Three years ago Adiel Thomas was working as a music teacher in his home country in Jamaica when he felt God leading him outside his comfort zone.

Months later he left his stable job and launched his own label, Ministry Music.

The 26-year-old hasn’t looked back since.

“What happened is I realised I didn’t want to go to teach every day,” said Mr Thomas, who was recently on Island with his six-member group.

“Going to the front of the blackboard and drawing treble clefs all day just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t very fulfilling.

“Now I’m doing what I feel God wants me to do with my life and doing what I love.”

His band, Adiel Thomas and Ministry, launched their debut album, College Days, in Bermuda last Sunday.

It meant a lot to one band member in particular — Bermudian Wayneche’ Watson.

Ms Watson, 22, was raised in a musical family and sang in the Southampton Seventh-day Adventist Children’s Choir.

Never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d be singing on stage on a regular basis.

“I’ve been surrounded by music all my life and always loved music, but never loved singing in front of people,” she said. “I would get really bad nerves and didn’t like being in the centre with all eyes on me. I liked being the one who pulled the curtains and made sure all things backstage were okay. But I think the great and scary thing about ministry is it takes you out of your comfort zone.”

Her absolute favourite song on the album is an upbeat tune called Kingdom.

“That one is my personal favourite because every day we go through life and, whether you want to accept it or not, we have these expectations that we’ll wake up the next day,” she said.

“But we have to keep in our minds that Christ is coming back and we need to seriously prepare and stay ready for when He does.

“We always say things like I can’t wait to get that house or that car or have this type of family. We focus so much on earthly success that we forget about the ultimate success of getting to heaven. For me this song is a daily reminder of why I’m really here.”

The group will tour Maryland, New York, Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale over the next few weeks before wrapping up in Jamaica.

The band got as far as it has through hard work.

“We are kind of like go-getters,” Mr Thomas said. “These opportunities didn’t just come to us, but we knew different people from all these places so we just went from there and told them we wanted to come there for a week.

“We just kind of did it on our own, so this is a real DIY group. There is no real publicity push or anything. Everything is on us, so we’re just going with faith.”

Mr Thomas said he hopes people feel encouraged and uplifted by their music.

“I want them to understand the experiences I’ve been through and learn from the songs and be able to relate to them, especially younger people, because that’s what the album is about,” he said. “No matter how far they are, God is still there for them. You can never be too far away.”

Mr Thomas and his band met as students at Northern Caribbean University in 2009.

He was going through a rough time in his personal and spiritual life — and used music to cope.

“I was in my final year at university and realised after the summer that I really needed to change my ways,” he said.

“I was singing in the choir and leading groups at church, but I was also going to parties and leading a promiscuous life. I knew in my heart that wasn’t the way to go.

“I started singing and writing and realised what better way to try to witness to others than through my music?

“I wanted to use my ministry as well as my gift of singing to try and witness to people. So I put the two of them together. I realised that I needed to be different and started making changes in my life.”

Mr Thomas admits he still has good and bad days with his faith, but overall he’s found the key is to just keep pushing.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is whenever it is that you fall you get back up,” he said. “It’s easy to mess up and just stay in that place of disappointment or discouragement, but that’s the worst thing you can do. You have to keep getting back up and get more resilient and strong in whatever it is that you’re struggling with. You can get there through prayer and having a close walk with God.”

• Listen to their songs here: www.adielthomasandministry.com.