ST. HELIER, JERSEY (ANS) -- The phone rang in the newspaper office in Ealing, West London, England where I was working as a reporter. I promptly picked the receiver and the man at the other end of the line was Jean Le Maistre who told me he was calling from the island of Jersey, just off the British mainland, on behalf of the Jersey Overseas Aid Committee.

Jean and Jenny Le Maistre pictured in national costumes (Photo: Dan Wooding)

“Dan,” he said, “I wonder if you would be able to join a team of volunteers mainly from Jersey that are going over to the Methodist Hospital in Maua, to build a new dining room and kitchen for them.”

It was a big surprise for me, and always up for a challenge, I asked my editor if I could take some off and go over to Kenya from August 6-31, 1976, and he agreed – as long as I wrote a story about it. (I wrote several, not just for my paper, but also many Christian ones in the UK).

So soon I joined the team at London’s Heathrow Airport for the flight to Nairobi, where we then headed off in a bus to Maua, located on the northwestern slopes of Nyambeni Hills and west of Meru National Park.

Dan Wooding preaching at a Kenyan open air church during the trip

It was a wonderful experience and, having since done so many overseas trips, I had almost forgotten about it – until two years ago, Jean called me again, this time at my home in Lake Forest, California, and invited me to travel over the “Big Pond” to what was called the “Overseas Aid Celebrations”, which was to be a special reunion to take place on the island from August 28-29, 2010 and where I was ti meet up again many old friends who had been on that trip to Kenya.

In fact, there were also hundreds of other people who, over nearly four decades, had taken part some 100 mercy trips many of which were organized by Maistre, for the Jersey Overseas Aid Committee.

Why am I telling you this? Well it because I have just learned the “excellent news” that Jean Le Maistre was recently made an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List. This award is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 4, 1917 by King George V.

And if anyone deserves such an award, it is Jean La Maistre, a committed Christian, who has worked tireless to help alleviate suffering around the world from his tiny island, located just off the Normandy coast of France and was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War.

Jean greeting the Queen Mother at Maufant Community Centre, Jersey, in 1984, watched by his wife, Jenny (left) (Photo: Courtesy of the Jersey Evening Post)

With just a population of around 90,000 people, the people of Jersey have reached out around the world in some four decades with these many mercy projects, and the man behind many of these overseas aid work projects is this former Senator, Jean (pronounced Jon) Le Maistre.

Journalist Lucy Mason recently wrote a special feature for the Jersey Evening Post in which announced the award and said, “Mr. Le Maistre, a former States [Jersey Parliament] Member and tireless volunteer both in Jersey and abroad for the past 50 years, was one of four Islanders honored by the Queen last month. The Bailiff, Sir Michael Birt, was knighted and John Hodge, manager of the Shelter Trust homeless charity, and Dawn Woodhouse, founder of Holidays for Heroes, Jersey, were also made MBEs.

“One look at Mr Le Maistre’s CV [resume] is enough to put most of us with our occasional charity challenges and membership of a sports club or two to shame. There are, of course, his 33 years in the States – 15 as a Deputy and 18 as a Senator – and the committees on which he served as a result, including the Jersey Overseas Aid Committee – which he is often credited as helping to establish – Agriculture and Fisheries, Education, Public Health, Defense, Tourism and Postal.

“He was also chairman of the Jersey Youth Service – another organization he helped to found – as well as chairman of the Jersey branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and he was elected to the world executive committee of the CPA.

“Add to that his ‘day job’ as a farmer for 35 years, directorships at the Highlands Hotel and the JEC and the many conferences around the world of the Association des Parlementaires de la Langue Française at which he represented Jersey, and countless other achievements and you get the picture – he has been a busy man over the years.”

Mason went on to say that today he is "as busy as ever:, with his involvement with the Leprosy Mission based in Peterborough, his presidency of the Don Balleine Trust which oversees the Jèrriais teaching program in schools, and the Jersey One World Group, to being the chairman of the overseas aid charity Jersey Side by Side, vice chairman of the Jubilee Sailing Trust and founder member of the St Ouen Coutanches Twinning Association Committee, a member of the council of the National Trust in Jersey and trustee of the Jersey Church Schools’ Society.

She added that “his breadth of interests and knowledge extends far and wide.”

Writing about his early life in Jersey, she quoted him as saying, “TV wasn’t what it is today and there was no Internet, so in the broad sense you had to make your own entertainment. We then linked up with other churches for barbecues and scavenger hunts and that kind of thing and that led to me being elected the youth club leader at around the age of 17, which I shared with a young lady the same age.”

Lucy Mason that that it was while in that position that the young Jean began to come into contact with Christian missionaries – teachers and other professionals who would visit developing countries and report back to communities in places like Jersey about what was going on.

“It was a natural process where we got to know about life elsewhere and it enabled me to get a good picture of what conditions were like, never having visited these places,” he told Mason.

“I suppose that was the starting point of my awareness being raised of the vast difference between the developed world and places like Africa and India and so on.”

He added: “I wasn’t a churchgoer until I joined the youth club but I think it became all quite relevant when you consider the role of the church overseas.

“One of the comments I have made is that obviously, when you are in a position to go overseas to see what I call the ‘real Africa’, then you do meet people who are really inspiring, amazing folk, so you come back with a feeling that you have actually got to do something.

Responsibility

“I think it would have been very unusual for anybody to have those experiences and not feel motivated.

“It is not a question of doing good, that isn’t the motivation, the motivation is the recognition that in Jersey we were helped during the war at our time of need and it is recognizing that we have got a responsibility to do the same for others.”

Mason then wrote that Jean’s first opportunity to travel outside of Europe was when the Rotary Club of Jersey nominated him to join a group on an exchange visit in Israel.

He told her: “We saw amazing examples of unbelievable advances in technology and medicine alongside some of the poverty and difficulties, particularly on the West Bank.

“A year later I was invited to take my first work group on a project to Nazareth, through Tearfund. That opened my eyes because it was the only hospital in the area serving in excess of 400,000 people. It totally convinced me that we had hit on something really special in being involved in practical help and we were welcomed, and that led to a second project to a blind school.”

Jean (far right) during a visit to a Dhravi slum in Bombay in 1987 (Photo: Courtesy of the Jersey Evening Post)

From then on Mr. Le Maistre’s eyes were opened everywhere he seemed to turn and, as more people heard about what he and others like him were doing, they were approached by different countries and organisations to send groups overseas.

Meanwhile, on the “home front” Mr. Le Maistre was just as active. He was first elected to the States as Deputy for St. Helier No 3 and 4 in 1972 and quickly set about developing what is now the Jersey Youth Service.

“Along the way in whichever role he has been in or whatever country he has been visiting, Mr. Le Maistre has always been keen to promote Jersey and benefit the Island as much as possible,” said Mason.

Jean with Cliff Richard (now Sir Cliff) at a Tearfund concert (Photo: Courtesy of the Jersey Evening Post)

“He has helped bring conferences to the Island, has acted as an ambassador overseas and also used his charity connections with the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, Roy Castle and Cannon and Ball to stage events in Jersey,” she said.

“I have always been very keen to use the opportunities that I have had to benefit the Island and not to keep them to myself,” he said. “Through my friendships with certain people I hope I gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure.”

Mason concluded her feature by saying, “It is tiring talking to Mr. Le Maistre – not because he is hard work or difficult (he could not be further from both of those things), but because there is so much to take in.

Jean speaking to former US president Jimmy Carter at a conference in 1999 (Photo: Courtesy of the Jersey Evening Post)

“If you look at all the things he has done and organisations he has supported it may at first appear as if none of them are connected. However, when you trace how they have evolved over the years it is obvious that there is a thread running through them all, linking them altogether.

“One has led to another and another and another, and it all goes back to that first position as a youth club leader when he was 17.

“And 51 years later Jean Le Maistre MBE shows no signs of slowing down.”

All I can noq do it to echo the words found in Matthew 25: 32 (NIV) “His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'”

Jean Le Maistre, we certainly share in your happiness. It is most deserved.

Dan Wooding, 71, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK and also in Belize and South Africa. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries and also provides a regular commentary for Worship Life Radio on KWVE. You can follow Dan Wooding on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. Dan has recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 44 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 . Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link.