Month: June 2025

1987

Good News Bulletin!: Lily The Lost Dog, whose story I told in last week’s blog post, was found safe north of Brasada Ranch, over fifteen miles from where Dave lost her. She’s a little thin, but the vet says she’s okay, uninjured, and she’ll be fine! She’s very happy to be home!

The Sligoville Road

In early 1986 we moved from Linstead, St. Catherine, where we had been pastoring Bread of Life Church and developing a leadership team, to Kingston where we were taking the next steps into what would become a growing and mutually beneficial relationship with Al Miller, a Baptist minister who had begun developing an organization and ministry called Whole Life Ministries. As the organization name implies, the ministry was focused not only on the spiritual, “going to church” aspect of life, but on all of life and on all of life in the context of the whole community.

WLM had already been doing youth events, sports events, and was assisting churches across St Andrew (the greater Kingston area), and the larger vision included developing and providing churches with training and discipleship resources. That vision dove-tailed perfectly with our passion for discipling and equipping “ordinary Christians” with a solid faith foundation and helping them identify and develop their God-given gifts for use in the context of the local church and in their community life.

We immediately began working with Karlene Barrett, a member of WLM staff, to develop Children’s Ministry Training to assist the local churches. We would eventually begin to host national Children’s Ministries Workshops and publish a quarterly Children’s Ministries Newsletter which we sent by mail to churches and workers all across Jamaica. This was, of course, pre-internet and email, so there was a lot of hard and often tedious work involved in writing and printing material, developing the training, collecting addresses, printing and mailing newsletters, and printing and distributing training material. All of us, including Stephanie and Melissa, became very familiar with mailing lists on 3X5 cards and hand-writing addresses on envelopes.

For one of our earlier out-of-town Children’s Ministries One-Day Seminars, Jean and Karlene had scheduled to go to Bog Walk, in St. Catherine parish about twenty-five miles away to conduct a training for the Children’s Ministries workers in a church we had developed a relationship with while we were at Bread of Life. I had a meeting with a group of pastors in Spanish Town that day so I wouldn’t be going along as driver and general helper for Jean and Karlene. I rode to the Spanish Town meeting with a friend and Jean picked up Karlene and headed west out of Kingston on the Rio Cobre road.

The Rio Cobre road was the normal and best way to travel between Kingston and Bog Walk and on across the mountains to St Mary’s parish on the North Coast. (See Miracle on the Rio Cobre story.) But about five or six times a year, during the rainy season, the water level in the Rio Cobre rose precipitously and flooded Flat Bridge and the road remained closed until the water level dropped. There were a couple of alternate routes, but they involved going back to Spanish Town if you were traveling west or back to Bog Walk if you were traveling east. The alternate routes were unmarked and each involved a series of roads and junctions get through the mountains.

From this point, Jean is telling this story!

One rainy, misty Saturday we had a Children’s Ministry One-Day Seminar scheduled in Bog Walk. I had all our material prepared and loaded into our little Ford Escort Station Wagon and I drove down to Havendale to pick up my faithful co-leader, Karlene, for the twenty-five mile trip out to Bog Walk, St Catherine. When we arrived at the church where we were to do the seminar, it was closed up and no one was around. There were indications that the power was out locally. The pastor didn’t have a telephone and there were no public phones anyhow. Karlene and I sat in the car trying to decide what to do.

She said she knew where the pastor lived so we headed there. Turns out he had slept in that morning, but said he would come to the church and let us in. When we got back to the church, people were beginning to show up. Karlene and I got things set up and began the presentation. We had a good group of motivated Children’s Ministry workers and it was going well! A little bit into our second session, the pastor came in and said, “Sorry for the interruption, but I’m concerned that you won’t be able to get back home to Kingston if you don’t leave now! It’s raining harder and Flat Bridge will become impassible soon.”

We quickly packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our group of workers, and headed out for home. As we traveled toward Kingston we soon began to meet cars headed the opposite way flashing their lights and waving, telling us to turn around. Flat Bridge was already flooded and the road was closed! I told Karlene that I knew a way over the mountains to Kingston that Jim and I had taken a few times when Flat Bridge was flooded while were still living in Linstead. She wasn’t too sure about it, but we really had no other option, so we turned around and off we went back toward Bog Walk.

As we approached Bog Walk, I turned right on the Sligoville Road and headed into the mountains. Traveling up the hill, we noticed a car that seemed to be following us. After  every curve it was still there. As we made each turn at the little village junctions, the car also turned and stayed behind us. Karlene was concerned, because it wasn’t considered safe for two women to be traveling alone in a car through the mountains of Central Jamaica. I said, “Maybe they just don’t know the way and they’re hoping we know where we’re going!” (Or maybe they just couldn’t figure out what a white woman was doing driving out here on the Sligoville Road!)

As we made our way through the mountains, by God’s grace making the correct choices at all the little junctions, we finally began going generally downhill and I soon recognized the turn toward Spanish Town. We were going on to Red Hills and would drop down into Kingston a few miles later, but the car that had been following us all the way through the mountains honked and waved to say “Thank you!” and turned off for Spanish Town. We soon reached Red Hills on the west edge of Kingston and after dropping Karlene off, I went on home. A little earlier than I expected and a little disappointed we weren’t able to finish the training sessions, but safe and sound! And thankful for the detour by way of the Sligoville Road!

Things don’t always work out the way we plan. Sometimes there are situations in which we have no control and we have to make decisions we didn’t expect to have to make. We’re thankful for God’s faithfulness to guide and provide!

As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, I welcome your comments below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

 

Yesterday morning on the trail in the Juniper Forest desert east of town, Jake and I encountered a human walker we hadn’t see before. He was younger, maybe early to mid-forties, than the typical walker on the trails out there at that time of day. And he was alone! He didn’t have a dog with him. Jake reached him a lot sooner than I did and greeted him and got a couple of friendly ear scratches before I got there. After “Good Mornings” were exchanged, he said, “I lost my dog!”

He quickly went on to tell me that Lily had disappeared a week ago while they were walking the trail. Lily is fifteen years old, just over 20 pounds, a Golden/mix, and her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Dave’s voice was right on the edge of cracking as he was telling me how they were walking the trail and suddenly she was nowhere to be seen, how he had walked and looked, and called, how he had been out every day since looking everywhere he could think to look, how he had left his shirt on a rock near some junipers in case she came by that way, how he had made picture posters and put them up at the trailhead, and along the highway, and how she had been his buddy for fifteen years. And twice he said, “I have another dog.”

I lost my dog Bear a long time ago and I know what it feels like to lose a dog! It was in 1990 when we were getting ready to leave Jamaica to move back to the US to explore moving to London to start a Bible Training Centre like the one we had developed in Jamaica. Bear the Dog came to us as a small puppy when we still lived in Linstead at Bread of Life Ministries and he grew to become a companion and protector while we lived there and then when we moved into Kingston, he took full responsibility for protecting our home and ourselves. Bear was a good dog! (I have some “Bear Stories” and could possibly be persuaded to write a post sometime about Bear the Dog).

One of the most emotional challenges as we prepared to leave Jamaica was rehoming seven-year-old Bear, but we had that pretty much worked out and Bear would go to live up above Kingston on Coopers Hill with our good friend Neville Wright and his wife Hyacinth and son John. The Wrights had lived in our home a couple of times to be closer to medical care and once had stayed in our home while we were away in the US for a few weeks. So Bear would be fine. But about a week before we left, perhaps the packing, the giving away of our furniture and appliances and “stuff”, had brought realization to Bear what was happening, and he simply disappeared one night. In the morning when we got up, he just wasn’t there! Our final days in Kingston, we frantically searched for him along with all the last-minute challenges of getting ready to leave Jamaica after seven years. We flew out to Atlanta on schedule, got busy with finding a place to live in transition, ministry travel in the US and to the UK, and lots of other planning and preparation for our move to England.

Then a few weeks later we made a trip to Kingston to finish up business and details for the Bible Training Centre there. We stayed in a guest house near Half-Way Tree, borrowed back our car from the friend we had given it to, and were busy with meetings and ministry and errands. Then one night late we were driving up Half-Way Tree Road to our lodgings and saw a dog that looked just like Bear trotting across the road some distance ahead. Our hearts leaped, we stopped the car and called and whistled for him. No response. It wasn’t Bear! We never learned what happened to him. I get teary just writing this and it’s been thirty-five years!

Ever since yesterday I’ve been thinking about meeting Dave on the trail and that he said, “She’s been my buddy for fifteen years!” and twice he said, “I’ve got another dog.” When your dog is lost it doesn’t matter how many dogs you’ve got (that you love as much as the lost dog), what matters is that you love the dog that’s lost! Dave is out there on the trails and driving the back roads and posting signs with a picture of Lily. Dave’s like the shepherd in the Jesus story who leaves the ninety-nine sheep and goes out in the wilderness looking for the one that’s lost. Except the shepherd Jesus told about found his lost sheep and we don’t know if Dave is going to find Lily. I never found Bear.

Before yesterday I didn’t know Lily existed. Since yesterday I’ve been praying for Lily and for Dave. I called him and told him my wife and I are praying he’ll find Lily and that I’ll check with him to see what happens.

There’s lots of dogs. And there’s lots of dogs that get lost. And there’s lots of lost dogs that I’ll never know about. But Lily is important to me now and I’m praying for her to find her way home. Do you know why Lily is important to me? Because Dave loves her. Dave’s love makes Lily precious and worth the effort Dave is making to find her. Love makes people precious too!

Thanks for reading my story. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, you can comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1984

We moved to Jamaica in October of 1984 to serve as pastors of Bread of Life Church in Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica. We were there at the invitation of Emile and Sophie Azan, Lebanese Jamaicans who owned and operated a business in Linstead and who had been radically converted to faith in Jesus a few years earlier.

Emile and Sophie were making preparation to start a church in Linstead. They had begun to gather people, acquired a property at a major intersection just on the north edge of town with a house and an old commercial-sized chicken coop, and were constructing a building for worship. The Azans specifically needed someone to get the church organized, to teach consistently and effectively the foundations of faith, living the Christian Life, and living in community with other believers. They needed someone to establish leadership development and training for the long run. And they needed someone whose intention was to get the church established, appoint leaders, and then get out of the way! It turns out that Jim and Jean Stephens were those missionaries!

The extended Azan family was influential in the area as business leaders, farmers, and in local government. When we arrived they accepted us into the family and while we worked to grow and develop ministry and relationships in Bread of Life Church and the Linstead community, we enjoyed a wonderful sense of inclusion (which was part of God’s good plan for us), wonderful Mediterranean/Jamaican food at the frequent family gatherings, and an opportunity for our influence to extend far beyond the boundaries of Linstead. And the amazing opportunity for our daughter Melissa to apply for and be accepted at Immaculate Conception High School in Kingston!

Elias Azan was the patriarch of the Azan family in Jamaica. He had arrived in Kingston on a ship from Lebanon as a young adventurer early in the 20th century and had soon built a thriving business traveling around the island selling household goods and supplies in the towns and villages. His hard work, good business practices, and the skills and wisdom of the wife he married soon made him an established business leader. He had sons and daughters who followed in his footsteps of hard work and good business.

His son Adib became a prosperous farmer in St Catherine with orchards, cattle, dairy, and chickens. Adib also owned “Azan’s Supercenter”, a local supermarket. Another son, Labeeb, began a haberdashery business in downtown Kingston and went on to own one of Jamaica’s leading furniture manufacturing and wholesale and retail furniture businesses. Elias’ daughter Sophie and her husband Emile established Azan’s Furniture Store in Linstead, and after their deep and transforming commitment to Christ, began paving the way for Bread of Life Ministries, which Jim and Jean Stephens had a role in developing.

When Elias Azan, who was well known in St Catherine Parish as “Dada”, was in his late 80’s, long after his wife had died, he moved into the home of his daughter Sophia and her husband Emile in Rose Hall, just outside Linstead. In our first months in Jamaica, I had many opportunities to sit with Dada and listen to stories about his travel adventures, his early days in Jamaica, his family, and about his faith. Dada had never learned to read and write, but his wife, his children, and his employees took care of all the literary stuff! The first Christmas we were in Jamaica, I wrote a poem for Dada for his Christmas Eve birthday. When the family heard it, they said they wanted the poem read at Dada’s funeral when the time came.

We handed the church leadership over to the Azans and their team in 1986 and moved to Kingston to work with Al Miller and Whole Life Ministries. (More stories about that to follow). On returning from a visit to the US, we got word that Sophie Azan was trying to contact us and Jean said, “Dada has died!” He had, and the funeral was the following week, and they did want the poem read at the funeral. In addition, they wanted me to read it!

The funeral was held in the large chapel at Dovecote Cemetery in the hills above Kingston. Prime Minister Edward Seaga sat on the front row right in the middle. P.J. Patterson, chairman of the opposition party sat at the end of the front row. Along all the walls of the chapel were bodyguards wearing black suits, sunglasses, and carrying automatic weapons. It was like a scene out of a movie! At the appointed time, I went to the lectern and read my little poem in my funny American accent. The smiles told me I had actually captured something of Dada’s life and character and influence!

After the service finished and the burial was completed we all went to the home of one of the Kingston Azans and had a “celebration of life” feast, with more of that amazing Mediterranean/Jamaican food. Actually, the whole experience was amazing! I had never been in the presence of so much military-grade firepower since Vietnam and neither Jean nor I had ever been in the presence of so many dignitaries and political figures.

Here’s the poem I wrote for Dada. Thought you might like to read it!

T’ANK GOD

‘So how are you today?’, I know I’ll hear…
‘T’ank God!’ His answer fills my heart with cheer.
And then I sit and listen as he speaks
Of times long past or things from just last week.

The story sometimes is a little long
With here and there a detail slightly wrong,
But listen! For the story’s more than words
And woven through there’s wisdom to be heard.

The wisdom isn’t from the books he’s read,
For reading’s not a skill he’s got, they said.
This wisdom’s from the pages of his life,
Faith wrote it there in times of joy and strife.

He’s written much, though not with pen and ink….
It’s in his sons, their hard work, how they think.
His industry and good sense is their creed,
The heart to help another in his need.

In love he writes a gospel very clear
Of faith and trust in God, Who’s always near.
Accept it or reject it, still it’s true…
The all-wise God he serves has hope for you.

While statesmen talk and politicians scheme,
And often men of vision only dream,
This man has planted hope and sown success
In daughters, sons, and many he has blessed.

The wife he cherished ever now is gone,
Yet in his constant memory she lives on.
Her strong hands serve and still her thoughtful grace
Is living in the daughters that she raised.

And though the passing years will take their toll,
The years that age his body bless his soul.
He labors still to help the ones he loves
Through strong prayers to his Father up above.

He may not ever have the world’s acclaim,
But now this tribute offered to his name…..
Of all the things our hearts could now express,
‘T’ank God for DaDa!’ really says it best.

DaDa……we love you!

For ‘DaDa’ – Elias K. Azan – 24 December 1984 – Linstead, Jamaica

As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, I welcome your comments below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1985

Now for a quick leap forward from last week’s story (The Funeral – 1978) to an experience in late 1985, after we’d been living in Linstead for a year; pastoring Bread of Life Church, and training leaders! Don’t get whiplash from the time travel! I’m trying to keep these stories more or less chronological, but we get to talking and remembering stuff that happened and it’s like: “We can’t leave that one out!”, so here’s this:

In the 60’s and 70’s, Jamaica had come under the influence of Cuba and the USSR to a significant degree and the socialist party, the People’s National Party was leading the country. The US was much less an influence at that time. Then, in the 80’s, as the USSR sort of lost momentum and influence, more missionaries came into Jamaica, more interaction with the US began to develop, and the Jamaica Labor Party gained popularity and strength. Jamaica had a JLP Prime Minister (Edward Seaga) and government for the first time in a while.

When we moved to Linstead, St Catherine, in 1984 there was still a significant amount of tension between the JLP and its supporters and the PNP and its supporters. In fact, the PNP boycotted the 1983 general election, and there was a significant amount of tension and more than a little political violence. Strikes took place across the country over a range of issues from the price of fuel, to workers’ pay, to government spending cuts, and because Linstead is located on the primary north-south highway across Jamaica, we saw our share of strike activity.

When strikes occurred, they often involved blocking streets, roads, and highways with vehicles and piles of old tires and, inevitably, those vehicles and tires would be set afire and then police and military would arrive eventually and attempt to clear the blockades and break up the gatherings. Stones would be thrown, bottles of flaming gasoline would be tossed, and before long bullets would fly. When this happened in the neighborhood, it was wise for white foreign people to stay home and stay out of sight!

The Bread of Life Ministries property where the church was located and where we lived was right at a complex intersection of King Street, the main thoroughfare through Linstead, the north-south highway, the road to the village of Time and Patience, and the railroad. So this spot was a common target of strike blockade activity and we quickly learned when to lay low!

The current strike had been going on for a few days and we were running low on groceries, so our friend Andy came to the compound in his juice delivery van and picked us up to go into town to the grocery store. Relatives of our local church leaders had a store in Linstead and they had set aside some rice and flour, tins of corned beef, and some other things for us.

So Jean and I got in the back of Andy’s van and he covered us with a couple of blankets. Then Andy and his helper drove through the blockade of burning tires at the intersection, parked in the alley behind Azan’s Supermarket, and waited while we went inside for coffee with Adib and Maria and picked up our groceries. Then we got back in the back of the van, and crawled under the blankets. Andy ran the gauntlet back to our home at Bread of Life and delivered us and our groceries safe and sound! So, as you can see, getting groceries delivered from the supermarket has been around for a while. It’s not just a COVID-era development.

Our “under cover missionaries” experience happened when we were forty-two years old. It didn’t really seem all that dramatic at the time. Now, at age eighty-two it would probably seem really scary! And at this age it’s hard enough getting in and out of the car, much less climbing into the back of a van and lying down on the floor!

As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can simply reply to this email or if you’re reading this on the website, just leave a comment.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens