Spend a day in Union Island and you’d take away memories of grazing goats, imperious yachts and very, very fresh fish!

Spend a week or more and you’ll discover hard-working people, familiar with loss, who yet take the time to ask how your day was or how you slept. Good people, honestly interested in people, as Living Water Community (LWC) discovered a year ago.

At the invitation of Bishop of Kingstown in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Robert Rivas OP, the community began missionary activity in Union Island in May 2005, with additional ministry in Bequia that year. While there is no resident Living Water presence there, LWC co-founder, Rose Jackman, and various teams have conducted retreats and activities for adults, teens and children.

Usually, though, Rose goes unaccompanied to Union for weeks at a time, operating out of Clifton in the island’s southeast and ministering to the parishioners of St Joseph’s – the only Catholic parish on the island – and anyone else in need.

She spends her days doing house to house visits, cleaning the church, arranging the sacristy and conducting teaching sessions and devotions.

“Sr Rose, she always in the road!” exclaimed a parishioner earlier this August at a beach outing Rose organised for the children of the parish. “From early in the morning, you does see her up and down!” Rose doesn’t mind.

“I find it very rewarding,” she beamed from LWC’s Frederick Street, POS, centre. “The people have been receptive and open to ideas and ways of improving themselves – faith-wise and materially.”

The historic Mulzac Square in Clifton

Rose Jackman (back, left) and Laura Ann Phillips (LWC) in Clifton with some of the children of the parish after the beach lime

LWC’s Fr Christopher Lumsden with Ms RITA , the eldest parishioner of St Joseph’s, with brothers (from back to front) Masron, Oscar and Kelly, after Sunday Mass in August

Fr Andrew Roach surveys the scene from the steps of St Joseph’s

St Joseph’s parish stands along the island’s main highway and overlooks one of the most coveted views of the southern Grenadines, of Palm Island, Frigate Island and Petit St Vincent adorning the restless cobalt and aquamarine Caribbean Sea. Parish priest, Fr Andrew Roach, also looks after a parish in Canouan – a half hour away to Union’s northeast. Much of St Joseph’s ministry, then, falls to the parishioners.

At one time, the parish boasted an active youth group, an inspired music ministry and a prayer group that did regular house visits. Its internal ministry and outreach have since changed.

“There is a small charismatic community that comes together to pray and praise God,” reported Rose. “Young people are enthusiastic about getting help and doing things in the Church – very gifted and beautiful young people, whose gifts can certainly realise their  great potential!” she added.

“Special mention to Vernalene Blenco – a retired nurse and teacher, who still does remedial work with children and teens – and Adina Regis, who conducts Eucharistic services on those Sundays that Fr Andrew is in Canouan.”

Fr Andrew, 44, has been stationed in Union for the past nine years. He believes that the Church must play a visible role in the social and cultural life of the people.
“You have to have courage and a vision,” he said. “You have to have a context for ministry.”

With that in mind, he involved the Church in various projects from providing water to families in need to the beautification of roads and parks, including Mulzac Square. This quayside square in Clifton is a proud monument dedicated to Captain Hugh Mulzac, a Unionite, and the first black man in the US to captain a World War II vessel against terrific odds.

Fr Andrew has also constructed St Joseph’s Apartments – cottages and apartments on the Church compound offered for rent to visitors and locals. They were built, he said, to bring life to the “lonely, isolated” area and now “provides some funding to meet expenses.” Parishioner Judith McNeil helps look after the property and its guests.

“We are trying to be part of the process,” said Fr Andrew, “doing things for the people and bringing them to reflect on their needs and to find their own way forward.
“Our ministry has to make the Eucharist alive in the hearts of the people,” he mused, “and, through that, bring hope for them and confront issues.”

Issues which include an increasingly “materialistic” population, Fr Andrew noted, “whose expectations of the Church (have) diminished”. A developing drug culture also looms on the island’s horizon.

To help preserve young people at risk and equip them for work, Living Water intends to start a training programme in hotel operations and yacht maintenance. It may be just in time, for the people of the Grenadines seem to smell a boom!

Earlier this year, St Vincent and the Grenadines tourism minister, Renee M Baptiste, announced that three of their five airport development projects had begun, including the upgrade of Canouan Island’s airport to international status. There’s also talk of the construction of a five-star hotel on that island.

“Rose’s project is vital,” said Fr Andrew. “It is an important project to build people’s sense of self.”

Rose is really “looking forward to working with the young people who would be helped to develop themselves and learn skills.” She is still looking for a location out of which the programme will be offered, but she and the parishioners of St Joseph’s are certain that the Lord of the harvest will provide location as well as labourers.
“The Catholic Church is the true Church,” said Rubina, a parishioner since 1961. “You have to just pray and believe and it will happen!"