By Cecelia Campbell Livingston
If anyone had told Everton Bonswell, pastor of the Alpha New Life Ministry in Christ, located at 37 Chapelton Road in May Pen, that he would be serving as a minister, he would have set them straight. Growing up very active in the Youth For Christ ministry, he was so excited by outdoor evangelism that his only desire was to serve there.
Bonswell, who submitted his life to Christ when he was 13 years old, said he had no doubt he was called into the ministry by the Lord.
The problematic teenager who would idle his time when his mother sent him to the shop then smoothly lie his way out when he got home really late, had an encounter with the Lord while he was home.
He can still recall the moment so many years ago, in May 1966, when, after playing outside and hurriedly going back inside to tidy the place before his mother got home, he stumbled upon a tract.
“I picked it up, and I can still remember the words at the end of the tract: there was a Bible verse, “Behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation,” he related, adding that after reading the verse, something happened to him.
That same evening, when his mother got home, she sent him to shop, and this time he went on the mission and got home promptly. The desire to disobey had totally left him.
When he got home, he asked her if he could go to church the following day, and it wasn’t long before he was baptised.
He has never looked back since; instead his walk in the Lord grew as he became active in several ministries, serving as a Sunday School teacher, men’s president, superintendent for Sunday School, secretary in the youth department, youth leader, and he also joined Youth For Christ, where he was busy with the evangelism team.
Things changed for Bonswell when he was asked to pick up a visiting bishop from Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Allan Jack from Bethel New Life in Christ Ministry.
“We were meeting each other for the first time, andI went to the airport to pick him up to take him to the person who would be receiving him. And then that Sunday, they were not having service at the church he came to, but they had a graduation instead, so the minister asked me to ask my pastor if he would preach for them that Sunday, and he consented,” Bonswell reminisced.
He said while there, Dr. Jack used the opportunity to recommend him to take up ministry, as he said his spirit was drawn to him the first time they met. He followed up by informing the church that when he returned to Trinidad, he was going to invite him to his convocation.
In 1992, Bonswell attended the convocation in Trinidad, and while he was there, Dr. Jack told him he was going to ordain him as a pastor before he returned to his homeland.
“I shrugged it off and protested, saying evangelism was more to my liking. He insisted and told me that the Lord showed him that I shouldn’t be in a corner and that I need to be more exposed,” he recounted.
He started going to Trinidad, where he would preach at their convocations, until the pastor of his current church, the late Rev. WL Brown, when he was due to retire, turned the reins over to him.
Now, after serving at the church for more than 20 years, he said he is committed to his flock, and it must be an emergency if he ever misses a service.
Bonswell said that as a pastor, he is big on respect, and he loves to show it when it is shown to him. He enjoys his job, but says that more recently he has had cause to be embarrassed and ashamed when he listens to some of the newscasts on pastors who are letting down their flock.
“I love respect; I love when people trust me,” he notes.
When quizzed on finding time to relax and forget about church work, he said he hardly finds time to do that.
“When people come to me, sometimes I have the overflow. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with the amount of activities you have to do, but for me it’s more of a duty, and I am willing to because I have made myself available to the Lord,” he posits.
Still, he admits that he has days when he feels tired and feels like he cannot make it, but then he rejuvenates by relaxing and reading his Bible.
“I don’t have much time to do that because even when I am not at church, I am at church, and I am not the kind of person to miss church,” he said.
With a church membership of 50, he is thankful that he doesn’t have conflict to deal with, as he shared that they are a close-knit group that looks out for each other.
The church has several ministries, including women’s and men’s ministries and youth ministry. They also have a very active street outreach.
Bonswell, who is the father of three children from his first marriage now all grown and on their own, said he remarried in 2001, six years after his wife died. Together, he and his wife Marion work side by side, being each other’s support in the ministry
