Apostle Fidel Donaldson was born and raised in a Kingston 13 community, but migrated with his mother to the US when he was 10 years old and watched the family matriarch work tirelessly to raise he and his six siblings without the support of a father.
“I think by and large, women have really been in their position, for decades after decades. If you look at households, it’s really an anomaly, when women run out on their children; its rare. So women are usually the vanguard and the safeguard when it comes to sticking with the family,” said the minister.
“It’s the men a lot of times that are out of position,” Apostle Donaldon noted.
Bishop David Ewen from the Assemblies of God in Jamaica, find that while men frequent places to satisfy the lust of the flesh, they often neglect venues like churches where their spiritual appetite can be fed.
“The need for a relationship with God has been so minimised, compared to the need for satisfying oneself with the pleasures around, like drinking and all those things,” noted the pastor who was led to speak to a group of men he spotted recently drinking on a Sunday morning, while several women passed them on their way to church with children in tow.
He relayed his observation during a recent prayer breakfast for men, and took note of the responses he received.
“You know what one of the men said to me, that man is not a Christian, but he is a visitor to the church, and he said, ‘the men go where they are happy’, and I don’t want to ignore that statement,” said the pastor.
“As a church, we have to look at that. How do we take care of the social side of the spiritual community,” he said.