THE Ambassador of Christ Ministries (ACM) on Sunday celebrated its 18th anniversary with a fervent Thanksgiving Service at the Christian Victory Mission Building at Company Road, Buxton Village, East Coast Demerara.

An attitude of love and camaraderie was evident, as several churches from different communities came together to join ACM in thanksgiving and celebration.
The occasion, hosted by Pastor Terry Thomas, Founder/Chairman, brought together hundreds of zealous worshippers, including fellow pastors and their congregations from various churches around Guyana, extending as far as Essequibo, Port Mourant on the Corentyne, Linden and West Demerara.
Leading a spirited worship session for an afternoon of glorious celebration, was a large team of worshippers from Praise Tabernacle, Port Mourant, headed by Pastor Samuel Subramanie who was also the main speaker on the programme.
Pastor Thomas thanked the speaker and his worship team for performing the particular function, and noted that it is the first time in the history of the ACM’s celebrations that they were having a speaker from Berbice and a worship team from that district coming to lead the Ambassador of Christ Ministries in worship.
Noting the strained relations that existed between the community of Buxton and other areas over the years, Pastor Thomas said that the Ambassador of Christ Ministries is placing a high premium on forgiveness and healing while charting the way forward as they seek to be good soldiers in the Body of Christ.
“This is a very special occasion for the community of Buxton as we would be asking our visitors for forgiveness and they would be doing the same,” he said.
Pastor Thomas, who founded the Ambassador of Christ Ministries in June, 1995, said that while there are lots of churches in Buxton, the ACM was the first independent church that was established there.
Reflecting on the work of the church 18 years later, Pastor Thomas, in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, said much has been realised as the church continues to work dedicatedly towards bringing the congregation spiritual food. Through the years, the congregation has expanded considerably and now stands at about 160, he said.
“Ours is a holistic church that takes a holistic approach to ministering to the person’s needs – both spiritual and material. We do not focus exclusively on spiritual matters. We believe in the whole man and therefore we have been involved in activities such as school feeding programmes for a number of years; athletic and sporting activities; we have day care facilities and we do have the annual awards,” he said.
Pastor Thomas said his church has also been providing training for early school leavers, and recalled that on one occasion they had a grant from the United States Government, Department of Labour and were able to embark on training school leavers for one year. Coming out of that initiative, many young men who did not initially achieve much academically and had joined the Army and Police Force were able to go back to school (the training the church provided in collaboration with the US Government) and improved their education.”
On behalf of the people of Buxton, Pastor Thomas reiterated his appreciation to the US Government for this act of goodwill.

STRONG FAMILY VALUES
He also announced with pride, that his church believes in promoting a strong family with strong family values. “And so, since the church started 18 years ago, we have married more than 160 persons and many of those couples were also baptized in the church,” he told the Guyana Chronicle. Thomas said ACM is also working with other communities, giving them clothing and items wherever possible.
And commenting on the village response which aims at ‘eliminating the negative and accentuating the positive’, or giving credit where credit is due, Pastor Thomas said that Ambassador for Christ Ministries has supported initiatives such as recognising and awarding students for outstanding performance at the University of Guyana and the CXC (CSEC) examinations.
“There was a time when it was felt that everything bad was started in Buxton, so we thought it fit to have something that would highlight the good things done and dispel that myth,” he said.

APPROVING CREDIT
But one of the greatest breakthroughs Pastor Thomas recalled was getting one of Guyana’s leading furniture establishments to eventually approve sale on a hire purchase basis to anybody from Buxton. “There was that time when the company wouldn’t give credit to anybody from Buxton. I had to intervene and bring them into the community. We had a community meeting and thankfully systems were put in place.” That change was initiated about two years ago” he said.
“And so, as we celebrate 18 years, it has not been without challenges and a certain degree of struggles, but we have achieved much and so have much to thank God for,” he told the Guyana Chronicle.
Meanwhile at Sunday’s 18th Anniversary Thanksgiving service, pastors from other churches brought greetings on behalf of their congregations. There were lots of kudos for Pastor Thomas and his congregation and the tremendous job he has been doing at shepherding and feeding his flock, while leading them onward in the Body of Christ.