A Church Conference Centre Becomes a COVID-19 Recovery Site: The Missionary Church Opens Kendal to the Health Authority

• The Missionary Church Association of Jamaica owns the Kendal Conference Centre near Mandeville
• In April 2020 it began serving as a facility for recovering COVID-19 patients
• It could hold 32 patients, with the first eight from Clarendon and Manchester
• The regional health director thanked the church for its help

When Jamaica’s hospitals needed space early in the COVID-19 pandemic, one answer came from church property. In April 2020 the Jamaica Observer reported that the Kendal Conference Centre, owned and operated by the Missionary Church Association of Jamaica and located in Kendal just outside Mandeville, Manchester, was being converted into an isolation facility.

The Southern Regional Health Authority, which oversees Manchester, Clarendon and St Elizabeth, had begun preparing the site about two weeks before the announcement. The centre was set up to hold up to 32 patients, starting with eight. Those first patients were convalescing: people who had tested positive earlier and were waiting for negative results, and confirmation that they were free of other ailments, before returning to their communities. The first eight came from Clarendon and Manchester.

Regional director Michael Bent was grateful. “We are very thankful that the Missionary Church was able to help us in this way,” he said.

The Observer did not report the financial arrangements between the church and the health authority. Even so, the story shows what many congregations already hold: conference centres, camps, halls and dormitories that sit partly empty for much of the year and can be turned to public use quickly when the country needs them. In September 2021 the same regional health authority moved Mandeville Regional Hospital’s outpatient clinics into a Seventh-day Adventist church hall, another sign of how important church buildings became during the pandemic.

For churches, the Kendal example is a model for thinking about property as a community asset: a building designed for retreats can become a recovery ward, a shelter or a training centre. It also shows why good records matter, from titles and insurance to clear agreements with any public body using the space. For Jamaicans overseas who support denominational camps and conference centres, it is evidence that those buildings can serve far beyond the annual convention.

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