October 2, 2026
MINERAL BLUFF, Ga. — Thirty salvations and 100 total decisions marked the latest mission trip to Jamaica for a team of 15 volunteers from Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. “Every night, there were decisions,” said team leader Claude Mathis.
The team flew into Kingston and traveled about 80 minutes north to serve a four-church circuit that includes Bethel Baptist Church, Springvale Baptist Church, West Prospect Baptist Church, and Giblatore Baptist Church.
Mathis, who serves as interim pastor of Mineral Bluff Baptist Church in Mineral Bluff and previously served as a missionary with the Morganton and Mountaintown Baptist Association, said the team worked during the day at Springvale Church and a local school before holding revival services each night.
Five preachers shared messages throughout the week.
“You have a great freedom there to preach,” Mathis said.
Worship in Jamaica, he explained, carries a different tone than many American services.
“At Bethel, they will sing for an hour and a half, then have a testimony time, an altar prayer, a special music time, and eventually get to the preacher,” Mathis said. “It’s much more spiritual than what we have here in America. They are more at liberty in praising the Lord. If you say, ‘Praise the Lord’ once, you will say it 20 times. If you say, ‘Give the Lord the highest praise, which is hallelujah,’ you will say that 20 times.”
Even the invitation looks different.
“Here, people come forward and they kneel at the altar. We get down and pray with them. In Jamaica, people come forward and stand. We have a general prayer for whatever their need is,” Mathis said.
The ministry has deep roots.
Al Patterson, former Copper Basin Baptist Associational Missionary in Copperhill, Tennessee, began the Jamaica partnership in 1995. He led teams until 2021.
Beginning at Giblatore, teams helped construct a new church building over eight years while continuing revival services twice annually. The church was dedicated in 2004.
Mathis first traveled to Jamaica that same year.
Giblatore, he said, is “a little old town on top of a mountain with no running water.” Residents draw water from a spring, and even young children carry small jugs up the hill.
After the new church was built, the original structure was converted into a kindergarten, a ministry that would eventually become one of the team’s most impactful efforts.
In 2008, the partnership expanded when work began at West Prospect Baptist Church. The first services were held under an orange tree.
“They cleared the bushes where we could have a church service,” Patterson said.
Over time, the structure evolved from a simple pole barn to a completed church building. It took seven trips over three and a half years to finish.
During one 2008 trip, the team needed $20,000 for a roof.
“About two weeks before we left, Al called me and said we only had $5,000,” Mathis recalled.
Rather than borrow the money, they chose to wait.
“The day we left, we had $30,000+ and not only were we able to put the roof on, but we were also able to lay the tile in the basement,” Mathis said.
The Lord’s provision, he said, has marked the ministry from the beginning.
One of the most memorable projects involved building a home for an elderly man who had accepted Christ during a revival. After his conversion, family members who were Jehovah’s Witnesses forced him from their home.
“He lived behind West Prospect Church in a shack,” Mathis said. “You wouldn’t keep your garden tools in it. It was so bad.”
The team felt led to build him a small house. Though unsure whether funds would be sufficient, they moved forward in faith. When the project was completed and the team returned home, they had 62 cents remaining.
“The man said, ‘I’m so close to the church, even if I can’t get there, I can hear the preaching.’ He was always praising the Lord,” Mathis said.
In 2014, work began on a new kindergarten building at Giblatore. It was dedicated in 2017. Annual operating expenses, approximately $14,000, continue to be provided by churches and individuals in the United States.
“The kindergarten would not exist at all if not for the giving of these people,” Mathis said.
Mathis said the kindergarten instills a biblical foundation that follows students into adulthood. “To us, that has possibly had a greater impact than all the preaching we have done,” Mathis said.
On one trip, team members constructed a 4,000-gallon cistern system that captures rainwater from the kindergarten roof and pumps it into storage tanks that serve both the church and school.
Mathis had previously served on medical mission trips to Venezuela until political changes there ended that ministry. Patterson had earlier served in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Over time, Jamaica became the central focus.
“(Henry) Blackaby says to find where God is working and join him, and so I did,” Mathis said.
Mathis feels freedom in the Lord on this mission field. “We just trust the Lord for the decisions that are made,” he said. “It’s always a blessing to me. It always reaffirms the goodness of God that He would allow me to be a part of something that has eternal consequences.”
The teams continue traveling in January and July. January trips focus on construction and revival services. July includes construction, Vacation Bible School, and revival.
The team composition changes from trip to trip.
“We always have someone new going,” Mathis said. “I love to just sit back and watch God bring them together. By the end of the week, we are a family. We form a team with all the people in the different churches. There’s a special fellowship.”
The labor has left a lasting mark on the communities.
“You can imagine all the labor that went into the building of those churches. We would hire some of the locals. The impact we have had on their lives is still evident. Many of them continue to lay blocks with the skills they learned while working with these teams over the years,” Mathis said.
“We’ve never had a major problem,” Mathis said. More than three decades after the first trip, he believes that continued provision is evidence of God’s faithfulness.
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