Over 100 years ago, FUM missionaries went to Jamaica to help plant churches, begin schools and train leaders. Today, Jamaica Yearly Meeting members continue to reach out to their communities by nurturing those in need, inviting new people into their fellowships and providing quality education through Happy Grove School. Partnering with Quaker sisters and brothers from North Carolina Yearly Meeting, Jamaican Friends also hold a thriving Vacation Bible School outreach to children throughout the island.
Cuba Friends is a small, vibrant and rapidly-growing group of Friends who are busy ministering to their communities and establishing a vision for outreach to others. Through FUM’s Living Letters program, visitors from across our global fellowship make twice-annual trips to learn from, work alongside and fellowship with Cuban Quakers. With continuing restrictions on travel to Cuba, these trips provide life-sustaining and spirit-nurturing connections for everyone involved. In addition, FUM partners with the Cuban Quaker Peace Institute, a training center for pastors and other leaders, teaching Quaker theology and history, Bible, and peacemaking.
Historically, FUM’s work in Belize focused primarily on providing a second-chance education option for urban at-risk youth on the verge of failing within their school system. Founded by Sadie Vernon in 1994, the Belize Friends School gives boys and girls the encouragement, tools and instruction needed to succeed, all within a loving, Christian environment. Now under the leadership of Belizean educators, the school continues to impact the lives of students and their families.
More recently, a new and expanded vision for Belize has emerged and begun to bear good fruit. A large new facility allows for the growth of the school and the launch of new types of community-based ministries. With a church planting pastor now on-site, a multi-generational worshiping community of Christ-followers is starting to flourish and consider how they are being called to minister within the Southside of Belize City. Programs for teaching peace and conflict resolution, literacy education for adults, and police-community mediation are increasingly integral to the mission presence of Friends in Belize.
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