Bishop Alfred David on Tuesday 24th August 2021 became the first Indigenous Anglican Bishop in Guyana. The Ordination and Consecration of Bishop David of Kamarang was held at the Cathedral of St. George, Georgetown, Guyana… He was trained for the priesthood at the Alan Knight Training College, Yupukari, North Rupununi, and was ordained a priest on April 5, 1985, by Bishop Randolph George, at St. George’s Cathedral.
+ The Bishop was born March 14, 1959, in Kaburi, Bartica to Joseph and Florence David. He has nine siblings. He was married to his wife Yvonne on August 6, 1979 and has four children and six grandchildren. He was made Canon of the Cathedral in 2007.
Journey to Priesthood
Backtracking to Father David’s journey from being a teenager leading worship to now occupying the second highest religious office in the diocese, one must understand that it has been one that tested his faith, a lot.
“In those early days (as a child) we had a church school and surely, three times a day you had to go to service. It so happened that the Government took over the school and there was no catechist left. At that time, I was maybe 14 or 15, so knowing a bit about leading worship I started to do so on my own and then continued for a couple of months.”
He was soon noticed by his Parish Priest, Reverend John Dorman, at the time who offered him some training. He joined the Interior Catechist Training Programme and would travel to Georgetown for a period of two weeks at a time for over three years. After he completed that programme, he was commissioned.
At that time, he was also a teacher but shortly left that post.
He was under observation from the Parish Priest who was based in Kamarang and whenever he visited the Potaro base, he would encourage the then young David to take up priesthood.
“He saw potential in me and said I think you need to be trained as a priest and I said I don’t think my calling is being a priest…because I was not interested in that sort of spiritual life.
I was mostly a farmer at that time… I did a lot of farming, fishing, hunting, you know because I got that from my father. So I was more interested in those things and being a preacher/pastor was overwhelming as a young man.
After some encouragement and I prayed about it, I said that maybe this is a call for me so I accepted that call. I was 18 then when I accepted that call to serve,” he recounted.
After accepting the offer to enter the clergy, he went to Kamarang as an ordinand and about five years later he was called to go for training. That training took place in North Rupununi at St Mary’s in Yupukari Village. There were dozens of ordinands and he was the youngest of them.
They had to move there with their families where they trained for three years. At that time, the young David was already a father to two boys.
He later became ordained as a deacon on September 30, 1984, right at St Mary’s and the following year he became a priest on April 15, 1985, at the St George’s Cathedral in Georgetown. He would return to his village where he served as part of the Kamarang Parish which comprised of five satellite missions dubbed as the Potaro Group of Churches.
The closest one was 24 miles away from him and the furthest 40 miles in Mahdia, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni). He served there for 20 years in the Kamarang Parish.
