Fire

A fire at Christ the King Anglican Church in Ridgeland Park, Nassau, gutted offices and a pantry behind the sanctuary and left smoke damage in the church, in the very section that was about to undergo a $250,000 renovation.

The Jamaica Umbrella Groups of Churches condemned home invasions and fire-bombings in Gregory Park and Central Kingston as a “longstanding trend” of violence against families, calling for a credible crime plan and a stronger Peace Management Initiative.

Fire destroyed Harvest Army International’s rented board church in Falmouth, taking about $20 million in new, uninsured equipment. Insurers had refused cover because of the building’s age and materials. The church had already bought land for a $35 million building.

A fire badly damaged the historic Jefferson Avenue Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rochester, New York, and its pastor said rebuilding or replacing it would take at least two years while insurance claims were processed.

Nine years after fire destroyed its auditorium, the Adventist University of the Southern Caribbean in Trinidad dedicated a new building with 2,600 seats upstairs and a school of nursing below, funded through a long rebuilding campaign.

The Anglican-run Clifton Boys’ Home in Westmoreland, burned out in 2017, needed just under $10 million more in 2020 to finish a $60 million rebuild, while its boys lived at a church in Caledonia.

Aleppo’s Maronite Cathedral of St Elijah, damaged by mortar fire from 2012 to 2016, was set to reopen in July 2020 after a restoration supported by $460,000 from Aid to the Church in Need.