Rev. Cecil U. Quamina is Senior Pastor of the First Church of the Open Bible, San Fernando, Trinidad. Rev. Quamina is a leader and visionary at heart with over thirty (30) years of ministerial experience. His tenacity, his simple, pure faith in the power of prayer, and the ability of the Holy Spirit to do the impossible, have allowed the church to grow from a small group of saints in 1983 to over 3,000 active members at present.
A trained teacher, and Bible school graduate, the call to preach was so strong on his life that he left his job as a teacher to enter into full time ministry. After graduating from The Open Bible Institute of Theology, he served as youth pastor for eleven years, and was installed to the office of senior pastor in 1984.
As director of the Church Growth International Seminars for the past four years, Pastor Quamina has brought to the body of Christ a wealth of knowledge and experience. He has traveled extensively, teaching at Church Growth Seminars throughout the UK, USA, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Trinidad and Tobago. "I believe that growth should be the intention of all ministries," says Pastor Quamina, "God wants us to multiply and replenish. All leaders should possess largeness of heart." Many new churches have been born and others have been resuscitated through his ministry.
As a pastor, his greatest sense of fulfillment comes from seeing lives converted and souls saved. He remembers with joy, a crusade on the island of Guadeloupe, where as many as three hundred people gave their hearts to Jesus during three days of meetings.
Pastor Quamina has no regrets about his ministry. He feels a deep sense of satisfaction because he lives and works with passion and energy. Thus far, because of his uncompromising faith in the God of miracles and his belief in the power of sowing and reaping he has seen all his projects come to fruition.
This humble man of God deems it an honour to have been used by God to bring SFOB to one which draws people from all over the country to come and experience the power of God through prayer. He is blessed with the gift of faith and views every challenge as a hurdle to exercise and develop spiritual muscle. He faces every mountain with a positive attitude.
One of Pastor Quamina's greatest wishes is to see consistent Christlikeness displayed in the lives of God's people. Our behaviour in the church should be the same as in the marketplace. He also desires greater unity and networking among churches. He believes in the expansion principle outlined in the fourth chapter of The Gospel according to Mark. He lives and works by the belief that the Spirit of multiplication leads to dynamism and growth within the body of Christ. He adheres to the conviction that the Church should be local as well as global.
Married to Rev. Deborah Quamina, they are the proud parents of three children – Kezia, Luke and Sara Lee. The Quamina family uses every opportunity to blend their family life with ministry. Pastor Quamina admits that his most fulfilling moment as a pastor was to experience his son Luke preaching his first message.
Pastor Quamina counts it a joy and an honour to be of service to the Kingdom of God. His vision is to see the Church expand to unexplored areas such as accommodation, agriculture and drug rehabilitation. A man with a vision and heart for the people he leads, he practices what he preaches that “relationships are greater than all our accomplishments”, because he believes that people matter to God.