By Mark Dawes, Staff ReporterSINCE JULY 1, three women, clad in garments having the colours black, green and gold, have been walking the perimeter of National Heroes Park in Kingston every morning. It's a prayer-walk. Beginning their daily routine at 5:30 a.m., they walk holding a Jamaican flag and a sign showing the number of murders that have taken place since the beginning of the year.
They will be walking for 42 days. Each day, they say, represents a year in the life of Independent Jamaica. Their walk is scheduled to end on August 11. The three women Celta Kirkland, Betty Ann Blaine, Yvonne Coke testify that God had in recent days been speaking to them individually to do something of the kind. When they compared notes about what God had been saying to each of them, they realised that they were hearing essentially the same message and it resonated favourably with each one. They say they were each told to go to National Heroes Park to pray and to begin a fast for 42 days.
PRAYER-WALK
God pointed them to the National Heroes Park for their prayer-walk, Mrs. Coke said, because of its symbolism. "Many of our National Heroes were people committed to God Sam Sharpe, George William Gordon, and Paul Bogle are clear examples. They had a vision of a country with limitless potential. We walk and pray in the Park to take us back to the foundation upon which the nation is built and to point to God as the ultimate foundation," Mrs. Coke said.
Mrs. Coke, 51, a Chartered Professional Secretary (CPS) and a former life-underwriter with Life of Jamaica, said "We are expecting God to move after 42 days".
Well known children's advocate, Betty Ann Blaine, 55, said just before July 1 she got a vision of herself and others sitting in National Heroes Park where gunmen showed up to hand in their guns saying "We are not firing anymore guns. We done with that life."
Mrs. Blaine became a born-again Christian in 2002. She with her husband are the proprietors of The Fish Place restaurant. She said after the second day of the walk the realisation came that the activity was not just for the nation but for herself and her two friends.
"I realised that this was about God 'breaking us' because we are microcosms of the nation. The more I walked, the more I felt Jesus breaking us and humbling us. There are many mornings that we weep. The only thing left for us to do is to lie flat on the ground. We weep from our belly bottoms," Mrs. Blaine said.
Mrs. Coke said that at times while walking, the three will find that words fail them, and they just breakdown and weep for the nation. A special weeping, Mrs. Blaine said, comes upon them when they get to the site of the mass graves for the old people who died in the Eventide Home fire in 1980.
"I believe the main reason God brought me back here is to be a prayer facilitator," said Celta Kirkland. "What is amazing is that God just said to me 'Go home and pray'. He never said 'Go start a church' He just said 'Pray'. With that I just came home and said 'Okay Lord, you know best'," she said.
Mrs. Kirkland, 63, had been living in the United States for 35 years. Then she packed up and returned to the island of her birth because, she said, God told her to return to the island to pray for the nation.
A CALL TO THE ISLAND
A retired registered nurse, she returned to the island in 2002 after living comfortably in Atlanta. Her son, a highly successful businessman, ensured that his mom lived comfortably.
But she grew uncomfortable, despite the comforts. She became unsettled. Though living in the United States for many years, she kept in touch with happenings in Jamaica. She visited her homeland at least once yearly. On one such visit in 2002, she sensed God telling her to come back to the island. That same year she relocated.
A born-again Christian for 22 years, she was an elder in The Father's House, in Atlanta where famed preacher and co-founder of the Promise-Keepers Movement, the Rev. Wellington Boone, is the senior pastor.
Before she left, Rev. Boone had prophesied on her life that she would become very influential in governmental areas in the arena of prayer. She says this has come to pass, for a way has been opened up for her to pray daily but separately for two Cabinet Ministers.
After walking the perimeter of the Park, the three regularly stop under a tree and meditate on a Bible lesson and place their thoughts on what they believe God to be saying to them in a journal. That time is also used to prepare devotional thoughts, which are used by 'Disclosure' the radio talk-show aired on Hot 102 and hosted by Antonnette Haughton-Cardenas who with Mrs. Blaine founded the United People's Party that contested unsuccessfully the 2002 General Election.
Various persons seeing the three women walking around the Park have inquired what they are about. They happily share their burden for the nation and sometimes various people will join them on some mornings. Anyone is welcome to join them, Mrs. Coke said. Furthermore, no harm has befallen them, and the 24-hour presence of soldiers from the Jamaica Defence Force in the Park, she said, is reassuring.
"We (Jamaica) are ripe for judgement," says Yvonne Coke, who is also a biographer of Father Hugh Sherlock and founder of Hands Across Jamaica for Righteousness. "We have compromised our spiritual heritage for the god of mammon and we cannot call a spade
a spade."
* Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com
