LWC Missions Around the Caribbean
Barbados
Our Community established a mission in Barbados on January 12, 2003, at the invitation of Bishop Malcolm Galt, then Bishop of Bridgetown. Many Barbadian residents have joined the Community and are now Covenanted members who serve in the various ministries.
On ten acres of land generously donated to us in St. David’s, Christ Church, the Community has built the Living Water Community Centre for Evangelization and a residence for the household members. Much activity takes place at the Centre with retreats, conferences, workshops, prayer meetings etc., as well as weekday masses and a coffee-shop providing lunches every day. The Community ministers to the poor and runs a ‘food bank’ supplying hampers weekly to those in need. There is also an outreach to young people and a counseling and prayer ministry.
Living Water Community Barbados offers Adult Literacy Classes every Tuesday afternoon from 1pm – 2 pm.
The students have always been elderly persons who desire a basic competence in reading, writing and arithmetic. Tutors (who are Community members and volunteers) aim to assist the students in meeting practical needs to perform effectively in their daily lives.
Mary Haynes, 71 who has been a student in the program for 3 years is a native of St. Lucia. Her education was stunted in primary school by the bullying she received from classmates from a very early age. The school environment was a place she feared, hence learning was impossible.
Mary’s humble wish in these latter years of her life is “I don’t ask God for the world, just to be able to read my bible, my hymns at mass, to understand where I am going. I ask Him to open my mind so I could learn.”
She expresses that the class has been a great help to her since joining; she is able to follow readings at Mass, grocery shopping is much easier and she has become more outgoing in social settings.
St. Lucia
The Community’s mission to St. Lucia, since 2009, is based in Soufriere a scenically beautiful but very impoverished part of the island. The three Living Water household members (Monique, Alice and Laura Ann) evangelize through a morning programme on the local radio station, prayer meetings in both Soufriere and Fond St. Jacques, serving lunch to the poor at the soup kitchen daily, youth and children’s meetings, Communion ministry to shut-ins and are always responsive whenever a need appears.
Living H20 Youth, St Lucia, Soaked up Living Water, Trinidad.
Five teenagers from Living H2O Youth Ministry, St Lucia, visited our Mother Community this past July (2014) for a time of ministry and formation alongside youth from our Saba mission and Living H2O Youth, Trinidad
They have also been involved in social outreach here, ministering at the Marian Home for the Elderly in St Lucia’s capital and house-to-house evangelization in the village of Laborie along the island’s south coast. Ave Maria House – Caring Centre
Since returning home, they’ve been part of a Media Workshop offered by LWC Soufriere, giving basic foundations in News Gathering and Presenting for Radio and Television.
Some of their highlights including meeting Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Nicola Girasoli, and serving in some of our social ministries and in Trinity 24/7.
From sharing dinner at the Household’s Mother House at Coblentz Avenue their first night, to attending Sunday Mass and Wednesday night prayer meeting at our Frederick Street chapel, every effort was made to expose these teens to the heart of LWC culture.
Saba
The first overseas mission of Living Water Community was to the tiny, Dutch island of Saba in 1987, at the invitation of Fr.A. Jansen (deceased) who came to Trinidad to seek out a replacement for the Dutch Dominican Sisters who had served in the territory for over a hundred years.
Saba is an extinct volcano that rises straight up out of the sea and its one concrete road, hewn manually out of the cliff-side, offers breath-taking views. The Saban people are descended from seafaring folk and are fiercely proud of and loyal to their beautiful island..
The major work of this mission is in Catechetical Formation – weekly religion classes and Sacramental preparation classes. Other mission work includes visitation to the elderly and shut ins on a weekly basis, a daily radio program from Monday to Friday and regular Monday prayer meetings for the covenant community, Children’s meeting on Wednesdays and youth on Thursdays and Fridays.
There is also a covenant community which presently stands at 15 members on Saba and three in St Eustatius – with the greatest membership being in heaven!
