NAPARIMA COLLEGE
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Some Notes on the Canadian Mission to Trinidad, XIIe
Regional Offshoots of the Canadian Mission to Trinidad: Jamaica
Jamaica
In 1892, similarly to the committee effort in British Guiana, a community amongst the local Presbyterian Church of Jamaica made a request for native evangelists from Trinidad. The request was not met for another two years, by which time graduates from the recently founded Theological College were becoming available. In June 1894, Rev. Grant sent two of his catechists: Jonathan Rajkumar Lal and Simon Siboo.
Sending trained native "ministers" to a native population, instead of looking within the Canadian church itself, was another bold idea from two missionaries who always seemed ready to innovate. In the 1890's, to an unschooled audience of Hindu labourers, having people of their own background arrive in their midst trained and garbed in the Christian church, and apparently transcended to another mode of life, must have been overwhelming. An eyewitness report from Rev. Cochrane, a local minister of the Scottish church, reads: "The catechists met the East Indians of Kingston at one of my stations. The people crowded in and simply gaped at their two fellow-countrymen; some of them were moved to tears, and the preachers themselves seemed to be quite overcome..."
Rajkumar and Siboo remained in Jamaica for years and were supplemented by Subaran and others. Rev. Grant visited the Kingston congregations the following year; and again in 1903, at a notable gathering that included Lal Behari, Mr Crum-Ewing from British Guiana, and others.
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