In Cayman Islands, Adventist pastors offer at-risk youth alternative to drugs, gangs

5 Oct 2011, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States…Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN

Seventh-day Adventist Church pastors in the Cayman Islands are trading suits for jeans and sermon helps for dominos.

They aren’t shirking responsibility. Ministers in the Caribbean nation are mentoring young people in the community who are vulnerable to drug abuse and gang involvement.

The Cayman Islands has seen a sharp and “unprecedented” rise in violent crime this year, said Dannie Clarke, president of the Adventist Church in the country. He and his pastoral team have observed more young people turning toward a life of crime, baited by the sense of belonging and quick money that gangs promise. Absentee parents and few positive influences only worsen the situation, he said.

“We want to be there to support them, to put a hand on their shoulders,” said Dannie Clarke, Adventist Church president for the Cayman Islands. For some churches, that means offering young people sports and social programs.

“We want to be personally connected to these guys before they reach a place where they consider doing something that can have catastrophic consequences,” he said.

Through a community prayer and mentorship program launched last month, Adventists are offering an alternative to gang involvement. Pastors hold community meetings and prayer rallies once a week, where they offer counseling and support to young people “on the fringes,” Clarke said. They pray for the community, law enforcement members, perpetrators and victims, and their respective families.

The pastors have observed that many young people who join gangs are really seeking “someone to respect them and validate them,” Shian O’Conner told Cayman 27 news recently.

O’Conner, a pastor certified in counseling, helps monitor the group’s efforts, ensuring that each pastor follows counseling best practices, Clarke said. The pastors meet weekly for ongoing training.

Many young people reluctant to talk to the police or other authority figures find it less threatening to speak in confidence with a pastor, Clark said.

Affected young people are already opening up. One even helped solve a string of murders. Another passed a note to Clark after a recent community meeting. “It just said, ‘Please give me a call. They have my name on a hit list and I want to talk to somebody because I fear for my life,'” he said.

The church is working with the police department to provide a place where young people can request protection or aid cases in safety and confidence, Clark said. Pastors won’t share any information without the young person’s expressed permission, he added.

The pastors’ efforts got a boost last week when Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush and several members of the country’s cabinet and legislature attended the community meeting and prayer rally. Regional leaders of other Christian denominations have also showed support for the project by helping lead out in community prayer.

“What started as just a prayer initiative has mushroomed into much more than that,” Clarke said.

Ultimately, Clarke and his team of pastors hope to garner even broader community support. “We want to empower people in the community to catch the spark and put in place an infrastructure for sustainable growth and development.”

Clarke is now asking community leaders to create a registry of at-risk youth who could use a big brother or sister.

“We must know our people. We must look out when one person’s child is hurting or vulnerable,” Clarke said. “Many times, it’s not that these youth don’t want to get involved in positive things. They just may not have the opportunity or the right influences.”

The pastors’ ministry mirrors Christ’s example in the New Testament, said Leonard Johnson, president for the church’s Atlantic Caribbean Union, which overseas the Adventist church in the Cayman Islands.

“[Christ] catered to the social, mental and physical needs of men, as opposed to just the spiritual. The church today must continue to represent Christ in each pocket of society, letting the world know that we care,” Johnson said.

To watch a live stream of this week’s prayer rally in the Cayman Islands, visit caymanconference.org on October 6.