Hope and Heritage

Welcome to our Hope and Heritage page! This page shares the relation
of past to present and future; the importance of the story, its root
and its branches; its significance in continuity, connection, and
contribution; its role in renewal and hope, and purpose.

Our three areas of focus -
Pray, Teach, Affirm - (subtabs) incorporate faith into all aspects of
daily living. From everyday wisdom to special traditions,
from recipes and tips to food for the soul, from practical life issues to
spiritual treasures, we explore the ties
that bind and the threads that weave together into a
beautiful motif of hope and heritage.

From birth I was cast on You; from my mother’s womb You have been my God.

~Psalm 22:10 (NIV)

So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim Your might to another generation, Your power to all those to come

~Psalm 71:18 (ESV)

Three small children standing around Mom holding baby

Since my youth, God, You have taught me, and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds.

~Psalm 71:17 (NIV)

Symbols...

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds;
tie them as symbols
on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road, when you lie down
and when you get up.

Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
so that your days and the days of your children may be many
in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors,
as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

~Deuteronomy 11:18-21 (NIV)

Part of the Landscape

As a small child growing up in the Caribbean, I never once thought of cocoa trees as symbols. As far back as I can remember, they were a part of the landscape, spreading their protective branches over all my familiar spaces.

They were the first sign of home, waving their welcome at the top of the dirt driveway to our house. And when the blazing heat chased us from the concrete and galvanize furnace that was our school building, it was the cocoa trees at the back of the school that lent their shade for afternoon classes.

But I never realized then, that if a symbol existed for the history, the heritage, the cultural richness of my tiny island-nation, it was the cocoa tree. Like the indigenous Caribs and Arawaks who first inhabited “Hairoun”, Home of the Blessed, (as SVG was then called), the cocoa tree has its origins deep in the Amazon.

And the history of its spread to Portugal, to West Africa, and to North Africa, following the path of conquistadores and colonials, and ‘Old World’ merchants is a mirror image, a reverse path of the journey to St. Vincent for those who came to call it home.

First came the slaves brought forcibly from West Africa, and North Africa, and other parts of the continent. Later came groups from India, Portugal, and Madeira contracting as indentured servants in a desperate bid to pay off their debts by working for free and “getting a new start.” And sprinkled into this ‘melting pot’ were merchants, colonial landowners, and possibly a handful of crypto-Jews.

So it is that the cocoa trees of the Amazon, their cousins in Ghana, in Sierra Leone in Cote D’Ivoire, and their grannies and aunts in Portugal and Madeira are connected in a saga of history and heritage and culture and posterity. And had I listened more closely then, I may have caught the secrets they whispered in the wind. But, that’s how it is with symbols—most times we only grasp their import a long time later.

Hmm, Cocoa...melting pot... Fondue, anyone?