Three Kingdom entrepreneurs opened up about their journeys and the challenges they faced as they embraced the calling to get into the industry they serve during the latest Freedom Talks, hosted by the Freedom Come Rain newspaper on Thursday, January 25.
Peta Gay Rowe, who owns Charis Café and Events Management Services Limited with her husband Rajiv, left a very lucrative job and obeyed the call to create a space where people could dine and worship.
Rowe, a public relations expert said it has not been easy, and admits that up to this day, she still has reservations. However, she is convicted and as she sees the impact being created, she pushes forward with the expansion of the business.
“Although I don’t have any doubts about my knowledge of God, my reservation comes in a different form. So my last job would have been a director for communications for the Ministry of National Security,” she stated, adding that by year two in her new venture, she started feeling a “pulling.”
“I’m used to a very comfortable, handsome, and pretty beautiful salary with all of the perks. And then I start feeling the strain of not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I’m no longer in a jacket and suit and high-heeled boots with fancy makeup,” she said. “I’m literally looking like life is taking a punch at me, and so that started to challenge me.”
She said her struggles continued with her bills pouring in and not being able to pay them as she ought to. She remembers looking at her bank account and seeing a balance of $93! She cried for days.
Rowe stressed that the conviction kept coming and that pushed her to continue. Today, she is fully engaged in “marketplace evangelism”, impacting those who walk through the door of the establishment.
Crystal Daye, chief operating officer of Dayelight Publishers Limited, empowerment coach, and author, confessed that she got into Kingdom entrepreneurship “kicking and screaming.”
Comfortable in her 9 to 5 as a procurement officer, the last thing she wanted to do was leave her ‘safe space’ and so when she felt the pull and knew God was calling her to go in a different direction, she resisted.
Although the mother of one harboured desires of going into business someday, she thought it would be when she was financially empowered to do so.
After receiving the conviction to launch out, Crystal said she resisted and refused to resign from her job.
“It was my supervisor at that time; he’s a man of God. I love him dearly. And he was a person who literally called me into my office and basically said, ‘Crystal, you need to repent, because God has been telling you for months that you should leave, and because of your disobedience, you’re holding up somebody’s blessing. So I’m asking you to put in your resignation’ she shared.
Recognising that her supervisor was correct, she repented.
Sharing her reluctance to enter entrepreneurship, she said it was because of the Jamaican landscape. Daye pointed out that God was calling her to engage in speaking and being a coach, and at that time she didn’t know of anyone making money in that area.
When she eventually came out as a coach, she said a video went out calling her ‘new age”, something she didn’t even know the meaning of!
“My greatest fear came upon me when I came into entrepreneurship,” she noted. Even so, there was a sense of peace with the decision she had made. She knew without any doubt that she had made the right decision and was moving in God’s will for her life.
Still, obeying did not come without its challenges, and Daye had to dig deep within her faith as she shared that she had to move from the apartment she was living in to go back into the inner city. There were days when she couldn’t even find money for lunch for her young daughter.
“We just parked the car and took the bus, and she thought that we were just having a bus adventure, not knowing that it was money we didn’t have,” she reminisced.
She hastened to share that her reality won’t be another Christian’s who has been called to entrepreneurship. She said it is based on their calling and how God is dealing with them.
Daye reassured that she is not regretful about all the “hard moments” in her life; as for her, it has been the most “purposeful, impactful, and peaceful years of her life in terms of knowing that He who start a good work in me would complete it.”
Since then, she has worked with over 500 authors, publishing their books, helping them to market and monitise and propelling them into their purpose.
“I loved my job as a procurement officer in the government sector, but I know that my eternal reward is far greater, and I’ll continue to walk this out. It has not been easy. Entrepreneurship has had its challenge, but I believe that, you know, being in God’s will always is the best decision that you can make,” she affirmed.
Chief executive officer of Neufville Management and Communication and counsellor Cheryl Neufville, steadily worked her way into being her own boss. She still experienced her own set of challenges, but she stayed firm in her faith and continued on the path she knew the Lord was taking her on.
Starting out as an employee of Air Jamaica, she worked there for a year before heading to Bank of Jamaica (now Exim Bank). She stayed there for 10 years, working and nourishing her love of music as a singer and working with artistes.
She eventually left and joined Tommy Cowan and Carlene Davis, where she managed and booked artistes.
She eventually segued into public relations and marketing, going into business with Melody Cammock Gayle. Neufville started her own business after they decided to go their separate ways.
“The Lord has really used me to do a lot of work with ministries, a lot of public relations, and marketing for a number of churches and ministries all across Jamaica, the Caribbean, and everywhere,” she said.
Neufville sows into these ministries, churches, associations, and groups, using it as a ministry platform. However, it is her work with corporate that pays the bills.
“It hasn’t been an easy road. As you know, business in this country; it’s not easy,” Neufville shared as she points out that some contracts are powered by “who knows who,” but she has the greatest connection: Jesus Christ, as when she prays, He opens doors.
“He shuts the doors that you shouldn’t go through, and He opens the ones that you must walk through, and He gives you favour,” she said.