Wesley Diaconal Community – Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas

The Wesley Diaconal Community is a community of deacons embracing the Wesleyan spirituality of double diakonia (works of piety and works of mercy).

While the Deacons are all walking alongside people in their communities, ministry of the Wesley Diaconal Community – MCCA includes Circuit Pastoral duties, congregational leadership and specialized ministries.  One such ministry is being done by Dr. Alison Iton, an experienced paediatrician who will be ordained in Jamaica in November 2019.  Alison has been stationed as the chaplain at the Jamaica National Children’s Home (JNCH) in Papine, Mona, Jamaica. JNCH is a community which currently houses just under ninety children who are in need of care and protection having become exposed to the ravages in Jamaican society at an all too early age through the various forms of child abuse (social, emotional, physical), including neglect and abandonment. Many have suffered multiple traumas or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). She works alongside other care-givers/housemothers administrative and support staff providing pastoral care and spiritual support to all, and is responsible for providing spiritual guidance for the children and staff and also for assisting in the process of creating and maintaining a positive and wholesome spiritual atmosphere in the JNCH.  She arranges and/or conducts Bible studies/devotional activities with the children at least once per week, and assists with the counselling of children and staff, in addition to coordinating and/or implementing all other religious activities at the JNCH.  As one called to be a co-worker with God she serves as a human agent in God’s healing ministry – knowing full well that we also are being made whole.

Another of our sisters, Ann Yarde is ministering in St. Lucia to children and men on the margins.  She has been engaging males who live in volatile inner-city communities, and leads them in worship weekly, in locations within their communities.  She has been empowering them and transformation is being seen as entrepreneurs are evolving out of her challenge to them to lead godly and wholesome lives of good stewardship.