TRANSCRIPT

NATHAN JONES

This month, I had the privilege of interviewing Andrea Messam of Kingston, Jamaica. Andrea serves in a variety of financial oversight roles, ensuring stewardship and faithful administration for a variety of organizations and banks across the region. 

My name is Nathan Jones, and I want to thank you once again for joining me on this episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast.

Andrea, thank you so much for your time. Let's go ahead and jump in. Give us a bit of your background, where you're from, your family growing up, that sort of thing.

ANDREA MESSAM

I was born in a very popular inner city community in Jamaica called Trench Town. That is where Bob Marley was from. [Laughs] Yes!

And I grew up most of my days, I would say many of my days in the inner city. What is distinctive about that is, in the inner city community, you have a lot of single parents. You have a lot of unmarried parents. You have children experiencing a little more hardship than those who are from a different socioeconomic group.

So, I was in Trench Town. I was in Greenwich Town. I was in Dunkirk. Those names will only resonate to persons who are Jamaicans, but they understand the gravity of, what I would call, the challenges of those communities.

When I was about 11, I was taken by one of my teachers to St. Hugh's High School, because I had passed what they call common entrance at that time. And for some reason, there was some kind of glitch, and I did not get the scholarship that I was intended to get.

And this particular teacher, Miss Edwards – I will always remember her and be grateful to her – determined that I would not attend what they call secondary school in Jamaica. I would have to go to a high school. So, she took me to a high school, and I got my education from there.

When I was finished with St. Hugh's, I spent so much time idling, doing drama and athletics and swimming and all of these other things that I was not supposed to be doing, and not schoolwork, that I didn't have the grades to go to sixth form, and I ended up at a community college.

And I have to give you that background, because at that community college is where I came in contact with someone who guided me to becoming a chartered accountant by eliminating all of the other options that I had begun to pursue, including attempting to become a nurse or attempting to become a secretary. And those were apparently not, you know, suiting my core competencies and I ended up in finance.

So, I did the ACCA, which is an English exam. I qualified. And since then, I have worked as one accounting staff or the other. Till recently, I early retired from being the Chief Financial Officer of the largest media house in the Caribbean.

NATHAN

So, for those outside of Jamaica, Trench Town, those areas you described are near what large city, for context?

ANDREA

They're in Kingston, like in the center of Kingston.

NATHAN

So, tell us about how you came into a saving relationship with Jesus and the impact that then had on your life.

ANDREA

So, when I was about 17 going on 18, a church close to the community – I was then now near Dunkirk, one of the inner city communities – they came to the community center and they were having open-air meeting. And I decided to go to the open-air meeting. They were having like crusade and I attended. At that time, I had a friend and I had gone to the meeting with the friend.

When they had the altar call and they read the Scripture, Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things will be added unto you,” I was constrained to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

What was interesting is that the friend that I had gone with, when I turned to him and asked, “Are you going to accept the Lord as your personal Savior?” He said, “No.” And I decided to go nonetheless.

So, I got saved at 18. Now, it has not been a smooth sailing for me in Christendom. And I wish that I could say that my story was from that day onward I followed the Lord and never varied. But that is, in fact, not what happened.

But one thing is true is that God has remained faithful to me in the Matthew 6:33 promise that He made to me that day. And I have never, ever been without the presence of the Holy Spirit and without His guidance, even in the times when I was doing my own thing and making my own decision and going down my own path. It has been an amazing journey to be a child of God.

NATHAN

Well, catch us up to how He has you involved in His kingdom and in work today.

ANDREA

I do a lot of kingdom work, and I do a lot of other secular work as well. I recently decided to early retire because I want to be able to do things while I don't have aches and pains and when I'm able to move around and do things with joy and not out of necessity. So, I opted to quit a job I was doing for 16 years to do the other things.

Now, I'm currently the president of the Jamaica Cooperative Credit Union League. That league manages 23 credit unions, over a hundred and odd billion dollars in assets. And you know, it is a very huge responsibility, draws a lot on me personally. Because not only do I have to manage that, but I also have to manage other companies and you know, ensure that they are well run.

It is a three-year appointment and so, it is not something that I will do for a very long time. And I only became the president last year. So, I do that substantively.

But at church, I am a deaconess. I am the head of the planning department for the whole church. I sit on the board of the church. I teach Sunday school, that is age 16 to 19, that trouble area, that trouble group. But I feel I'm called to that age because of the age that I got saved. And here, we have a very good rapport.

And also, I have to chair services. I have to lead services. I have to be part of the whole administrative. And it really just holds true because one of the things that I did when I went to that church was to determine what my gifts were. Because until then, I never really assessed or knew that your gifts that God called you and that He gave you gifts based on what He wants you to do.

And I have gift of administration. I have the gift of hospitality. I have the gift of giving and the gift of counseling and encouraging. So, those are my gifts and those are the gifts that I use as my part and my responsibility in the church.

NATHAN

That's wonderful. Well, you've already touched on how you're stewarding your time and gifting. What else would you add to how the principle of stewardship is playing out in your life today?

ANDREA 

Well, I will tell you glibly that I have been given the responsibility to manage quite a bit. So, not only do I have to manage my own time and my own self and my own resources, which is part of stewardship. But I also have been given quite a bit of responsibility to manage other people's resources, other people's money primarily.

And what I found was that the high integrity and morality quotient that comes from being a Christian plays a very foundational part in my success in doing that job. So, I'm not enticed by other people's things. I'd like to take responsibility for what I'm given and ensure that when I give it back to you, it is in a better place than when you first gave it to me.

I actually live my life on the, call it “10 talents,” but it is more the parable of the talents, where this owner went away and he gave one five, one two, and one one. And I was mindful not to be like the one who had the one talent and buried it and complained instead of doing work and could only get back what he got to the owner.

So, I'm driven to be someone who multiplies the five talent or multiplies the two talent. So that when God comes, He's able to say to me, “Andrea, well done, thou good and faithful servant!” That is what motivates me. That is what I live to do to ensure that I can hear that from the Lord when He returns, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”

NATHAN

Good word and a good reminder. Andrea, how are you seeing God at work in the world, whether that's locally to your context or in a broader sense?

ANDREA

I see God protecting His children, providing for His children. And I'm speaking philosophically because I see how Christians are challenged in the world. I mean, I noticed that there are so many other religions in the world and none of them gets the flack that Christianity gets.

If you say you are another thing, everybody waves you away. You are okay to blend, mix, and be part of the crowd. But the minute you say you're a Christian, you come on a lot of retribution and a lot of challenge. But I've seen that God protects His children.

That is not to say that they're not those who like the 70 that were recently killed. You don't have incidents of those. And I'm sure that when those things happen, those things happen because God has a specific plan. He has not lost control. He has not given up on protecting His children. So, those things happen for a reason.

But I see the Lord's hand in the way that He protects His children, in the way that He continues to protect and provide for us to ensure that we have daily bread, that we have covering over our head, that our children are well, that you know, the things that we care about materially and so on are taken care of.

Also, just to add, I also see, based on what is happening in the world now. There's a saying that says, you know, “God is coming.” We've heard that God is coming a long time. You know, it's been so long and when you read the Scriptures, it says, “Jesus will soon come again.”

But why is He taking so long? The current happenings in the world is certainly indicative to me that He intends to make an appearance very soon. And I cannot tell you whether it is another 2,000 years or not, but I know we've done 2,000 years already and we are closer to that time.

A year in the Lord's sight is like 1,000 years and 1,000 years like a year. So you know, as human beings, we may want to treat with it a certain way. But there's so many signs, so many revelation-type signs that are happening right now, that I am so excited about the times but also worried for those who do not yet know the Lord as personal Savior.

It really gives me a dispatch to speak to everybody that I need and to remind them that there is a God and there is a Savior and there is a hell coming and that persons need to get ready and get their souls ready.

NATHAN

Wow. Andrea, this has been very good and I want to give you the last words. Any final thought or encouragement for those listening today?

ANDREA

Can I tell you? God is just amazing in the way that He strategizes. GTP came into my life, that whole organization that was really just a blip the year before, and has really focused my thoughts in a way that it had not been before, to ensure that I am focusing on not only generosity, but I'm focusing on stewardship. 

I am mindful of the times we are in. And I have met so many significant human beings from countries all over the world, including those who are struggling much more than I could possibly even struggle in Jamaica.

And seeing how they are sacrificing and how they are serving, and it has just been an eye-opener. It has been an amazing time. And although it is a brief time, I really give God thanks for the privilege of being associated with that organization. 

NATHAN

Andrea, thank you for your time. This has been wonderful.

ANDREA

Thank you so much, Nathan.