Cedella Marley Helps To Buy 1,000 Bibles For Minister Marion Hall’s Reggae Sumfest Giveaway

Cedella Marley (left) and Minister Marion Hall

With less than two months until her return to the Reggae Sumfest stage, Minister Marion Hall has gotten one-third of the 3,000 Bibles she wants to giveaway when she performs at Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, on July 22. 

In her prayer and fasting session on Wednesday, she thanked donors, particularly the CEO of the Bob Marley Group of Companies, Cedella Marley. 

“We got 1,000 Bibles bought and shipped already in Miami, and I want to say ‘muah’ to Cedella Marley who called,” Hall shared. “She sent her assistant and said, ‘Ask Marion how much Bibles she need…’. Together with her and some of you, maybe 30 of you, I thank you for whatever you gave… Though my goal is still for 3,000, I thank God that we bought a 1,000.”

She thanked her manager Delroy Escoffery for liaising with Marley to purchase the Bibles, all King James versions with a sizeable enough print for anyone to read. 

“I bless the Lord for it,” said Hall. “Little is much when God is in it.”

The Sorry to Hurt Your Feelings singjay first expressed her desire to buy 2,000 Bibles in April, totalling US$3,526. Sumfest principal Joe Bogdanovich is supporting the drive by providing the address for the books to be shipped, and organising queues at the event for orderly distribution. 

Joe Bogdanovich (left) and Minister Marion Hall

The performance will mark her first time on the Sumfest stage since closing the ‘Lady Saw’ chapter and turning a new leaf seven years ago. This won’t be her first Bible donation. Shortly after baptising in December 2015, she distributed several bibles to inmates at the Fort Augusta Adult Correctional Centre in St. Catherine. 

“I believe that if there’s ever a time that people need to get into the word of God, it’s now because we are at war,” Hall recently justified. “The devil is out. There’s so much mess on this Earth, so much going on and even our island Jamaica. We need the word in the streets.”

As part of her agreement to do Sumfest, Hall requested a music partnership with Bogdanovich’s Downsound Records, which has so far yielded I’m Doing Better. The track was done in collaboration with Grammy-winning singer and musician Gramps Morgan, who also worked on the forthcoming single My Mind is Made Up. 

From left, Downsound Records principal Joe Bogdanovich, Minister Marion Hall and musician Gramps Morgan.

“My song is ready people of God; it’s about to drop anytime now,” she said before trailing off into song.

My mind is made up to follow you Jesus. My mind is made up, I’ll never turn back. Courtesy of Downsound Records and Gramps Morgan, and you have to play it and though it sounds like I’m just worshipping in a smooth way, get to the middle of it. You get to the middle of it, when the changes come and the high notes come, and the conviction all over that song, my mind is made up. I record that song in Nashville but it was a song that I wrote awhile ago.”