Focus will keep Pastor Oban’s Teamwork vision going
Published:Monday | November 6, 2023 | 12:09 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
HEAD OF the Christ Alive Christian Center in Bronx, New York, Reverend Dean Brown, says a focus on the vision of Teamwork Associates Ministries will take its work far beyond another half century, as it continues to transform lives in Jamaica and around the globe.
According to Brown, Teamwork’s founder, the late Pastor Menzie Oban, was unwavering and focused on the vision and the assignment given to him by God.
He noted that the work that started five decades ago has outlived him, but he has left a legacy for other like-minded individuals to maintain the vision.
“It is more than just being able to come up on this hill and volunteer. You have got to look at what made it what it is and recognise that on this journey, Pastor Menzie was focused,” Brown said.
Labour of love
“And if focus gets Teamwork this far, focus will keep Teamwork going forward,” the Jamaica-based pastor declared.
Consider the foundation that the Oban family and the numerous volunteers have laid in building out Teamwork Associates Ministries, which is now bearing the fruits of their labour of love.
Brown posited that if followers of Christ stay committed to their assignments they will have reasons to thank God for eternity, noting that it was in moments like these that you can find out what we have achieved.
“Focus brings success and impact. To have a goal is to make a mark. Teamwork has made an impact, and it made an impact on me,” the Christ Alive Christian Center senior pastor noted.
Bishop Conrad Pitkin, custos of St James and senior pastor of the Faith Temple Assembly of God, said his friend and spiritual brother, Oban, and his Teamwork family had touched many lives and ignited positive lifetime changes.
“Teamwork has touched the lives of innumerable people in Jamaica and overseas through its many forms, all because of Pastor Oban,” Pitkin said.
“It is not because he started it with no aim or direction in mind, but because of his agility, humility, and learning to trust God,” he added.
Oban’s daughter, Monica, used the occasion of the golden jubilee to encourage guests, their friends and families to share in the Teamwork vision by investing their time, finances, and prayers.
She recalled that Teamwork started from a small beginning, but they had a vision that had morphed into what the ministry had become and continues to do for people.
She said, however, that those willing to take on the task should do so with an understanding that individuals and groups will need to stay in their lanes.
“When you come and find the man of God with a vision and you buy into that vision, it is not your vision to come and say what should be done. You are going to follow the direction of the visionary by way of understanding and helping with the mission,” Monica Oban said.
“Menzie is gone, but the work goes on, and we need others to buy into the vision that is already moving along,” she added, noting that Dr Winsome Oban, who now has the task of leading the new chapter, and others, understand the vision.
The divine orders
Teamwork Associates was incorporated on October 29, 1973, to continue in prison ministry, as Menzie Oban had immersed himself into the prison ministry of the Kingston Open Bible Church.
His ministry moved to a base in August Town, St Andrew, and the Oban’s home in Barbican, where efforts continued to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.
Forty-eight years ago, Pastor Oban received the call to relocate to Montego Bay, St James, to set up the Christian Centre following the directive that he received from God while still in England as an emigrant in 1950.
“The divine orders were: ‘Go home to Jamaica and establish a Christian centre’. From this new base, a purpose-filled focus and efforts were still made towards reaching those in prison and remanded in homes across the island,” Oban recalled.
Special Education
According to her, it was not long after that another assignment of the vision was given to her husband, advising him to, “prevent rather than cure; focus on education rather than prison rehabilitation”.
That vision gave birth to Teamwork Basic School, even while maintaining contact with ex-prisoners.
She noted that, over the years, the school has experienced many phases of development. Today, Teamwork Christian Academy has the Early Childhood Centre with children from the Brain Builders Group to Grade 2, and plans are to continue the Preparatory Department to Grade 6.
There is also the Special Education Department with secondary-age students who work towards certification through City & Guilds or placement through HEART/NTA.
Dr Oban, in her message for the golden jubilee, shared that her late husband had set about putting in the infrastructure for the Christian Centre he envisaged, and as a result, people’s lives are better off both physically and spiritually.
Fifty years after being located on the hillside on Flower Hill Avenue in Torada Heights, the result of a focused vision is a church, school, campsite, hospitality and retreat centre, and staff house.
“The celebration of the 50th anniversary of Teamwork Associates attests to the faithfulness of God and what can be accomplished through team effort and a vision propelled by faith,” she added.