Tue | May 7, 2024

Tributes flow for Rev Evadnie McLean

Published:Monday | January 9, 2023 | 12:27 AM
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Hailee Mclean shows a picture of her grandmother, the late Dr Millicent Evadnie McLean, to her father, Harvard Mclean and her sister Helena McLean. Rev Mclean died on December 2, 2022. The memorial service for Evadnie was held at the Portmore Holiness Chr
Kenyon Hemans
Hailee Mclean shows a picture of her grandmother, the late Dr Millicent Evadnie McLean, to her father, Harvard Mclean and her sister Helena McLean. Rev Mclean died on December 2, 2022. The memorial service for Evadnie was held at the Portmore Holiness Christian Church in St Catherine last Thursday.
Stacy-Ann Carnegie (left) and Sharon Atkinson pay their final respects to the late Rev Millicent Evadnie McLean.
Kenyon Hemans
Stacy-Ann Carnegie (left) and Sharon Atkinson pay their final respects to the late Rev Millicent Evadnie McLean.
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Mourners who turned out for last Thursday’s thanksgiving service for the life of educator, the Reverend Dr Millicent Evadnie McLean, were charged to honour her memory with a return to old-time values and attitude, and in so doing change the trajectory of the country which recorded a reported 1,498 murders for 2022.

The service was held at Portmore Holiness Christian Church, Hellshire main road in Portmore, St Catherine.

Family friend, Mrs McKenzie, said Dr McLean made an indelible mark on the education landscape, having graduated from The Mico College in 1979 and serving continuously for the next 36 years, which saw her receiving the Jamaica Teachers Award Golden Torch Award in 2012. However, the late educator’s life outside the classroom was just as fulfilling as she put God at the centre of everything she did.

In her tribute, Mrs McKenzie declared that among the things that the Revered Dr McLean would want others to take from the service of celebration for her life is the need to love others unconditionally, irrespective of their life circumstances.

“She would want us to take away the fact that we must love people. Maybe this is one of the reasons why we have so many murders in this country because we not as loving as we ought to be. Millie wants us to love, wants us to respect people irrespective of where they are from,” she challenged the audience, “Millie wants us to treat them with equal dignity for God created each of us equally.”

Meanwhile, the minister of education and youth, Fayval Williams, in her tribute, said it was a day for her, having lost someone she had known for years, with someone she had grown up in Ty Dixon, St Catherine, and later went to church with at the Charles Street Seventh-day Baptist Church.

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com