Our history is currently being written and will be published as Like a Sea Set Free. The following excerpt is taken from Pete Lowman's The Day of His Power, p291-295 and gives a brief outline of the founding of the movement.

The University of the West Indies did not come into existence until 1948, so many Jamaican students went to universities in Canada. Some were involved in IVCF groups there - particularly at McGill University in Quebec - and returned home with a vision for student work. In 1944, Stacey Woods was on the way back from an exploratory journey through Central America, and the flying boat in which he was travelling developed problems in take-off. ('The captain ordered, "All passengers sit in the rear of the plane on one another's knees. We'll have another try." I had two people on top of me.') When they reached Jamaica the plane landed for repairs, and Stacey was marooned for five days. 'This unplanned, unscheduled layover was in God's plan and foresight,' he says. 'I was able to visit schools, learn of the preparation for the opening of the University, and meet with church leaders and Christians in education. They urged that we help them.'

As a result, IVCF-Canada staffworker Cathie Nicoll - who served with IVCF from 1930 right through until 1982! - was sent by IFES to Jamaica for three months in 1948. She succeeded in pioneering a high-schools work. In 1952 a university group developed too, through a second visit from Cathie Nicoll; and four years later the first full-time staffworker, Richard Bell, was appointed. He also travelled to other parts of the Caribbean. In 1958 only two Inter School Christian Fellowship groups existed outside Jamaica, but before the end of 1959 there were eight in Guyana, four in Barbados, three in Trinidad and one each in Antigua, Grenada and St Kitts, besides the fourteen in Jamaica.

These developments were made much easier by the presence of graduates from IFES movements elsewhere who now occupied strategic positions, such as Alfred Sangster in Jamaica. Graduates of the Jamaican Inter-Varsity group were playing a significant role - Ruby Thompson in Trinidad, Joy O'Jon and Winston McGowan in Guyana. As university-level education expanded in the Caribbean, tertiary groups appeared too. A few Trinidadian tertiary students began a Bible study in the home of a lecturer, and adopted the name Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, on the model of Jamaica, after a few of them had attended Trinidad's first ISCF camp in 1961. Similar groups emerged in Barbados and Guyana; and in 1969 a regional IVCF conference was initiated. Up to that time West Indies students had gone to IVCF-Canada leadership conferences for training.

During the 1970s the different countries began to appoint national staff for the burgeoning work. By 1977 some 200 high-school groups existed in twelve Caribbean territories, involving at a modest estimate some 6,000 students. The need for staff support was also felt in the tertiary sector. After a visit from IFES general secretary Chua Wee Hian in 1976, the national movements decided to invite Eila Helander - the Finnish staffworker who had just succeeded in working herself out of a job in East Africa - to come to the West Indies. Eila played an important part in the development of the tertiary work. Subsequently, in 1981, the first IFES regional secretary for the Caribbean was appointed, Frank Goveia from Guyana. Doug and Adele Calhoun, formerly with IVCF-USA, were also appointed to IFES staff, to work alongside the student groups in Trinidad in particular. Their contribution was valuable, and when they returned home two years later their place was taken by a Trinidad national, John Fung.

At the beginning of the 1980s, God had raised up ISCF groups in 150 schools in Jamaica, 100 in Guyana (although most of these were in the areas around the capital), eighty in Trinidad and forty in Barbados. Barbados has seen striking developments in evangelism; staffworker Terry Frith reported in 1980 that the witness of students in one institution had led to sixty responding positively to the gospel over two years! Evangelistic films have proved particularly effective. In Jamaica, the movement faced severe economic problems as many supporters were emigrating to the USA. Nevertheless, during the early 1980s they were able to increase their staff team to six, and the work has been put on a firmer footing as a result. Of particular note is a strikingly well presented newspaper named Manna, produced by the students for the twenty tertiary groups. Its circulation reached 2,000 by 1982. The Jamaican movement has now merged with Scripture Union and is called Students Christian Fellowship and Scripture Union (SCF/SU).

Students currently comprise more than half of the English speakfng Caribbean population! Yet some of the greatest needs in the region exist in the countries that are not English-speaking. Spanish-speaking countries are closely linked with the IFES work in South America, as was indicated in chapter 5. In Surinam, where Dutch, English and Taki Taki are spoken, university students have pioneered a group. In French-speaking Haiti, with its culture heavily dominated by a mixture of Roman Catholicism and occult voodooism, a group came into existence in the late 1950s through Paul Decorvet, who had been on staff in French-speaking Switzerland. But it still amounts to no more than twenty-five students. A pastor named Esperance julsaint has been working with them since 1974. One major difficulty is that any gathering of university students tends to result in police surveillance.

At high-school level, a strong work has developed in the rural island of La Gonive, off Haiti, through the efforts of Hans Spruijt, a Dutch development worker with Tear Fund and the American development agency Compassion. Hans was involved in drilling wells in the area, and in 1979 he invited three students from the university group in the capital to help him start Bible study groups in the schools. (In Haiti, it is not unknown to find a twenty-year-old at primary school!) Since then around a dozen groups have developed, and Hans has found a coordinator for them, Yves Joseph. His has not been an easy ministry, since the groups usually meet at night and the only way to visit them is by long journeys on horseback.