Up until February 2011, regular UCG attendance in St. Lucia was nine, at which time it dropped to six. Chuck Smith visited UCG here in St. Lucia during the latter part of February 2011. He began preparing for a series of Bible seminars, with a goal of two per year in St. Lucia. He fired up the congregation as we committed ourselves to playing our part in preaching the gospel.

One of the ways we preach the gospel and increase the presence of the United Church of God in St. Lucia is by stapling inserts to the first page (sometimes to the subscription flyer) of The Good News magazine. The inserts summarize pertinent local or world conditions at the time, simultaneously providing readers with local UCG contact information and information on Sabbath services.

Whenever we have a Bible seminar, the GN inserts provide information on the topic and location of the seminar. We also mail invitations to GN subscribers three weeks ahead of time, followed by one-minute radio ads a week or two before the seminar. With God’s blessing, regular Sabbath attendance has jumped from six to an average of 16 with the highest Sabbath attendance of 23. We had as many as 41 new attendees at a Bible seminar during the Feast last year. The positive response to The Good News is island-wide.

We normally put out 700 GN magazines per issue island-wide. A few months back, we had an idea—would it be possible to put at least one Good News magazine in the hands of every St. Lucian household? There are nearly 40,000 households on the island. Could we do it? We researched and discovered that if we could get the magazines to the post office, they would deliver them at a minimal cost. But how could we get our hands on 40,000 Good News magazines without phenomenal shipping costs? As the saying goes, “Just like you eat an elephant—one bite at the time.” We began with 5,000 magazines. Mr. Smith was able to get them transported from Cincinnati to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where they were put on a ship and delivered to the Castries port in St. Lucia. From there, we picked up the ball. Members sacrificed their home chores and got together in the church building to staple inserts in the 5,000 Good News magazines. The general post office will then place them in mailboxes in the populous northern part of St. Lucia.

Stay tuned as we continue our efforts to saturate the island with “a little good news,” and we invite you to join us in prayer that God will bless our efforts and grant the increase as He sees fit.