A ‘people’s person’ as he was one who never said no to any request and would always stretch himself thin to help others – that’s how many remember Pastor Ashton Alleyne who died on January 23.
Even though Pastor Alleyne was serving the ministry of the Seventh Day Adventist, he was well known all across Guyana.
Pastor Sherwin White recalls that Alleyne worked in many communities during 2005 as Director of the Guyana Seventh Day Adventist community service.
Meanwhile, persons turned out in their numbers on Sunday for a service held at the Olivet Seventh Day Adventist Church where a funeral service was held for the man referred to by many as the ‘uniformed man’. He was the conference’s longest serving youth director and as a tribute to his yeomen service in this area a parade was held in his honour on Sunday just before the commencement of the service.
Adventurers, Pathfinders, Master Guides and persons in the women ministries were all dressed in their uniforms and to the beat of drums and the soulful trumpet sounds they marched from Cuffy Square through Hadfield Street to Vlissengen Road and into D’Urban Street before congregating at the Olivet Church.
White in a brief interview with Stabroek News said Alleyne could be considered one of the most loved and respected pastors in the ministry and one who through his years as a young ministry director inspired the “life from those in the cradle and even those who were much older” who all found themselves in uniforms.
“He was a colleague who actually looked out to the rights of other colleagues and he was also there for the younger ministers, there to mentor them. In my estimation he lived past his generation because even though as his tombstone would reflect he was only 55 years he was a father even to those who were older than he was,” White said.
Alleyne’s life in uniform did not commence in the church as before he became baptized he was a member of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and he had attained the rank of Lieutenant before leaving and joining the Guyana Prison Service.
He worked at the prison until 1978 when he left to study theology and he became a pastor in 1983.
President of the Guyana Seventh Day Adventist Conference, Dr Hilton Garnett recalled that it was he who had baptized Alleyne during a crusade.
“He was a friendly person, hard working, very industrious,” Dr Garnett said of Alleyne, adding that his death was a “tremendous loss for the church in Guyana because he has touched so many lives.”
Alleyne has left to mourn his wife Ruby and three children, Ashton Jr., Rhobin and Rhondell, along with other relatives.
He was laid to rest yesterday following a service at the Philadelphia Seventh Day Adventist Church in New Amsterdam.
