Otis and Martha Brady

“Be ready to preach, pray or die at any time,” Otis often told his disciples.

“Be ready to preach, pray or die at any time,” Otis often told his disciples.

During one service, Otis Brady pointed to a young man and said, “Ashley, pray!”

“I had to think quickly and ask the Lord what to pray,” Ashley Rocke recalled. That was Ashley’s first time to speak publicly. It wouldn’t be his last.

Otis immediately gave “duties” to the young people he discipled. For example, Otis assigned Ashley to visit 10 people. Ashley took up the challenge, and six of those 10 were eventually baptized.

Martha Brady also invested in Ashley and the new Christians in their community. She invited them into her home and encouraged them be part of the Brady family.

“I never knew I had music in me until I met Martha,” Ashley said. “She told me to get a little guitar and she would show me some chords. She inspired me to be musically inclined.” Today, all of Ashley’s children play instruments.

Ashley is now the pastor of Lake Independence Baptist Church in Belize City and president of the Belize Baptist Association. He is also a senator representing the Belize Council of Churches and the Evangelical Association of Churches in Belize’s structure of government.

“Otis and Martha were church planters,” Ashley said. “They didn’t waste time. We had four Baptist churches when the Bradys arrived, and when they left Belize, we had 54 Baptist churches.”

Throughout their lives, Otis and Martha worked to share the love of God in the places they served. Because of their investment in people, lives were changed, churches started, associations formed, and the Word of God spread throughout the Bahamas, Guyana and Belize. By God’s grace, Otis and Martha pioneered new work across the Caribbean, brought unity to Baptist efforts there, and saw countless lives changed by the power of the gospel.

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