Friends,
You have been the rock of faith for this community.
Through generations of change, hardship, and hope, St. Agnes has stood tall.
As a church, as a refuge, a schoolhouse of values, a gathering place for strength and healing.
For Bain Town, Grants Town, Fort Fincastle, and beyond, this place has meant everything.
When no one else was listening, the Church was.
When families were hungry, the Church shared what it had.
When young boys and girls needed someone to believe in them, the Church showed up.
And today, as we mark 180 years of ministry, I don’t just see history — I see love.
I see the kind of love that binds a community, that raises children, that buries its dead with dignity and holds the hand of the grieving long after the funeral is done.
As I sit here with you, one phrase keeps returning to my heart:
“Look where God has brought us.”
Those words say more than books ever could.
I think of the elders who knelt on bare floors, of children who walked here barefoot just to sing in the choir.
I think of the baptisms, the weddings, the candlelight vigils, the Sunday morning hymns.
I think of all the times this sanctuary became the last safe place for people who had run out of options.
St. Agnes, you have preach and lived the Gospel.
The theme for this celebration — Recommitment, Renewal & Restoration — feels like a prayer for our nation.
We need to recommit to each other.
We need renewal in our homes and in our hearts.
And we have so much to restore—dignity, peace, opportunity.
As Prime Minister, I know we cannot do this work alone. We need the Church. We need St. Agnes.
The government can build roads and pass laws. But only faith can repair a broken spirit.
Only faith can remind us that we’re more than what we’ve lost—we are who we lift up.
St. Agnes, you have lifted up this country for 180 years.
You have taught us that leadership begins with service.
That love is stronger than hate.
And that grace, when shared, can change lives.
So today, I thank you. Not just for surviving, but for showing us how to live.
And when we wonder where to go from here — how to raise our children in a world so full of distraction and pain — just listen closely to that familiar refrain:
Look where God has brought us.
And believe, with all your heart, that He’s not finished with us yet.
May God continue to bless St. Agnes Anglican Church, and may He bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
Thank you.
Under their administration, not a single shantytown was demolished.
Under this government, we have already demolished seven.
