'Lord, the moment has come' - Wellesley Bolt gives powerful testimony

Dr Karl Archer, the man who baptised Usain Bolt's father, Wellesley Bolt, described as refreshing the testimony he gave after being immersed at the Burwood Beach on Saturday, May 5.

"The moment he came out of the water, while he was still in my hands, he gave a most refreshing testimony. 'After fifty-odd years, Lord, the moment has come. Everything Lord, everything is yours.'"

The senior Bolt was baptised in the North Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Sherwood Content.

"It was a touching moment and I was extremely happy," Archer said.

Archer, who is president of the North Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, told WESTERN STAR that while he served in Sherwood from 1998 to 2002, the elder Bolt would drop his wife, Jennifer, at church and pick her up after church.

"Several pastors would have encouraged him to follow his wife, who is an officer of the church. I would have visited the family on several occasions, have prayer with them. It was not a sudden move, because he had started to attend church, though not frequently, but the interest was showing. So when he requested that I baptise him and expressed that the sea would be the place of choice, I was only too happy to oblige," said Archer.

Private decision

Meanwhile, WESTERN STAR attempted to get an interview with the elder Bolt at his home in Coxheath yesterday, but his wife said he was not available for comment. She said that he has made a private decision to serve the Lord.

"He is not Usain, so there is no need to make a big thing out of it," she said.

The baptism of Bolt has brought the membership of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Sherwood Content to 137.