Don’t allow COVID to shake your faith in God, urges SDA head
WITH THE fortitude of the Jamaican people being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Everett
Brown, president of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in Jamaica, is confident that his fellow countrymen will rebound from the crippling effects of the crisis.
Since the novel coronavirus was first detected in the island in March, Jamaica has recorded close to 700 cases, with 10 lives being lost. Globally, there have been 10 million cases and 500,000 deaths.
Notwithstanding the disruption to the normal routines and the economic hit from the pandemic, Brown is optimistic.
“We can overcome. We will overcome. We will beat back the challenges that we will face as a result of this vicious pandemic,” Brown told The Sunday Gleaner recently.
“The persevering, determined spirit of the Jamaican people has enabled us in the past to overcome the many setbacks that we have experienced since the birth of a wonderful nation,” added Brown, who heads the more than 300,000-strong SDA Church in the island.
He is urging the Christian community to remain hopeful and exercise complete trust in God. “Do not allow fear or the effects of this pandemic to influence you to lose your confidence in God. Remember that God is still in control of the affairs of this world, and He will accomplish that which He has promised in His Word.”
MORE EFFORTS NEEDED
Brown told The Sunday Gleaner that more effort is needed in addressing the socioeconomic well-being of Jamaicans in order to realise the Vision 2030 goal of Jamaica becoming “the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business”. “Without empirical data, my experience as I relate to people is that the gap between those who have and those who do not needs to be narrowed. We need a nation that is more sensitive to the welfare needs of the most vulnerable in our society,” the pastor said.
Despite reduced resources, he disclosed that the Church has remained committed to reaching out to society’s vulnerable. While the pandemic has significantly curtailed personal pastoral-care services to members and the community as well as traditional evangelistic outreach programmes, the Church has been bridging the gap with online technology.
Brown is intentional about his personal self-care during this challenging time, making time for recreational activities such as gardening and reading. Like many persons, he has been working from home, an experience that he finds rewarding yet challenging.
“Working from home has been a very exhausting experience. It is very difficult for me to create that balance between work-related activities and those activities which are non-work related,” he said. “To separate work time from time spent with family is a very complex and difficult proposition when working from home.”
karen.oliver@ gleanerjm.com