Palm Sunday blessings in troubled area

He was addressing a Palm Sunday prayer service with members of the Spiritual Baptist faith at the Jimroy Wyse Recreation Park, corner of Crown Trace and Enterprise Street, Enterprise early yesterday morning.

Cummings, dressed in a flowing green shirt and grey slacks, said “doing nothing” in the face of such “senseless killings” was “not an option and had to do more with humanity than with politics or religion.” “We must be our brother’s keeper,” Cummings said, adding the prayer service was the “beginning of the intervention” in the Enterprise community.

He said the Foundation would be launched after the Easter holidays and would identify the “vulnerable and the ambitious” and assist them to achieve their goals while uplifting the community.

Cummings also participated in the service by the lighting of a solitary candle in the middle of the tent around which oil, wine and water were sprinkled at various intervals.

Also addressing the prayer service was Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodhan who pledged the council’s support for the Foundation saying the ultimate goal was to “return peace to the community.” “By God’s will and the people’s faith, peace will come back to Enterprise and we will be able to get back that enterprising spirit back into Enterprise,” Boodhan said.

Meanwhile, chairwoman of the Recreation Park’s managing committee Ginelle Small-Cummings said she felt “extremely positive” about the prayer session and its potential effect on the community.

“I feel really, really positive about what is happening in my community, today I welcome the Shouter Baptist community to the Park because knowing that the community goes through this crisis and only the negative part is happening but today it’s good to see this prayer service,” she said.

“I would like to see a reaching out to all the children, the youths because we have to start at the tender age, we also have the Enterprise Youth Club happening in Enterprise but which people not seeing but this is a positive part so we are working towards developing the youths, it’s just to get them now involved positively,” she said.

The Prayer session, which was scheduled to begin at 6am, witnessed dozens of Spiritual Baptist members, all outfitted in their traditional colourful dresses, complete with ornate headpieces, assemble at the Park, some making the journey from as far as Diego Martin and Claxton Bay.

And in true Baptist style, accompanied by the pulsating rhythms of three drummers, the congregation began by singing the victory hymn- “Marching to Zion” before raising their voices as various Bishops and elders led in prayer.

There were noticeable police patrols as marked police vehicles were seen at regular intervals.