At 14 years old and with no father for guidance and support, Garfield Blair dropped out of school and started fending for himself.
Blair, who hails from Whitehall Avenue in Kingston, felt he had no choice as his mother was unable to take care of him and his four siblings. In his testimony shared during the recently concluded Clarendon for Jesus crusade, he recounted how God transformed his life.
“I can tell you that when I was on the road, I was doing all kinds of things—washing cars, doing this—until I found myself working in a supermarket, and then I started to deal with drugs,” he recalled.
Blair said he saw himself as a superstar, but soon he became discontented with that kind of living, and he became despondent, despairing, and hopeless.
“I reached a condition that I was close to a nervous wreck, and my life was just up in turmoil,” he noted, adding that it was at that point that he heard the voice of Jesus, and he did not resist but made a commitment.
He presented that same solution to those who attended the crusade, which concluded last weekend after being held in four different locations in the parish. The crusade was hosted in Kellits, Lionel Town, Summerfield, and May Pen under the theme Christ for the Crisis.
The crusade was organised by the Errol Rattray Evangelistic Association in collaboration with several Clarendon churches. Rattray said that now that it is over, they are thinking about a follow-up.
“There were many testimonies about what God has done in people’s lives,” he said, while adding that people are hungry for a change. “They turned out in large numbers; we had an overflow; we give God thanks for what is happening.”
He said the comment the team has been receiving is that “you can’t leave us like that.” Arising from the hunger for intervention, he said they will be doing a needs assessment during the month of April, which involves talking, praying, and encouraging children, teachers, administrators, and parents.
In May, Child’s Month, Rattray said they will be going into 20 schools in the parish and interacting with children.
“I feel if we can curtail crime in the schools, our family and society can be better,” he said.
Commenting on the just concluded crusade, he said that, hailing from Banks, Clarendon, and being a past student of Glenmuir, it really hurt him to know that the parish has one of the highest crime rates.
Wilburn Smith from the Mitchell Town New Testament Church of God shared that the Lord had given him a vision for the Lionel Town community in particular, which is one of Clarendon’s crime hotspot.
“There are some people that are unleashing demons over Lionel Town. There is an unleashing of demonic forces to destroy the people and their wealth. Pray Christian, pray! Let us wake up, open our spiritual sight, and look out for the enemy; he is out to attack Lionel Town again,” he urged.
Lionel Town has been on the police radar for some time, and in 2021–2022, there were several double killings, houses firebombed, and other criminal activities carried out in the community.
Prior to ministering in song, gospel singer Edwin Myers concluded that although there are many dead situations around Lionel Town, God was going to resurrect everything.