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Jewett Church celebrates 150 years of service
Rev Lyman Jewett, a pastor from America, who is hailed as the first translator of Bible into Telugu reached Nellore with Rev Samuel S Day in 1848 and moved to Ongole around 1854.
Ongole: As the popular saying goes ‘service to the humanity is service to the god’, the Jewett Memorial Baptist Church in Ongole has been living by it relentlessly for the last 150 years. It is a celebration time for this historical church to commemorate its existence for more than century and a half. The celebrations began on Thursday and will go on till Sunday.
Rev Lyman Jewett, a pastor from America, who is hailed as the first translator of Bible into Telugu reached Nellore with Rev Samuel S Day in 1848 and moved to Ongole around 1854. He took charge of the Telugu Mission, which was started by Day and had spread the word of god with the support of John E Clough. An 11-acre compound with a building in it in the town was given to Jewett for just Rs 1500 in 1860 by the British, and the amount was paid by the Government of Oklahoma State in USA. The church began functioning from 1866 under the leadership of Clough and JM Baker. The present building was completed construction in 1908.
Speaking on the occasion, senior pastor of the church Rev Dr John Prabhakar said: “When Jewett and fellow members of the church were praying on the hill, he had a vision of thousands of people praying to the god in the present place of church. So he procured the place and started developing the church. Apart from spreading the word of the god, JMB Church started the Andhra Baptist Mission School, college, Harriet Clough Memorial Girls High School and hospital for the service of poor. Delegates from other countries like USA, Canada and South Africa will take part in the sesquicentennial celebrations till Sunday.”
The Church was founded when the area was a complete forest. During the construction of the church there was a severe famine in Madras presidency. As large number of people was dying, Rev Clough took the issue to the government and got the contract of construction of Buckingham canal.
Chairman of the JMB Church T David Raju said: “Rev Clough introduced the food for work scheme during the famine and helped the poor. With his contribution only a large section of people in the district survived and we are going to ask the state government to rename the Buckingham canal in the memorial of Clough now. We will construct a new church with a capacity of 15000 people, revive the Clough Memorial Hospital in the town, and start Clough memorial upper primary English medium school as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations.”
Naresh Nandam
