Two new min­is­ters have been or­dained in the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of T&T bring­ing to 32 the num­ber of min­is­ters in the lo­cal church.

Dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church in San Fer­nan­do, Cy­nara Dube-Khan wiped away her tears as she was or­dained as the 13th fe­male min­is­ter. Bjorn Warde, the son of PCTT’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ter­rence Warde smiled as he was or­dained. Warde urged his son and Dube-Khan to re­main hum­ble. 

“You have made the Curepe/St Joseph Pas­toral Re­gion proud; and son, you have made our fam­i­ly proud.

“Our home Church St Joseph Pres­by­ter­ian is elat­ed that you will now be­come, af­ter this ser­vice, the first PCTT-Or­dained Min­is­ter from that church af­ter 139 years of its ex­is­tence,” Warde said.

He said Bjorn will con­tin­ue his Min­istry in the San Juan/San­ta Cruz/Wood­brook Pas­toral Re­gion. 

“Be­ing am­bas­sadors of Christ for the PCTT, es­pe­cial­ly when on the world stage, is an ho­n­our. I urge you to take ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther study when they do come along. Stay sharp and fo­cussed,” Warde added.

He not­ed that hu­mil­i­ty is the “sin­gle most im­por­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic that any Min­is­ter should pos­sess.”

“Re­mem­ber, no mat­ter how much you ac­com­plish or achieve, let hu­mil­i­ty be the one char­ac­ter­is­tic that re­mains with you. It will keep you ground­ed and rel­e­vant,” he added. 

Warde al­so said Bjorn was elect­ed to serve on the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee of the World Coun­cil of Church­es (WCC) to rep­re­sent the Caribbean for the next eight years and is the youngest per­son to be on this com­mit­tee from this re­gion.

He told the new­ly-mint­ed min­is­ters that they should al­ways be guid­ed by the spir­it of dis­cern­ment.

“Lis­ten, ob­serve, learn the cul­ture of the re­gion and dis­cern with thought­ful prayer be­fore mak­ing de­ci­sions.

“Al­ways re­mem­ber that min­is­ters come and min­is­ters go, but the peo­ple of the re­gion will al­ways be there.

“Add val­ue to your re­gion, man­ag­ing time, the re­gion’s fi­nances and peo­ple, and keep­ing fo­cussed on com­pas­sion­ate pas­toral care is es­sen­tial,” Warde added. 

He al­so had a mes­sage for the spous­es of Dube-Khan and Bjorn.

“Cherisse and Kris, be pre­pared for the times when you have to sac­ri­fice fam­i­ly time for the work of the Church.

“A min­is­ter’s time can be so di­vid­ed. It is some­thing you will have to live with, as long as this blessed, sa­cred vo­ca­tion is a part of your lives,” he added.

The Mod­er­a­tor of the PCTT Rev Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han per­formed the or­di­na­tion.

Rev Sanya Be­har­ry who al­so spoke stressed that their min­istries should be pro­nounced by prophe­cy and truth-telling, prayer, and pru­dence.