Committed, energetic, organised, a leader, a listener—these are some of the words that many would agree fittingly describe Carmen Eunice Bowen. She is known to congregants at the Tarrant Baptist Church and Freedom Come Ministries International as Mother Bowen, the spiritual mother hen in charge of the baptism ministry.
Having served in various capacities in the Kingdom for over 60 years, one would imagine that retirement would now be on the mind of the diminutive 86-year-old, but she quietly rejected the notion when asked. “I’ll be working until when the Lord says, ‘Stop!” she firmly stated.
Born May 1, 1938, Mother Bowen was the 5th of 11 children—right in the middle of six girls and five boys.
“Growing up in Brandon Hill, Clarendon, we were just ordinary people,” she reflected. “Our father was a small farmer, and everything we consumed came from the farm, including meat from the cows and goats. We went with daddy to the field to milk the cow, and we would drink the warm milk and take home the rest to boil and make porridge. We had no fridge because there was no electricity back then.”
She described how they would preserve meat by salting it, storing it in a keg, or smoking it over fire until it was dry. “When you salt it, you can keep it for longer periods,” she explained. “The Word of God says we are salt; through Christ in us, we keep the world from spoiling, just like salt preserves meat.”
The only radio in the community belonged to ‘Head Teacher’ (the principal), “who was always a man,” Mother Bowen remembered. “In those days, men occupied their leadership positions in the different pillars. In the churches, the deacons were also men. It’s just the way things were, the men led and things were less chaotic.
“Most people in our community attended church. Whether or not they were born-again Believers, church was a must. We lived near the church, which also served as a school. It was so close to home that I could wake up half an hour before the bell rang and still beat head teacher to roll call!”
Carmen Bowen was born in an era of turmoil, and although much has changed since, it seems much has remained the same. In the same month and year that she was born, there was the famous Frome sugar factory strike, which was the culmination of a series of labour strikes for better wages across Jamaica.
A year later, the second world war had started and did not end until she was seven years old. “I was too busy holding my space on the bed with my siblings to notice there was a war going on,” she laughed. “We lived in a 2-bedroom house with 10 children and 2 beds, but we were fine. Sometimes you’d fall off the bed while sleeping, but you just got up and went straight back to sleep! And as the older ones moved out of the house to go fend for themselves, that freed up some more space for the rest, too.
“I used to hear them talking about the war, but I don’t remember much,” she admitted, “except something about turning off the lamp light at certain times each evening, especially when there were planes flying around.”
MY CONVERSION AND REVERSION EXPERIENCE
Unlike the average person, Mother Bowen’s conversion experience was done in the quietness of her heart and not at the prompting of any preacher. She revealed, “By my late teens, I was fully immersed in the church, even though I was not saved, and I remember a voice rebuking me one day, “You’re teaching about Jesus, and you are singing in the choir about Jesus, but you don’t know Jesus, Carmen!”
It was the Holy Spirit convicting her, so she got baptised, close to the end of her school years in Brandon Hill, which was also where she successfully completed her Jamaica Local Examinations. Now certified as a probation teacher, she was able to leave home at age 18 to go ‘paddle her own canoe’ in Grantham District, several miles away.
The further from Brandon Hill Carmen Bowen moved, the wider the distance grew between herself and God, until she left Him completely. Off she went, galivanting with friends, until she landed in Kingston, which was where she met Alexander Bowen, her now deceased husband. They got married in 1969 and had two boys together, Mark and Leighton.
RETURNING HOME
Watching their children grow, Carmen Bowen was pricked by the Holy Spirit yet again. She and her siblings had been raised in church, but now her children were not benefiting similarly, and although she could teach them at home, she knew that doing so in the house of the Lord was the better option for the entire family.
It was a 1976 “Christ for Jamaica” broadcast on the radio that eventually propelled her into action. There was something so compelling about the voice: “It was Pastor William Edwards at Tarrant Baptist, and he connected with me through that sermon,” she said. “So that’s how we started. From 1976, I recommitted my life and have been walking uninterrupted with the Lord ever since.
“I began working in church right away and was teaching Sunday school. We would teach at Tarrant in the morning, and because Balmagie Baptist was just being built and had no care team yet, the same teachers from Tarrant would go there to teach the children in the evening.”
Such was the ingraining of Mother Bowen in the teaching foundation of both churches. Her growth was greatly enhanced when she was assigned to understudy the older deacon, who was in charge of the Missionary Committee, and when he retired, she took over.
Mother Bowen continued to serve when Pastor Edwards retired and Pastor Neville Callam assumed leadership of the circuit. When Pastor Callum resigned, a team of ladies, including Mother Bowen, decided that they were going to meet and pray for the next leader who would take on the task of shepherding the two congregations.
WHEN THE NEXT PASTOR CAME
“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5).
When Pastor Jeffrey Shuttleworth was installed as the new leader of the Tarrant and Balmagie circuit in 2008, if no other ministry saw a drastic change in its operation, the baptism ministry certainly did. It gradually built up momentum and membership until, in 2017, there was a tremendous shift when the circuit launched its first outdoor mission (crusade) in Port Royal. This lasted for approximately 70 days.
The church had been elevated from running with men to running with horses, and Mother Bowen, in her late seventies at the time, remembered a request she had made to the Lord when she retired from the St. Catherine Parish Council in 1999. “After 38 years working at the Council, I told the Lord that I would not be going home to rock no chair,” she remarked. “I had started to diligently read the Bible, and when I saw how God had blessed Moses and Caleb physically, I told Him that I wanted Moses’ eyesight and Caleb’s strength. The Lord gave me both, so through Him, I am able to keep up the pace.”
THE WATER IS TROUBLED, MY FRIEND
A stickler for order, Mother Bowen said that although she could not place an estimate on the number of persons who had passed through the baptism ministry and foundational classes over the years she’s been at Tarrant, one thing for sure is that there had been many. She recounted that there were occasions in Port Royal where there were two baptisms in one day at the sea. “I remember that once at Tarrant, we had over 100 people being baptised, and the team of us had to set up a pool on the outside to manage the numbers! At other tent locations where we had extensive ministry, it was the same blessing from the Lord.
“Men,” she said emphatically in response to the question about what made her heart rejoice even more during a baptismal service. “When men accept the Lord and fulfil His command to be baptised; that makes me very happy because a saved man is usually a saved household. When men are in spiritual alignment with God, their entire family usually follows suit,” she said.
What is it about the baptismal experience that has kept Mother Bowen engaged in it for so many years?
“Notwithstanding, I love to see anybody and everybody give their lives to the Lord. I know where I was, and if the Lord could be merciful to me and bring me back to Him, I know He can do the same for others. So, I always encourage the team of us who work in the ministry to never give up on people. Some persons will hesitate to be baptised after they make a decision to follow Christ, and all we do is pray for them, that they will come into all truth and fulfil all righteousness, just like Jesus did in Matthew 3:13–17.