Northern Caribbean University president Trevor Gardner preparing to kiss
his wife, Patricia, at a marriage conference on Feb. 7, 2015. Photo:
Nigel Coke
A
record 2,000 Seventh-day Adventist couples from across Jamaica renewed
their marital vows at a gathering where they learned that the keys to a
successful marriage are humility and the full surrender of self to God.
Willie
and Elaine Oliver, directors the Family Ministries department of the
Adventist world church, speaking at the “Journey Toward Intimacy”
conference. Photo: Nigel Coke
The couples, young and
old, waited in long lines at Northern Caribbean University in
Mandeville, Jamaica, to gain free entrance to the couples’ conference,
which is held once every five years and was organized by the Jamaica
Union Conference.
“What was accomplished here today, where nearly
2,000 couples participated in this convention, is a statement to our
nation that this church still believes that marriage is to be between a
man and a woman as God intended it to be,” union treasurer Bancroft
Barwise told the crowd as the Feb. 7 event wrapped up.
Fewer
couples are tying the knot every year in Jamaica even as the divorce
rate has grown from 11 percent in 2010 to 13 percent in 2013, according
to the latest figures available from the Statistical Institute of
Jamaica.
The most important path to an improved marriage is for
the couple to be kind and loving, humble and forgiving, said the
presenters, Willie and Elaine Oliver, who have been married for more
than 30 years.
“The most critical ingredient is surrender:
surrender to God and self,” said Elaine Oliver, who with her husband
co-directs the Family Ministries department of the Adventist world
church.
“Marriage is hard,” she said. “It’s hard work, and if I
can focus on the other person more than I focus on myself — which is
totally counter-cultural because we live in an individualistic world —
then we can have a happy marriage.”
Willie Oliver underscored the necessity of humility.
“When
we are humble, we will recognize that we have made a mistake and it’s
OK to ask for forgiveness and apologize,” he said. “But persons might be
just too proud to say, ‘I am sorry,’ and as the wise man Solomon said,
‘Pride goes before a fall.’ So if we want to stay strong in marriage, we
have to be humble.”
Each couple received a 21-page workbook,
“Journey Toward Intimacy,” written by the Olivers and packed with
practical marital information from the Bible and the writings of
Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White.
Among the questions
is ”What did Jesus say about commitment in marriage?” The answer offered
in the workbook is drawn from Matt. 19:3-6: “The Pharisees also came to
Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce
his wife for
just any reason?’And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made
them at the beginning “made them male and female,”
and
said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So then, they
are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together,
let not man separate.’”
In a section on committing to intimacy, the workbook quotes Ellen White’s
Happiness Homemade,
p. 24: “Determine to be all that is possible to be to each other.
Continue the early attentions. In every way encourage each other in
fighting the battles of life. … Let there be mutual love, mutual
forbearance. Then marriage, instead of being the end of love, will be as
it were the very beginning of love.”
The couples were given five-
to 10-minute breaks during the conference to discuss their marriages
and then list ways to enhance their relationships.
Five couples,
one from each of the five Adventist conferences in Jamaica, were
randomly selected and given a prize of a weekend for two at a resort.
Attendees
Errol and Valerie Vaz, who have been married for 35 years, said they
had filled in the workbook and looked forward to putting their new ideas
into practice.
“There some areas that were discussed today that
we need to brush up on, and we have made our list as to how we are going
to address them,” Errol Vaz said.
Some
2,000 couples packing the gymnasium at Northern Caribbean University in
Mandeville, Jamaica, for the conference. Photo: Nigel Coke
The Science and Technology Center has 24 classrooms that seat 40 to 60 students each. Photo: Claude Richli
Prime
Minister Anastase Murekesi, center, touring a computer lab in the new
facility. University chancellor Blasious Ruguri is standing in the
foreground to the left. Photo: Claude Richli
