Month: May 2025

1978

Soon after the Miracle on the Rio Cobre incident, in fact, just two days later, I officiated at my first Jamaican funeral. As Borge Langerud, the missionary, was preparing to leave for Canada (leaving us in charge of the entire missions organization and the church for a month) he said, “Oh, by the way, you’ve got a funeral to do in a couple of days. But it’s no problem, Brother Hamilton will show you what needs to be done.” And then we drove him and his wife to Kingston’s Norman Manley Airport and they flew away!

Early on the morning of the funeral, Brother Hamilton (one of the church elders at the Ewarton Gospel Lighthouse Church) showed up at the mission house and said, “It’s time to get started!”

Here’s how it played out…

We took the truck (A 1968 three-quarter-ton Chevy pickup, with a canopy on the back), and went to the the coffin maker’s shop to pick up the coffin (Which was made of local wood, covered in lavender fabric, had a glass viewing window in the lid, silver-colored hardware, and was almost, but not quite finished). When the coffin was ready, we loaded it and the coffin maker and his two assistants into the truck and drove to the hospital in Linstead (five miles away) to pick up the body of the departed.

When we arrived at hospital, we went directly to the morgue, a tomb-like (I know, right?) concrete room at the back of the hospital. The morgue had a steel shelf all around the walls, and because the refrigeration was broken, the steel shelf contained ten or more corpses in canvas bags with tags on the toes protruding from the bags. Blocks of ice were placed strategically.

The body of the woman whose funeral I was to officiate in a couple of hours was lying on an elevated slab in the center of the room. We had to wait while the woman’s daughters dressed her in her burial dress. When that was done, we brought the coffin on a gurney to the side of the slab and shifted her body off the slab into the coffin.

At that point we discovered that the coffin lid wouldn’t close because the woman’s body was more “portly” than the coffin was constructed to contain. The coffin maker complained that the woman was too fat. I observed that it would have been good to check on her size before building the coffin. But what do I know? I’ve never built a coffin!

Imagine four men, Brother Hamilton, myself, the coffin maker, and the coffin maker’s assistant, pressing down on the coffin lid while trying to tighten the four screws to secure the lid. Imagine the sound of the hammer pounding some nails into the lid to help take the strain. Imagine the cracking sound when the glass viewing window (see above) broke under the pressure. There was some discussion in English and Jamaican Patois about whose fault it was and what to do next. We decided to cover the woman’s face with absorbent material we found on a shelf and make it a closed casket service!

We wheeled the casket on the gurney out to the loading ramp and backed the truck as far as we could down the ramp. Now picture those four men, two of whom (In this case, not Brother Hamilton and me) were somewhat inebriated because they’d been drinking Overproof Rum all morning, pushing the gurney up to the back of the pickup on a slight incline and sliding the casket off the gurney into the truck bed. Picture the man holding the gurney on the sloped ramp losing his grip on it and the gurney starting to roll down the slope just as the casket was half on the truck and half still on the gurney! Picture the two sober men (Brother Hamilton and me) scrambling to catch the casket and heaving it far enough into the truck bed that it didn’t fall to the ground and explode! We couldn’t put the tail gate up, so the two assistants rode in the back of the truck to hold the casket from sliding out.

We uneventfully drove the five miles to the Gospel Lighthouse Church in Ewarton, backed the truck up to the front door, and six strong men carried the casket to the front of the sanctuary, just below the pulpit, and set it on two wooden chairs placed to the sides facing each other. Whew! We made it!

The church was filling up, I was rumpled (I’d been wearing the suit in which I was to conduct the service through all the activities I’ve described here) and sweaty. I sat alone on the three-foot high platform and tried to look ministerial and get myself prepared to “officiate”!

The service began. I was the Master of Ceremonies, the officiating minister, and the visiting pastor from overseas. Brother Hamilton coached me as things trundled along. We sang songs, the eulogy was read, the service was moving along, and it was almost time for me to speak. I think this is going to work!

We had decided that, due to the things that had happened at the morgue while securing the lid of the coffin (see “viewing window glass breaking” above), it would be a closed casket service. Suddenly the town drunk stumbled in through the open door, staggered down the aisle to the coffin and threw open the “viewing window”! Much to my relief the absorbent material had absorbed as we had hoped and overall, it didn’t look too bad! Then the entire congregation got up and rushed in a more or less disorderly manner to the front and viewed the body. We sang another song.

Then I preached the funeral sermon. I have no idea what I preached about. It was probably about life and death and heaven and hell and God and Jesus. But we got it done and prayers were said, and I had the folks stand. Brother Hamilton organized the men to carry the casket to the truck, I dismissed the congregation, and we were off to the cemetery!

When we reached the cemetery, about half a mile away, we found the grave dug and ready for its inhabitant. Inside the grave was a concrete vault, poured in place and open on top. The casket would be lowered into the vault by the bearers. They brought the casket from the truck, which had nearly burned out its clutch on the steep pull up the hill, and we prepared for the final interment.

As it turns out, no one had brought any rope for lowering the casket into the vault! Was I was supposed to have done that? I sent people in all directions to find some rope while we sang hymns on the cemetery hillside. Within a song or two we had pieces of rope which we tied into two sections, ran the ropes under the casket, then lifted the casket (eight strong men at this point, two on each end of each rope) and carefully lowered the it into the grave. When it was down and safely settled, we couldn’t get the ropes out! We couldn’t leave them, they were borrowed! So the smaller of the two coffin maker assistants crawled down into the grave, lifted the coffin, first one end, then the other, and we retrieved the ropes.

I said what I hope were the appropriate “laying to rest” words. Then the coffin maker’s assistants brought split bamboo, straw, large tropical looking leaves of some sort and actually mixed and poured in place, a concrete cover for the grave. That took almost an hour. We continued to sing songs.

The crowd of nearly a hundred mourners began to drift away and eventually the grave was sealed, the people were gone, and my first Jamaican funeral was in the books.

A funeral is one of the important passages in life. It’s serious and sobering—a time for reflection. But this one had its moments! On the plus side, I’ve never been particularly stressed by funeral ministry since that day.

And that’s what I remember about that!

As always I’d love to hear from you… You can comment by replying to this email or in the comment section on my blog page.

Grace to you today! Jim Stephens

 

Jim Stephens

In the mid and late 80’s Jean and I lived in Kingston, Jamaica. We had moved to Jamaica in the early 80’s to pastor a church planted by missionaries in the market town of Linstead in St Catherine parish. We set Jamaican leadership in the church in 1985 and moved to Kingston to work with a Jamaican Ministry called Whole Life Ministries to begin a Bible Training Centre to provide interdenominational lay leadership training. There was nothing like that available in the country at the time.

We joined the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, a fellowship organization that included pastors and leaders from over thirty denominations and groups of churches. The primary contact point was a monthly pastors meeting for fellowship, mutual support and encouragement, and occasional joint outreach meetings, projects, and joint statements to press and government about issues affecting the churches.

Jean and I stood out a bit because we were the only white members of the group! Jean became the Secretary Treasurer and while I didn’t hold an office, I spoke devotionally in the meetings, spoke into issues at hand, and ministered in a significant number of the member churches on weekends.

I remember a time when one of our member pastors, Herro Blair, who pastored the largest Pentecostal Church in Jamaica at the time, was under attack in the national press over some issue. We had discussed the things that were being said about him and prayed for him for wisdom and courage to handle it wisely and well. As we prayed, I had a mental picture of Herro walking up a hill along a residential street in Kingston. As he walked along, dogs came running to the gates of their yards barking fiercely at him. Some of the dogs got out into the street and ran after him, yapping and barking, but not physically attacking him. He picked up some rocks from the street and turned to throw them at the dogs to drive them back. Then I heard, “Don’t stop to stone the Devil’s dogs!”

After the prayer time finished, I shared this with Pastor Blair along with the thought that if you stop to throw rocks at all the barking dogs along the way, you’ll never get where you’re going.

This experience came back to me as I’ve been thinking about those early days in Kingston after our move from Linstead. I remember talking with my friend Steve Mickel about this experience. We were talking about how to respond to accusations and critics both from inside and outside the church. It’s hard to know what needs to be corrected and what needs to be ignored!

Here’s a couple of other things I came across as I was thinking about this:

• • Nehemiah 6:1-14 Tells of Nehemiah’s response when his opponents tried to distract him from the work he had been given. In verse 3 Nehemiah said, “I am doing a great work! I cannot stop to come and meet with you!”
  • “Do not flinch because the lion roars; do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs; do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits. Do your work. Let liars lie, let sectarians quarrel, let critics malign, let enemies accuse, let the devil do his worst; but see to it nothing hinders you from fulfilling with joy the work God has given you.”
  • “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” – Winston Churchill.

I thought some of my readers might be facing challenges and criticisms and distractions these days, and the message still rings true! We’ll never get where we’re headed if we stop to stone the devil’s dogs!

As always, I’d love to hear from you… You can reply to the email or comment on the blog page!

Another Jamaica story next week!

Grace to you, Jim Stephens

Melissa and the Pink Prison
Immaculate Conception High School
January 1985

Two weeks ago was Stephanie’s Story about the special school God allowed her to start in Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica soon after we moved there as missionary pastors of Bread of Life Church in 1984. Last week I told about my experience doing “Devotions at Dinthill” and how God used that experience to bless in so many ways. This week is another School Story: How God provided for Melissa’s education from eighth grade through high school at Immaculate Conception High School in Kingston, Jamaica. ICHS remains to this day one of the top Secondary Schools not only in Jamaica, but across the Caribbean.

Here’s Melissa to tell her story:

Our family made the decision to move to Jamaica when I was in seventh grade at Hedrick Junior High, in Medford, Oregon. I had an amazing Social Studies teacher, Mr. Perkins, who I told about our move, and he let me do a self-guided project for the last semester of my seventh grade year that involved learning all I could about Jamaica and doing a presentation about it. I spent my social study periods in the library researching – can you say Encyclopedia Britannica? Google didn’t exist! I was so excited for an adventure!

It was great preparation for me as we prepared for our move to Jamaica. Sidenote: I kept in touch with Mr. Perkins for years, into my adult years, but by the time I returned to the states and moved to Bend, Oregon, we had lost touch. Imagine my surprise, when I was leaving the post office one day, and I saw him standing in line! He had retired from teaching and moved to Central Oregon. It was amazing to reconnect.

That Summer we headed across the US to Springfield, Missouri to set up a base before our move to Jamaica. The process took longer than we expected which meant that I had to sign up for school in Springfield. I was ready to get to Jamaica! I spent a month or so at Pipkin Junior High, and I wasn’t thrilled. I also had to ride the bus for the first time in my life instead of walking to school and it was a bit scary – I even missed the bus on my first day, because I didn’t understand how it worked. Little did I know that a school bus would soon be a big part of my school life! I turned 13 shortly before we made the move to Jamaica.

We moved to Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica in October and spent some time getting the lay of the land and figuring things out. That meant that for a while I was “homeschooled” which meant Mom and Dad gave me math problems to work on, and some reading to do.

We needed to find a school for me, but it was a whole new world, and a whole new school system and way of doing things. The leaders that Mom and Dad were working with at the church in Linstead had a sister-in-law who had been the assistant to the headmistress at a school in Kingston. We didn’t know much about it, but heard that it was a good school. It was an all-girls, catholic school, but it was a public school. Our friends were able to get us an interview with the headmistress, so we thought we’d give it a shot. We arrived at Immaculate Conception High School – a beautiful campus with pink buildings, gorgeous grounds, and an amazing garden in the middle. We were shown into the office of Sister Maureen Claire, and I, for one, was immediately intimidated. She was a formidable woman in a Franciscan habit.

She told us a bit about the school, but focused on the fact that there were waiting lists to get in, it was the middle of the year, and they didn’t have space for me! Mom and Dad shared our story, and what we were doing in the country. Then there was a general sense that it was time for us to go. But something happened and the next thing we knew, she was telling us where we needed to go to pick up uniforms, what time I needed to arrive the following Monday, and what the dress code was (uniform – white shirt, white skirt, blue tie, brown shoes and socks, no makeup, no jewelry, and only brown, white or blue hair ties and barretts). As we were walking out the door, we were all a little in shock as we mumbled our thanks!

Then it was a mad dash around Kingston to get uniforms – the everyday uniform, plus PE clothes, a swimming costume and swimming cap, and appropriate shoes. Not only that, we had to figure out how I was going to get from Linstead to Kingston (about an hour drive by car) five days a week.

The school had a boarding house down the road a ways from the school, so that was our first solution. My parents would take me there on Sundays and pick me up on Friday afternoons. At first, I was excited about it. It was like something out of a book – a girl attending boarding school in another country. Reality set in quickly though, and neither my parents nor I enjoyed it. We were soon looking for an alternate solution.

There was a woman named Valda in the church, whose husband, Stedman, drove a juice delivery van from the Trade Winds Citrus production plant in Bog Walk, St Catherine, near Linstead, to Kingston every weekday. He offered to take me in the delivery van, drop me off at school and pick me up and bring me home. That involved him backtracking a bit to Linstead to pick me up.

So began my juice van adventures. I would sit on an upturned juice crate in the front of the van between Stedman and his helper. We would drive through the countryside and cross the Rio Cobre Flat Bridge. If the river was flooded, then we’d have to go the long way through Spanish Town. It was an hour’s journey. I got to hear a lot of Jamaican music in that van, and grew to love reggae and dancehall music. I also quickly learned to understand Jamaican patois. It was quite the sight – a young, white girl sitting between two big black men in a juice delivery van – all singing along to We Are The World. They really looked after me and I always felt so safe!

Meanwhile, we learned that there was a bus that the Alcan Aluminium Company ran for students from our area who attended ICHS. Someone put us in touch with them and we were placed on a waitlist for when space might open up. I don’t remember how long it was until a seat opened up, but one eventually did and for the rest of the time we lived in Linstead, that bus would pick me up and drop me off at the end of our driveway. I made some really good friends on that bus, including friends I am still in touch with today. We shared a lot of experiences and laughs on that bus. Then when we moved to Kingston, Dad dropped me off and picked me up from school every day.

How all those connections and opportunities came about kind of felt like magic – we didn’t chase them down, but through relationships I ended up at one of the top high schools in the Caribbean, on a campus that was once a hotel and resort. It wasn’t something we were aware of when I started school there, but we soon learned what an amazing gift we had been given for me to attend school at ICHS! Parents enroll their daughters in ICHS almost as soon as they’re born – that’s how good the school is and how long the waiting list! ICHS was “old school” in terms of discipline. We fondly called it the Pink Prison! I received a top notch education, and learned so much, not just educationally, but through discipline, friendships, and sometimes through hard situations and being a teenager in a completely foreign culture. I was a student from eighth grade, when I was 13, until I graduated in 11th grade at age 16.

I learned to trust God to provide. It became a natural thing for me – I know I didn’t see the stress and worry that Mom and Dad experienced – I saw the outcomes, the provision every step of the way. Those travel and cultural experiences cemented a love of travel, new experiences, and “the road less travelled” in me. Someday I’ll tell you the story of how a Keith Green Memorial Concert in Medford Oregon, and a day on the Mercy Ship Anastasis, in Montego Bay Jamaica figured into my journey with YWAM in Cardiff, Wales and London, England! Here’s a link to the ICHS web site.
https://immaculatehigh.edu.jm

Jim Here:

Thanks, Melissa! It’s so amazing to see and hear the ICHS “Pink Prison” story through your eyes and in your voice!

Friends, as always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or post a comment on the “Notes From My Journey” page on https://jimastephens.com

Devotions at Dinthill
1984-1986

It would not be surprising if you thought of me and devotions at the same time. In the same mental breath! I’ve been writing and sending GraceNotes, my daily devotional, since 2009 and that’s how many of my readers first connected with me.

Last week’s post and story was about Stephanie’s Special School. It took place just after our arrival to pastor Bread of Life Church in Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica in 1984. Here’s a link to that story.

As we settled into our pastoral duties and began to identify potential leaders in training, we were introduced to Enos Barrett, Principal of Dinthill Technical High School, a government training centre for skills and trades, located just outside Linstead. Dinthill had a student body of around 2500 students, and Principal Barrett asked me if I would come to the school once a week for their beginning-of-day assembly and give a devotional talk and prayer for the students, the teachers, and the staff. (Is it possible that this is what got me started with Devotionals?)

What an opportunity for this newly-arrived missionary pastor of a newly planted local church in the area! I asked Principal Barrett what they normally did for morning devotions, and what he would like me to do. He said that morning devotions was a time to pass on “notices” to the students and teachers, to gather the students to foster a sense of “student body” identity, and to inspire and encourage the teachers and students spiritually. The entire gathering would be about 15 minutes and I’d have 10 minutes to speak and pray for the day and week ahead.

I remember the first day I was to do devotions at Dinthill, I arrived early, driving my little Ford Escort station wagon up the driveway to the school, passing dozens of students in their distinctive DTHS uniforms as they walked up from the highway. They were surprised and curious to see a white guy coming up the drive and I immediately became the center of attention!

I parked the car and made my way to the Administration Building where I found Mr. Barrett in his office. He explained that they would ring a bell at 8 AM and the students would gather in the courtyard. Announcements would be made from the second-floor balcony and then he would introduce me and I’d speak. I could read a scripture or tell a story and pray and we’d be done.

As we made our way up the outside staircase to the balcony I saw the students gathering in the large courtyard. It was a lot of students, a sea of faces and uniforms, and a low roar of conversations and laughter. I was beginning to get a kind of “I don’t know if I can do this” feeling!

Sidebar: Dinthill had an old screechy PA system that had probably been used to announce Jamaica’s Independence back in 1962! Over the next couple of years, that PA system would screech with feedback, crackle with poor cable connections, and just plain not work when the power was off, something that happened a lot!

After the “notices” were given, Principal Barrett handed me the microphone, which promptly stopped working, and I stumbled through a greeting, read a verse of scripture, told an “application” story, and prayed for Dinthill’s staff and students for the week ahead. Then as the students scattered to their classes, I told Mr. Barrett I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. My voice was hoarse, my throat was scratchy, and I felt like I had failed miserably. I’ve always prayed, “Lord don’t let me waste people’s time when I speak.” I felt like a time-waster that morning!

Mr. Barrett told me that my scripture and story and prayer had been appropriate and helpful, but that I needed to quickly learn to project my voice to be able to be heard by those 2500 people in the courtyard every week! So I rushed home and Googled “How do I project my voice?” and found a very helpful Youtube video on the subject. Just kidding! It was still a few years until the Internet happened and more years before Google and Youtube would appear!

But I did learn to project my voice. Mr. Barrett gave me some helpful insights and I began to experiment and practice and before long I was not only more confident about what I was saying to 2500 Jamaican teenagers, I was saying it so they could actually hear me! And they loved my American accent!

Projecting my voice has been so helpful in the years since Dinthill Devotions. I’ve preached in village churches and community gatherings across Jamaica where there was no electricity or sound system, I’ve spoken in churches and to groups of people gathered in outdoor settings in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Botswana, and Costa Rica without sound amplification. And I could make myself heard, so that’s a win!

When I thought back on the years I spoke at Dinthill Devotions, I did sometimes wonder if I was wasting people’s time or if it was making a difference. But one day several years later when we were arriving at Norman Manley Airport in Kingston and making our way through the chaos of the Customs Hall, I heard someone call out “Pastor Jim, Pastor Jim, over here!” A young Customs Officer was walking toward us through the noisy jumble of people, luggage, and commercial goods. She greeted us with a big smile and said, “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I was a student at Dinthill when you used to come and do Devotions every week! I’ve never forgotten you. The things you taught us helped us so much! (And then she led us through the Express Lane with our luggage!)

Another time, after we had been living in Kingston for several years, I walked out in my yard and saw a young man with a gun, wearing a Jamaica Defense Force uniform looking over the neighbor’s fence at me. He said, “Pastor Jim, I was one of the students at Dinthill you were speaking to every week! Now I’m serving as a guard to the Member of Parliament who lives here. I want you to know I’ll be keeping an eye on your home as well. Thanks for the things you taught us!”

You never know!

Thanks for reading my story! As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or leave a comment on my blog page…

Grace to you, Jim Stephens