Montego Bay, St. James, Jamaica …. [Taashi Rowe/ANN]
Two years ago, Pastor Glen O. Samuels was sitting in his car outside the home of a colleague when he found a gun pointed at his face. The man holding the gun was a well-known gang leader in the area. He wanted money and threatened to kill Samuels if he didn’t get it.
“I told him who I was, where I lived, and where I worked, and told him I had to go home and get my wallet as I had left it at home,” Samuels recalls. He returned with his wallet and told the gang leader he would try to help him as much as he could.
“What happened since that incident has convinced me that as a church there is a lot we can do to restore aimless, purposeless young men and women,” says Samuels, who was elected president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Western Jamaica on Aug. 9.
Samuels helped the man find a job and eventually helped him set up a small shop. The man eventually left the gang, even though it was dangerous to do so, and he has been attending church.
Samuels is one of several Adventist leaders who are reaching out to the frustrated, desperate, unemployed and unemployable in Jamaica who are on the edge of committing major criminal offenses.
Since January, 1,081 persons have been murdered on the island of 2.6 million, 180 more than the same period last year, according to an Aug. 23 Jamaica Gleaner article. The government, which has instituted several programs to help prevent violence, pleads for community involvement.
“Most criminals in Jamaica are between the age of 13 and 25 in terms of murder and rape. Many have no one to mentor them and society treats them as rogues. So they are condemned to a life of worthlessness,” Samuels says.
“The issue of rising crime cannot be solved by law enforcement alone without partnership between police and community. The church can bridge the gap,” he says.
As one of the major Christian denominations on the island, Adventists have made the fight against crime in Jamaica a top priority. Last year 10,000 Adventists marched through the streets of Kingston, the capital, protesting violence. Already the church leaders sit on national committees on violence and crime, human rights and lead seminars and rallies protesting violence, drugs and child abuse.
Pastor Patrick Allen, president of the Adventist Church in the West Indies, has called the situation critical and called Adventists to become more involved in the community.
“Despite the prayer vigils, the special services, and the prayers of many mothers and fathers, the ranks of the ruthless and the lawless continue to swell,” Allen writes in a Sept. 5 article, “A Call to Greater Social Involvement,” on the chuch’s Web site.
The article comes six months after a March 5 day of prayer in which Allen prayed for safety and protection of the entire nation in the face of rising crime.
“We must not only seek to root out crime and violence, but we must also work for a just society. Many in our society feel disenfranchised and discouraged because of what they perceive as a society that is stacked against them. Many experience persistent poverty, which they associate with a system that favors the already affluent while leaving no honest path to upward mobility for them. This hopelessness and despair will often provide a fertile breeding ground for crime and violence,” he says in the article.
Samuels agrees that desperate poverty can drive violent impulses. Jamaica is going through seemingly endless turmoil. A struggling economy, high cost of living, high unemployment, and taxes may be what keeps crime at historic highs.
“As a church leader, I must commit my organization, its leaders and members to more decisive and proactive involvement. We will continue, and be more active in community outreach [programs], and we will be even more engaged in social reform,” says Allen.
Samuels is also a big believer in ministering to the ills of the community on a holistic level. He believes that working to meet the spiritual, mental, physical and social needs of the community can make each person a better citizen and reduce violence.
The church in West Jamaica is working with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and USAID to repair 500 houses that do not have proper sanitation. They are also working on second chance programs to mentor those who dropped out of school. Another program would involve the church working closely with the justice department to mentor and counsel those who have committed minor offenses, instead of locking them up.
He endorses Restorative Justice, a program the government has instituted to quell the continuing waves of violence.
“Restorative Justice puts a human face on the handling of crime and violence,” said Carol Palmer, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, in an ANN interview. She is also a lay leader at the Portmore Adventist Church. “Rather than being purely punitive in approach, restorative justice involves the entire community.”
“There is a willingness among pastors, but they have told me they really do not have the skills,” Palmer says. “Pastors are traditionally trained to minister to [church members] as opposed to those with social issues or those with criminal tendencies.”
The church is a part of the community, Palmer says, and through programs like Restorative Justice offering proper training to all, the church can start offering services in mediation, counseling and mentoring.
Through Northern Caribbean University, an Adventist institution, the church has established the Community Counseling and Restorative Justice Centre in Manchester, Jamaica. There are plans to extend it to other parishes.
Copyright © 2005 by Adventist News Network.
