilled carpenter, who travelled to Cameroon in 1843 – following the abolition of slavery – to spread Christianity to which they had been converted.

Yet another, George Liele, a freed slave from Georgia in the USA in the 19th century was instrumental in establishing the Jamaica Missionary Society which trained missionaries who went on to spread the gospel in Haiti, Cuba, Central America and West Africa.

She notes that the persons interested in this service to Christ will find their 13-acre campus located in the hills overlooking Montego Bay, a quiet and peaceful place to be trained in ministry service. The curriculum includes the Discipleship Training School, School of the Bible, Foundation of Community Development, field training and most recently, the addition of the School of the Performing Arts (SOPA), an intensive five-months programme which seeks to train missionaries to spread the gospel through the performing arts, including music, dance and drama.