HISTORY OF THE TCI MISSION
The first group of Sabbath Keepers was discovered worshipping on the island of Grand Turk in 1906 by colporteurs from Jamaica, Phillip Porter.
Forty years later another colporteur, Clyde Nebblett, and his wife came to Grand Turk and furthered the work on the island. They organized the first Sabbath School in their home in 1945. Pastor Gordon Prenier came to the island of Grand Turk and purchased a warehouse on Front Street, which he converted into the first Church. During his time, Pastor Robert H. Pierson visited the island and conducted the first tent crusade. Pastor Pierson later became president of the General Conference Seventh-day Adventist.
In 1945 the Nebbletts moved to the island of Providenciales and conducted a crusade at Blue Hills, and baptized (26)twenty-six precious souls and organized the Blue Hills SDA Church. In December 1945 the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) and Inagua (A Bahamian island) was organized into the Salt Cays Mission.
The work in the Turks and Caicos Islands was supervised by the East Jamaica Conference until in 1965 when the Turks and Caicos Islands Mission was organized with Pastor V.O Brown as its first president. The mission then consisted of one church in Grand Turk, one in Kew, North Caicos and One in Blue Hills, Providenciales; a total membership of 47.
The Turks and Caicos then fell from mission status back to a district status, and for number of years changed hands from being under the oversight of Jamaica and the Bahamas conferences. The Mission was again reorganized in 1985 with Michael Toote as president.
When Pastor Toote left in July 1990, the Blue Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church was near completion, and it was up to Pastor Peter Kerr, his successor, to continue the momentum of finishing the project with the faithful support of church members. In March 1991 the New Blue Hills Church was dedicated, to the honour and glory of God, debt-free. Pastor Kerr met the Blue Hills Church with approximately 50 baptized members and a few more Sabbath School members. His new task was to fill the newly completed church. The years that followed saw steady growth in the membership of the churches throughout the mission; hence the need for more church buildings became very evident.
In 2001, a Non-profit Seventh-day Adventist Christian organization called the Maranatha Volunteers International came to the Mission′s rescue. Maranatha not only built a church in South Caicos but also on the island of Grant Turk; where church growth, like Blue Hills, was also on the rise. The organization also built School/auditorium that doubled as school, the Maranatha High School, and as church, Bethel Seventh-day Adventist church.
Today the Turks and Caicos Islands Mission consists of over 2000 members in 8 (eight) churches and (2) two companies, one high school, one primary school and a camp site.