Angela Dyer’s story is one of resilience, faith, and the undeniable power of God’s grace. She openly shared with Quanna Harris, host of Real Talk Jamaica on YouTube, how she once struggled with doubt and hardship but found her way back to Christ through a series of life-changing moments.
Growing up in Old Harbour, her grandmother, who played a pivotal role in her life, relocated her to Kingston “to a pretty house up Meadowbrook.”
This she shared was a big improvement from where she used to live in Old Harbour in a board house. With some of her family members having to sleep under the table and some on the bed prior this move, things look pretty at the new house with a big settee, and “nuff food inna di place,” she reminisced.
“Life nice, cause mi have a bed fi sleep on now; mi can spread out inna one bed fi miself and you know things look pretty,” related Harris, as she said her grandmother’s son, who was living abroad, bought the house and instructed his mother to “carry everybody.”
Her life however changed dramatically when she got involved and got pregnant, as her uncle who bought the house said she could not stay there.
She went to live with her child’s father, and for her, life became difficult. She experienced the challenges that relationships bring and she remembers threatening her partner that she would “clip his wing,” meaning she would shoot him.
Back then, before God transformed her life, she confessed to “parrying with gunmen” and having access to the weapon.
Even though she used to be in the unrighteous lifestyle, Dyer admits that she would often pray to God to keep her safe and not leave her young daughter.
The change in Dyer’s life started when she heard her daughter praying one night. She said the things she was saying in her prayer made her “feel a way” and with this, came the desire to stop partying and continuing her lifestyle.
The Turning Point
Dyer’s teenage daughter was actively involved in church. Out of curiosity, she went to church one week, and the pastor spoke some things that connected with her. Dyer told her gunman friend about it, and he told her he was going to “send one of the boys with her to ‘map out the place’ to see if she was talking the real things.”
She went back again, and this time the pastor told her to stand, and when the pastor started ‘talking the tings,’ the man who was sent to accompany her “teck whey himself’ when church was over.
The man returned, and the pastor singled him out and started telling him some things; the don eventually asked him to pray for him as well.
When she remembered what the pastor said to her, she turned her life around. She made that commitment to God about 10 years ago. Her friends were not encouraging at all. They told her she had done a foolish thing. She responded that she had tried the bad way, and it did not work because she had to dodge and hide when she saw police.
“I am now ministering to those who have the gun, telling them to put it down,” she shared, adding that her friends’ lives are not better than hers now. She well “sort out proper.”
“A Jesus fix mi up,” she said.
She said some of her relatives accepted her new lifestyle, after experiencing her praying for and prophesying to them, but others still remain skeptical.
In sharing her testimony, she recounted how much her daughter wanted some funds to attend nursing school. She remembered her pastor saying sowing a seed works. She sowed her electricity bill money and thanked God every time. She confessed the victory frequently and asked for a particular sum, which would see her daughter being enrolled in the nursing school.
“I didn’t get it, but mi trust God the same way, and then mi sow mi first fruit (first salary) towards the nursing school.”
Dyer recalled that when she was throwing it, at one point she wanted to take it back as cooking gas was finished. When she gave the lady that was collecting the seed the money, she told her she was going to borrow something as her gas finished. But the lady prayed for her, and Dyer said when she went outside, a woman gave her a bag with clothes and food—rice, flour, and chicken. The seed had started to work.
Her daughter has now finished nursing school and is her own boss as she is running a business. Her son at one point was being ejected from the school he was attending for being disruptive; she sowed a seed again, and the decision was reversed. He loved basketball, and he ended up getting a scholarship to Hydel playing basketball and ended up being accepted to play overseas.
“It’s not easy, but you have to ride it out, and you have to tough it out. You can’t be a Christian and not expect that test and trial not gonna come, but you haffi know how to handle it,” she advised.
