Teaching Lineage
How the teaching was received, and through whom it has passed.
The line does not begin in Toronto. It begins in Grove, on the east bank of the Demerara, with an old man telling his grandson that they were a special people, that the Jews and the Syrians were his cousins, and that he was in the Bible. Shadrock Porter senior gave his grandson the foundation on which everything since has been built.
The first student
Elder Antonio Castrilli was the first student, taught from 1985 under the grapevine at his own home, and the first priest of the ministry to be appointed, baptised and anointed. The ministry’s calendar is his charge, developed from a hand-assembled first attempt in 1986 into a continuing work of research.
Those who followed
Elder Michael Hinds came in 1989 and brought a circle of young people with him; his account in A Bridge to Cross describes the study groups, the questions and the movement between homes as the congregation grew. He led the Atlanta branch for twenty-one years.
How it passes now
Through the Friday and Saturday lessons, the Bible studies, the branches, the books, the Education Division and the Huldah Academic Legacy Awards, and through the offering-up and raising of children within the nation.
The account of Elder Shadrock’s grandfather requires the Elder’s own confirmation before publication.