Adventist

Restore a Child and the Palm Springs SDA Church in Florida presented a cheque to the West Jamaica Conference to keep rebuilding an Adventist church destroyed by Hurricane Melissa, as mission teams returned to help children and families.

A letter writer welcomed Dr Balvin Braham as president of Northern Caribbean University, noting the Seventh-day Adventist institution operates without direct government funding while needing campus expansion, structural renovations, modern lecture theatres and new technology.

A 13-member Adventist team from Belize helped rebuild or repair 15 homes in Westmoreland, including Seaford Town, after Hurricane Melissa, building seven from the ground up with zinc, lumber and plywood.

Northern Caribbean University, the Seventh-day Adventist institution in Mandeville, planted 100 breadfruit trees in Cave, Westmoreland after Hurricane Melissa and plans more than 10,000 fruit trees across western parishes to restore food security.

Jamaica’s Adventist leaders denied receiving government money for Hurricane Melissa relief, detailing a J$500,000 pre-storm reserve, a $35 million conference outlay on supplies and overseas donations, as about 150 of their own churches were damaged.

An Adventist hospital team took relief to Black River after Hurricane Melissa, where the hospital had about 15 per cent of its space left, a pastor said over 90 per cent of his members had lost their roofs, and a Baptist church sheltered the homeless.

Northern Caribbean University president Lincoln Edwards proposed turning underused church buildings into weekday technology learning centres. He pointed to the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s 750 churches, which he said mostly stand closed during the week.

Andrews Memorial Hospital, run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Hope Road, marked 80 years by adding MRI and cardiac catheterisation services and pursuing Joint Commission International accreditation over four to five years.

Gloria Campbell, a retiree living in the US, is suing Bog Walk Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Catherine over 71.11 square metres she says it has occupied for more than 20 years. The church argues it now owns the strip through adverse possession.

Four Seventh-day Adventist churches in Arizona paid off their building mortgages within a single year in 2024, through donations, fundraising and careful financial management, freeing money once spent on repayments for ministry and community service.

Sandy Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hanover marked 90 years. It began with nine members in a wooden apartment building, rebuilt after a 1957 earthquake and now anchors a circuit of four congregations.

The Central Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists installed a 60 kW solar system at its Spanish Town offices, cutting its electricity bill by about 70 per cent since it was switched on in March 2024.

Four males, the youngest 15, were arrested after items were stolen from Exchange Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Ann and sections of the building were set on fire, police said, with charges pending further investigation.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, through AdventHealth, Andrews Memorial Hospital and its GSI Foundation, gave 40 hospital beds worth about $17.4 million to the Spanish Town and May Pen hospitals, where officials described patients waiting in wheelchairs for beds.

The East Venezuela Union of the Adventist Church, organised in 2005, bought property in Caracas in 2016 and in May 2023 opened a two-storey headquarters with 13 offices and a 110-seat auditorium, ending 18 years without a building of its own.