A Jamaican’s Journey to Time and Patience is Derrick Garland Coy’s portrait of his multi-ethnic family whose African, Chinese, and European roots merge in Jamaica during the 1800s, then scatter across the globe in the mid 1900s, sending him on an odyssey to discover and fulfill God’s call in his life, heal family wounds, and share Christ’s message of redeeming grace and love.
Against the historical background of 470 years of Spanish and British colonial rule over Jamaica and the island’s journey to independence, Derrick weaves the stories of the various lives of his forebears, and tells his own life story: born to a briefly married thirteen-year-old mother and ninteteen-year-old father, her struggles as a teenage single mother, her love affairs with British soldiers stationed in Jamaica, and her turbulent marriage to an alcoholic Irish university professor who moves the family to Hong Kong, Trinidad, and finally to Australia.
Derrick also shares his own journey—his early years in Jamaica, struggles in school, teenage rebellion and hatred for his parents, his dramatic conversion to Jesus Christ and call to ministry as a pastor and filmmaker, two failed marriages, straying from his Christian calling, and returning to faith in and service to Jesus Christ.
It's an encouraging story of learning to trust and obey God in the midst of hardships, setbacks, and failure.
Professional Reviews
A Jamaican's Journey to Time and Patience
“Almost everyone can identify with at least portions of Derrick Garland Coy’s ‘Journey.’ To be sure, it is a geographical journey--from Jamaica to four continents. But it is also a rich, diverse journey of the mind, heart and soul...through the joys and heartbreaks of love...of accomplishment and frustration...of dreams that die hard or not at all. Most of all, Derrick’s journey is one guided by a God who surprises, frustrates, loves supremely and promises us ‘the long-distance race of our lives, for now and eternity, a race whose goal and price is Christ himself.’”
--David Dow
Retired CBS News correspondent
A Jamaican's Journey to Time and Patience
"This eloquent memoir is a son's journey to find meaning in a single word: Father. Mr. Coy's narrative strikes at the soul of what wounds a boy and what heals a man. It is about flesh and fire; will and warfare; sin and faith. It is one family's story across generations and across nations. It is a journey in progress."
--Dr. Karen Kenney, psychologist, Encino, California
A Jamaican's Journey to Time and Patience
“This is an extremely well written memoir and is hard to put down. It exhibits the remarkable storytelling skills of its very gifted writer. He had much to write about, in this typical Jamaican soap opera of intrigue, love, sex and power plays occurring ‘only in Jamaica,’ between victims of that tempestuous colonial history, which is the Jamaican story.
“It is a fascinating if tragic story, with glimmers of breakthrough to a much hoped for harmony or maroon-like triumph against the odds. But from the beginning, the cards seemed stacked against any such outcome and longed for sense of fulfillment by that tormented family. And the diaspora dimensions of this group of people, only add to the intriguing misadventure of broken hopes and dreams...
“This amazing story evidently is catharsis for the author and could serve a similar purpose for those dealing with dysfunctional family systems. It is an impressive chronicle of events that could greatly benefit his offspring and readers.”
--Rev. Dr. Winston A. Lawson
Senior Pastor, Hillside Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Georgia
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