On Sunday, the United Girls in Religion (UWF) at Fenimore Avenue United Methodist Church in Brooklyn honored Antiguan Joycelyn King with its “Girls of the 12 months” award throughout its grand Girls’s Historical past Month celebration.
In presenting Ms. King, UWF’s communications secretary, with the award through the 2 ½-long 66th Anniversary Worship Service, UWF’s Particular Mission Recognition Committee Member, Vincentian-born Althea Aird described her as “a multi-tasker, planner, and chief.”
“She had very bold plans since small and all through her life,” Aird mentioned. “She migrated to America from the Caribbean to proceed her research and made positive that her influence was private and transcended boundaries right here in Brooklyn.
“She is the kind of particular person to completely immerse herself into all the pieces that she is doing, particularly on the subject of her grandkids,” she added.
After spending over 30 years within the public faculty classroom in New York, Aird mentioned King is now retired and enjoys gardening, studying, and being lively in church.
“To explain her involvement right here at Fenimore, it might be simpler to say what ministry she shouldn’t be part of,” Aird mentioned. “However presently, she is our interim lay chief, assistant Sunday Faculty superintendent, United Girls in Religion secretary, and Household Life co-chair, amongst so many different positions.
“Although she is a switch from St. Paul’s (United Methodist Church in Brooklyn), Sis. King is now absolutely ours, and we’re proud to current her with this award for carrying her religion ahead profoundly,” she added.
After welcoming King to the “elite sapphire” Particular Mission Recognition Membership with a pin, Guyanese Gillian Prince, the anniversary celebration coordinator, who served as liturgist, described her as “an outstanding lady,” including that King’s “unwavering dedication to serving to others makes her a real lady of God.”
Prince mentioned King taught at P.S. 273 in Brooklyn and that her “love and keenness for instructing poured out effortlessly, as she all the time discovered herself serving to youth accomplish their desires of moving into school, graduating, and beginning their working profession.
“There are a lot of phrases that may describe Ms. King, comparable to clever, considerate, supportive, beneficiant, a girl of religion, and warmhearted,” Prince mentioned.”
Afterward, King advised Caribbean Life that she was born within the small village of John Hughes in Antigua and Barbuda and grew up in Sawcolts Methodist Church, the place she was grounded in her religion.
After coaching on the College of the West Indies, King mentioned she served as a deaconess within the Methodist Church in Jamaica and Guyana.
On migrating to Brooklyn in 1985, King mentioned she matriculated at Medgar Evers Faculty in Brooklyn, receiving her bachelor’s diploma in elementary training after which a grasp’s diploma in early childhood/elementary training, with a focus in Studying, at Brooklyn Faculty—each on the Metropolis College of the New York (CUNY).
King mentioned she labored as an educator with New York Metropolis’s Division of Training for over 30 years, retiring in 2022.
She has two youngsters, Charles and Teresa King, and two grandsons, Chase and Christian King.
“Receiving the Award for ‘Girl of The 12 months’ is humbling,” King advised Caribbean Life. “I imagine {that a} life lived in service to others demonstrates one’s dedication as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
“I really feel a lot gratitude to Fenimore UWF for appreciating and acknowledging my contribution to the fellowship,” added King, who additionally serves as co-chair of the church’s Household Life Committee and is a member of the Reward Workforce and Gospel Refrain. “I obtain my ‘flowers’ with heartfelt gratitude.
“Fenimore is house, and house is the place the guts is,” she continued. “Could God proceed to bind us collectively as we stroll collectively in love and unity.”
Fenimore’s UWF, the most important unit within the United Methodist Church’s New York Convention, mentioned the “Girl of the 12 months” standards embody “being lively within the church and neighborhood and being somebody who demonstrates progress in Christian character.”
In its Tribute of Grateful Remembrance, Fenimore’s UWF additionally took “a second to recollect the moms, grandmothers, associates, and sisters who’ve joined the United Girls in Religion sisterhood in Heaven since final yr.”
“We all know that they, and all of our Heavenly sisters, are right here with us in spirit, so we gentle a candle in grateful remembrance of them,” mentioned group member Jamaican Majorie Walters. “Our beloved Sis. Pearl Douglas, Sis. Cecille White and Dr. Marguerite Thompson might have gone on to glory, however their legacies of religion, motion, and sisterhood are remembered lovingly right here and all through the neighborhood to at the present time.
“In custom, grateful honor and respect, we now have illuminated a candle for every of them in honor of their nice acts of affection, justice, and repair,” she added. “In grateful remembrance, we dedicate at this time’s service to them and all of our sisters who handed on.”
The celebration additionally featured, amongst different issues, Scripture readings, singing by the congregation and the Girls’s Day Choir, a duet by Haitian mom and son, Densa Belony and Daen Blemur, and a sermon by Jamaican-born retired United Methodist Church pastor the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Nunes on “Speaking About Religion Not Destiny.”
As well as, UWF members introduced a bouquet of flowers to Rev. Nunes, Fenimore Avenue United Methodist Church First Woman Sis. Kim Jackson, and Sis. Lola Clarke, a Jamaican-born member of the church who, through the years, has been getting ready luxurious meals for the church and different members of the neighborhood.
Felecita Jones, a local of Curacao within the Dutch Caribbean, who’s an usher at Fenimore Avenue United Methodist Church and an UWF member, mentioned a portion of the providing can be designated to the church’s Household Life Ministry’s Again-to-Faculty marketing campaign.
“This yr, this ministry of our great church celebrates 30 years of service to the neighborhood,” she mentioned. “With our church’s theme of ‘Loving God and Loving Individuals’ and the Household Life Ministry’s ethical crucial of feeding and serving to our neighbors and advocating love and look after the much less lucky, we all know that the influence will likely be nice.”
