“Then How Me a Go Manage Now, Father God?”: A Church of God Mission Puts Roofs Back Over Three St Elizabeth Homes

• New Testament Church of God members repaired three storm-hit homes in Middle Quarters
• The project, Mission Rise 3.0, was run by the Escarpment Road congregation
• One beneficiary lives alone after 20 years as a church member
• Another, a 69-year-old pensioner, lives on $14,000 a month

Weeks after Hurricane Melissa stripped roofs across St Elizabeth, members of the New Testament Church of God turned up in Middle Quarters with tools rather than tracts. Under a project called Mission Rise 3.0, the Escarpment Road New Testament Church of God selected three damaged homes for repair, the Jamaica Observer reported, with members from Middle Quarters and surrounding districts pitching in.

One of the homes belongs to Janet Chambers, who has been a member of the church for 20 years and lives alone. She was away when the Category 5 storm hit. “After the storm blow, my next door neighbour come up…and say, ‘Janet, your house gone’,” she recalled. The roof had been lifted off, and the kitchen and veranda were gone. “So mi seh, ‘Then how me a go manage now, Father God?’…And mi nuh have no money,” she said.

The Reverend Leslie Pinnock, parish coordinator for the New Testament Churches of God in St Elizabeth, said the team could not walk away once they had seen the house. “We went and visited the house, looked at the house and we couldn’t leave,” he said, adding: “She doesn’t have a husband, she don’t have any children, she lives alone.” When rain fell during the work, the team put up emergency tarpaulins before carrying on.

Another beneficiary, 69-year-old Wilbert Peart, rode out the hurricane by running into the one part of his home that still had a deck roof. His roof was damaged, his walls cracked and his belongings ruined. “I’m a pensioner. I survive on $14,000 per month,” he said, noting that bills take most of it. “It’s really needed. Not want, need.” Chambers put her gratitude simply: “If God never show up for me, I don’t know how I would manage.”

The Observer did not report a cost for the repairs, and the third home was not described.

Three houses is a small number next to Melissa’s toll, but the model matters. A congregation that already knows who lives alone, who is on a small pension and whose house is uninsured can reach those people faster than a national programme. For overseas members and returnees wondering where to send money after a storm, a named church repair project with a clear list of homes is one of the more accountable options available, and it keeps elderly owners in houses they already hold title to, rather than pushing them towards shelters or rented rooms they cannot afford.

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