Dr. Alma Blair
Avia Ustanny, Gleaner Writer
WE WAIT in the spacious, sunken living room where everything reflects air and lightness from the creamy ceramic tiled floors to the off-white and cherry wood furnishings, each piece positioned a comfortable distance from the other.
The Blair mansion, home of Dr. Alma Blair, J.P. and Bishop Herro Blair, leaders of the Deliverance Evangelistic Association internationally, is located in Hellshire over-looking the sea.
Her husband, who is president, is also the Ombudsman and chairman of the National Peace Management Initiative.
Vistas of coral water are visible from a first floor balcony which is architecturally possible because of the cliff side location.
When she arrives, Dr. Alma Blair pauses to greet with a smile and then, explaining that she has to get her husband his dinner, departs for about half an hour, returning resplendent in gold and green caftan and soft slippers.
Spiritual
Alma Blair today shares one significant thing with the young girl she was years ago. She is a deeply spiritual woman still, only increasing in maturity. Inside, she is still the 11-year-old who defied her mother and got baptised at the New Testament Church of God in Brown's Town, St. Ann. From this age she said, "I was filled with the Holy Spirit and it transformed my life altogether."
Today, her material circumstances are vastly changed. It is the result of the blessing of the Lord, she asserts. "You give to the Lord and he gives to you." Early investments in real estate are also now paying off.
Dr. Alma Blair states that both herself and her husband were bought up in poverty.
"When we got married we had nothing. We had to borrow money to buy the ring," she recalls.
Alma's childhood was worse than Herro's. The last child of eight children, being raised by her mother after her father's death, life was hard. It got harder still when she again defied her mother, and older brothers and sisters to attend Bible College, abandoning secondary school, as a teenager.
At age 16, she arrived on campus at Bethel Bible College and Secondary School without even toothpaste and with very few changes of clothes.
Embarrassment
She endured weeks of embarrassment, switching around what she had in a three day cycle, while the young ladies from Kingston were well dressed in their crinolines and taffeta.
"My best skirt was a black one with a floral thing. I had one spike heel and one pair of slippers."
When she was hungry, she said, she found the prayer room and prayed. Her older brother who once would give her money decided that he would not do it anymore.
"He said that I had become worthless. My family thought I was crazy," she recalls.
These were hard times, but they are a part of her past.
Now, the minister is at a place where someone will buy her seven dresses in one go with hats and shoes to match. It's miraculous.
Her miracles, she said, began in Bible College where, having not paid her first year's school fee, she was supported throughout the remaining two years by a stranger in the United States who heard about "the little girl who could preach" and decided that she was a good investment.
After Bible school, Alma was immediately selected to go to Antigua as a missionary. On her return, she met Herro Blair during a week of services in St. Elizabeth. He was the one conducting the first week of service while she was slated to do the second. He remained, she recalls, because "he said that the bus left him." She laughs.
They were married in 1968.
Early in marriage, Dr. Alma Blair recalls, There were days when there was not even one dollar in my purse. I would see things I could not afford and learn to do without them. Waiting until we could afford what we needed has been a guiding principle."
The 13th year of marriage was to pass before the pastoring couple moved into the house of their dreams. They sold the original home in Meadowbrook and also borrowed money from the bank to build it.
The couple also built a vast ministry. There are now 27 churches in the Deliverance ministries group in the Caribbean and North America. Head of the women's ministries, Dr. Alma Blair travels abroad to the United States and Canada to teach and counsel.
Church development
She also goes to several Caribbean islands throughout the year to hold conferences on church development. It all began for the Blairs in and Grand Cayman where the newly- married couple were sent as missionaries.
The couple, in over three decades of ministry, have developed parallel lives. They often have separate preaching engagements, separate conferences to attend.
For her work, Dr. Blair has been awarded by the New Testament Church of God as the youngest individual to embark on a mission, and by the parent body of the New Testament Church of God for being one of its very first missionaries.
One of the best moments of her life, she said, was when preaching one night in Grand Cayman, she saw her mother coming to the altar. "If anyone had given me $100,000, it would not have meant as much to me," she said. She says she has no hard feelings for the way in which she was abandoned by her birth family when she made the decision to go to Bible school. "They just did not understand," she comments.
After Bible school, she went on to pursue and gain a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, and also obtained a Bachelor's as well as her doctorate in pastoral studies, with an emphasis on Counselling, at the International Bible Institute and Seminary in Orlando, Florida.
She has subsequently worked as company secretary at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, a position which she held for nine years and then was administrator at LOVE FM for four years.
But, the work she boasts about is what she has accomplished in church where she is also in charge of the evening educational institute, including an adult education division and CXC classes.
Life experiences
As assistant pastor at the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre on Waltham Park Road, Minister Blair preaches, teaches and counsels, enjoying most of all the last, which she believes really allows her to impact the lives of married couples and others in need of her words which are often, she says, based on her own life experiences.
She has written several teaching manuals, the last series being on the definition of praise, worship and thanksgiving. The story of her life, she adds, may be next on the list. As faithful as she believes that God has been to her, Dr. Alma Blair is also is a faithful woman. She does not believe in divorce.
"One of the first things I have to say to a woman would be that she needs to learn to understand her mate," she told Outlook.
She explains, "There is a scarlet thread that runs in all men from Adam 'til now. Basically all men are the same."
Her husband, Herro Blair, she says, is caring, although, she adds, "We both travel a lot so he does not have much time to spend with me. We are together as long as he is not in the studio making programmes, or not playing dominoes with his brother which is a favourite pastime of his.
"We love to play scrabble and he loves to win. Sometimes we play two or three games for the night before he will stop. He plays until he wins.
"Sometimes he is more open, sometimes he draws into is shell. What is most important his to understand him. With all the work he does with the church, as Ombudsman, chairman of the Peace Management Initiative, there are times when he will want to be left alone," Alama Blair said.
Herro Blair, she says, is a very good father. "He always made time to play pool, dominoes and table tennis with the boys, no matter what time it was."
The Blairs are parents of four boys. Eldest is Herro Blair Jnr., called Steve, who pastors a church in Grand Cayman and is also prison chaplain. Recently, he was given the award as outstanding young leader in his community.
Offspring
The last child is Andre who is a computer analyst for the Caribbean Examinations Council in Barbados. Middle sons are Noel and Lindsay. Lindsay is a television engineer in Cayman. Noel is a musician based in Orlando, Florida.
Raising four sons was really no problem, says Alma Blair. "I kept wondering how other people complained." She had no problem getting her sons to clean the house, to scrub their bathrooms, to cook and to wash their small clothes. She made them do all of this in spite of the fact that there were helpers.
To this day, the mother and sons are very close. "If they have a problem, I am the first person they call," she said. Steve (Herro Jnr.) attended Oral Roberts' University, would abandon several of his early counselling sessions to call his mother in Jamaica and ask her advice. Now that everyone has left home, the couple are far from lonely in their 14-bedroom home. Dr. Blair loves to entertain and prepares dinner for as many as 40 on Sundays. She also hosts board members and other groups.
"We believe in fellowship and I really love to entertain." Her husband, she says, does not mind, as long as he is forewarned.
With a last word on her marriage, she says, "Trust and forgiveness are also important. "These are the building blocks of a very spiritual relationship.
"Put effort into whatever you do in the way of preserving your relationship," she advises. "Never let the day come when you can't be bothered."
