Armed with gloves, garbage bags and cutlasses, members of the Debrieul Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church took to the streets of La-Maze and Roblot early Sunday morning in a community cleanup campaign.
The initiative, led by the church’s Community Services Department, began at 6:30 a.m. and concluded with prayers and breakfast.
Speaking with St Lucia Times, Debrieul SDA Community Services Leader Curpris Charles explained that the cleanup campaign was part of a broader mandate to meet the needs of individuals throughout the community through service.
“As a Seventh-day Adventist Church in the community, we don’t want to simply be known for preaching the gospel of Christ’s soon return but even more importantly, living the gospel that we preach by being practical,” Charles said.
“As we follow the example that has been left before us by Christ, we notice that He often spent much of His time out in the community meeting the needs of the people. While one may not consider a clean up campaign a direct impact in the life of a struggling parent, it is a means of identifying the needs and even the struggles of individual communities.”
“For example, in one part of a particular community we were able to recover a large amount of plastic cups and discovered alcohol abuse as a potential struggle. With that we can now arrange for health talks specifically targeting substance abuse and how it impacts not just the community but families,” he added.
Leeroy David, pastor of the Debrieul SDA Church, called on the wider Christian community to take this initiative as an example of the work they are called to do.
“We encourage churches and communities to unite to fight litter and disregard for humans. Seventh-day Adventists understand that our role is to care for the environment and wherever there is need, we will do our part,” he said.
“To Saint Lucia, we say, ‘do not wait to act, do not wait to get paid, just do your part around you, because this is our community, our island a gift from God’. Today is just a start as we will continue to clean up our community.”
