With the fortitude of the Jamaican people being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Everett Brown, president of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in Jamaica, is confident that his fellow countrymen will rebound from the crippling effects of the crisis.

We will beat back the challenges that we will face as a result of this vicious pandemic,” Brown told The Sunday Gleaner recently.

“The persevering, determined spirit of the Jamaican people has enabled us in the past to overcome the many setbacks that we have experienced since the birth of a wonderful nation,” added Brown, who heads the more than 300,000-strong SDA Church in the island.

Brown told The Sunday Gleaner that more effort is needed in addressing the socioeconomic well-being of Jamaicans in order to realise the Vision 2030 goal of Jamaica becoming “the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business”.

While the pandemic has significantly curtailed personal pastoral-care services to members and the community as well as traditional evangelistic outreach programmes, the Church has been bridging the gap with online technology.