“I Now Have a Roof Over My Head”: A St James Church Men’s Group Built a Senior a New Home

• Mt Salem Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Men’s Fellowship built a new house for an elderly woman
• The recipient, Euphemia Raymond, lives in the Retirement community in St James
• Members paid for it themselves through dues and fundraising, and did the labour
• The conference president called the project a testimony of the church’s work

A group of church men in St James turned their fellowship dues into bricks and mortar in 2014, handing over a brand-new house to a senior citizen. The Men’s Fellowship of the Mt Salem Seventh-day Adventist Church built the home for Euphemia Raymond in the Retirement community, the Gleaner reported in December that year.

The project was financed entirely from within the fellowship. Members pooled their regular contributions and staged fundraising events to pay for it, and then supplied the labour themselves. The article did not put a dollar figure on the finished house.

The fellowship is led by Paul Stanton, a senior police officer in Montego Bay, who described the group’s approach as a standing commitment rather than a one-off gesture. “We are always looking out for persons who are in need, with a view of coming to their assistance,” he said.

For Raymond, the handover changed everything. “Today, I am one of the happiest woman on earth… I now have a roof over my head,” she said. Pastor Glen Samuels, president of the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, framed the effort as part of the denomination’s wider mission: “The erection of this house is a true reflection and testimony of what the church is doing.”

Small, self-funded builds like this one rarely make national headlines, but they show a practical side of church life in Jamaica that sits alongside worship: congregations organising money, skills and volunteer hours to put people into safe housing. For readers at home and in the diaspora thinking about how churches can respond to the island’s housing needs, the Mt Salem model is a reminder that a committed men’s group, modest dues and donated labour can deliver a finished home for someone the market has left behind.

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