Grand Hotel Employee Glen Bulgin Serves Food, God
By Leslie Rott

Glen Bulgin stands on the porch of Grand Hotel. He works in the main dining room, serving delectable dishes with deep soul.

“I love to serve people and I love to serve God,” said Glen Bulgin.

So he does both, as a waiter for Grand Hotel and as a minister for the Jamaican church service held at Ste. Anne’s Church every Wednesday night.

Mr. Bulgin has lived six months on Mackinac Island for the past 15 years, under a temporary work visa program that Grand Hotel has participated in with the Jamaican Ministry of Labor for about 20 years. The program brings hundreds of workers to Island businesses each summer, and in an unfamiliar place, said Mr. Bulgin, many of the Jamaican summer workers wanted to find solace in their religion. He and six others set out to find a place to worship and turned for help to Father James Williams, who responded, “We will take you in.”

Since then, Wednesday night at Ste. Anne’s has been Jamaican night and the interdenominational service now serves more than 200 worshippers, coming from various ethnic backgrounds.

“We came together and we saw the need and the doors were opened,” Mr. Bulgin said of the group’s efforts to find a place for themselves on the Island.

The group now also participates in the Food for the Poor program, helping less fortunate people in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ste. Anne’s Church doubles the donations collected for Food for the Poor during the six months that the Jamaican summer workers are on the Island. Their efforts have also helped to build 19 houses in Jamaica in the past 14 years.

“It’s always good to have people coming together ... out of many, we are still one people,” Mr. Bulgin said, paraphrasing the national motto of the Jamaican people.

When he isn’t feeding hungry souls at weekly church services, he is busy feeding hungry bodies, as a waiter in the dining room at Grand Hotel.

“I am called here to serve the people,” Mr. Bulgin said of his experiences on Mackinac Island.

He has even become somewhat of a local celebrity in his native Montego Bay, where he tours high schools, giving demonstrations to students interested in hospitality.

It has been a sacrifice for Mr. Bulgin to spend so much time away from his family; his wife teaches high school in Jamaica, and he has two children, ages 20 and 22.

He said that there is mutual understanding between he and his family and that everything happens for a purpose. He keeps in touch with his family as much as he can and is appreciative to the Mackinac Island community for all of their support.

“I love what I’m doing and I do what I love,” he said.

Recently, Mr. Bulgin was featured in the July/August 2005 issue of Outreach Magazine, a publication dedicated to the Christian faith.

“Serving people is serving God and serving God gives you great satisfaction,” Mr. Bulgin said.