So remote is the commune that as The Sunday Gleaner made plans to visit the area over a week ago, one person said, “It is so rural that if His Excellency’s church happened in Bell Hill, not even the stink would smell.”Ī police spokesperson also cautioned our news team against plans to enter the area.Īlthough The Sunday Gleaner was unable to get details of the police’s recent visit to the commune, Following the Blueprint Ministries gained recent notoriety when a 22-year-old law student decided to quit school, break the padlock on the grille to her Cornwall Courts, Montego Bay, home on September 29 and take off to join the group, which reportedly also has a base in Portmore, St Catherine.Īfter a missing person’s report was filed, the young woman addressed a church service streamed online, saying that she had left of her own free will.

Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. Smith – who had a penchant for grand titles, styling himself as ‘His Excellency’ – reportedly sought to weed out the unclean members from his ark, the St Mary police turned their spotlight on the group in the hills. The track to the commune proved quite bumpy as the four-wheel drive vehicle in which our news team travelled navigated the many twists and turns, seemingly on waves of giddying heights as we avoided the pitch-black ravines which appeared on either side.Īfter a deadly ritual unfolded at the Montego Bay-based Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries as the now-deceased Pastor Kevin O. Its entrance is about two miles off the Highgate main road. The journey to the Bell Hill commune, where members of Following the Blueprint (FTB) Ministries are constructing houses, a clinic, school and other facilities in preparation for the rapture, is not for the faint of heart. A breakaway from the local Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church denomination has established a commune in the deep bowels of St Mary, preparing for the Second Coming, with little to no plans of interfacing with the Government or the rest of the society.

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