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CARIBBEAN ISLAND Celebrates Baptist Anniversary renadians celebrated the 40th

Leon Edwards, the man who is associated with the birth of Baptist work

in Grenada, was serving a sentence for murder committed in a fit of rage. During his confinement, Leon’s life was completely transformed. In 1972, while listening to a religious broadcast by Baptists from the USA, Edwards encountered the risen Christ, accepted the grace of divine forgiveness and pledged lifelong commitment to God. He then wrote letters to Baptist leaders in the USA and Jamaica, asking them to come and establish a Baptist church in his country.

In response to Edwards’ letters, the Jamaica Baptist Union and the Foreign (now International) Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention collaborated to start Baptist work in Grenada in 1975.

Callam regarded the visit to the Richmond Hill Prison, where Edwards was incarcerated and where he died in October 1975 under mysterious circumstances, as one of the highlights of his trip. It “reminds us of God’s delight in making things new,” he said. “It also caused us to call to mind the wonderful story of the one who came to a world fractured by sin but ripe for renewal.” At the Anniversary Service at the St. Georges Baptist Church,

the first Baptist church founded on the island, Callam challenged the gathering “to remember that the faithful God of their yesterdays

Right: BWA General Secretary Neville Callam joins Grenadian Baptists and prison staff at the Richmond Hill Prison who distributed gifts to inmates

Below: Callam addressing a banquet during the 40th anniversary of Baptist witness in Grenada

is the God of their tomorrows. For this reason, they should be ready to go forward into the future with confidence and hope.” A History of the Grenada Baptist Association, 1975-2015, written by Stephenson Worme, a Pentecostal pastor and a respected Caribbean cricket commentator, was launched at the Anniversary Banquet. Other BWA representatives at the celebrations were Vice

President Anslem Warrick and Everton Jackson, BWA regional secretary for the Caribbean. Also attending were head of government, Prime Minister Keith Mitchell; minister of Youth, Sports and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Emmalin Pierre; Baptist member Jimmy Bristol, head of the Grenada Bar Association and former attorney general of Grenada; Osbert James, chair of the Grenada Council of Churches and former pastor of the St. Georges Baptist Church; Kenneth Dubissette, moderator

of the Baptist

Association of Grenada; and Carter and Charlotte Davis, former IMB long-serving missionaries to Grenada.

anniversary of the founding of Baptist witness on the Caribbean island in early November 2015. The beginning of Baptist work in Grenada

has had a colorful history, as told by Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Neville Callam, who attended the celebrations:

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