When Pas­tor In­di­ra Newal­lo takes the podi­um at The Apos­tles’ Min­istries (TAM) in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, she preach­es from a place of ex­pe­ri­ence and wis­dom. The peo­ple she coun­sels in her women’s min­istry, “Her Essence Re­vealed”, open their lives to her be­cause her sto­ry is not un­like theirs.

Dis­obe­di­ence to God, “tox­ic re­la­tion­ships” and oth­er ad­ver­si­ties had forced her life to spi­ral down­wards, but re­newed faith and a de­ter­mi­na­tion to “put God first” brought her back.

Newal­lo and her then nine-year-old daugh­ter were kid­napped at gun­point some 13 years ago while re­turn­ing to her moth­er’s house to head back out to a fam­i­ly din­ner af­ter choir prac­tice at church. At the time, she had a mat­ter re­gard­ing the cus­tody of her daugh­ter in the High Court.

Dur­ing that same pe­ri­od, she al­so spent one night at the Women’s Prison in Gold­en Grove on an al­le­ga­tion which was lat­er dis­missed. The prison be­ing “crowd­ed” at the time with both lo­cal and for­eign women, Newal­lo spent the night with in­mates who had been await­ing tri­als for se­ri­ous crimes.

Open show­ers and toi­lets, “hot sug­ar wa­ter” as tea and hops with some­thing she could not re­mem­ber, formed part of her stay. She re­mained awake all night out of fear and end­ed up lis­ten­ing to the sto­ries of her two cell­mates. She could not help but ob­serve their holy books of var­i­ous re­li­gions. They held on to the sa­cred lit­er­a­ture for hope, Newal­lo thought as she re­flect­ed on the dis­obe­di­ence and wa­ver­ing faith in God that had brought her to her fate. Lat­er, one of the women would be freed.

Newal­lo would re­alise that she too had not been aban­doned; a di­vine hand was or­ches­trat­ing her new sea­son.

“Good can come out of a bad sit­u­a­tion. If you would have told me ten years ago that I would be in min­istry, I would have asked if you were talk­ing to the right per­son,” Newal­lo, 52, said in a re­cent Guardian Me­dia in­ter­view.

“Eigh­teen years ago, my lawyer in­vit­ed me to church and that was my first in­tro­duc­tion to TAM. That first day, there were two for­eign guest speak­ers and that man, Pas­tor Thorn­ley, proph­e­sied to me that God would use my voice again for his glo­ry. Af­ter that, I re-ded­i­cat­ed my life to God. I got ful­ly in­volved.”

Newal­lo said her great­est aware­ness of God had come many years be­fore, at the age of 16 when a friend of one of her sis­ters in­vit­ed her to do mis­sion­ary work for a month in Colom­bia. She set about ea­ger­ly liv­ing for God and at­tend­ing church, but hav­ing grown up in a strict Hin­du home with eight oth­er sib­lings, by her ear­ly 20s, she was more con­cerned with her free­dom and the lim­ing, par­ties and bad com­pa­ny that came along with it.

By age 34, Newal­lo was reel­ing from a “rough” mar­riage and di­vorce. Re­al­is­ing that she was be­com­ing over­whelmed by cir­cum­stances, her lawyer in­ter­vened, invit­ing her to his church. Draw­ing on her ear­li­er years of be­ing “on fire” for God, she im­mersed her­self in the work of TAM, a Full Gospel church in Long­denville.

“I nev­er missed a meet­ing and that is what helped me grow; build strength, char­ac­ter.

“Your whole per­spec­tive changes be­cause you get teach­ing on a Tues­day night, Fri­day night and Sun­day morn­ing ser­vice,” she said.

She had moved to an an­nex on her moth­er’s prop­er­ty with her daugh­ter, Thais, and bal­anced be­ing a mem­ber of TAM’s wor­ship team with be­ing own­er of her hair and beau­ty sa­lon, Stu­dio 52.

About two years lat­er, she and Thais were star­ing down the guns and a cut­lass of kid­nap­pers. She had just fin­ished singing the song, “Mighty to Save” at choir prac­tice and be­lieves this is one rea­son she and her daugh­ter were re­leased un­harmed. She would be aware of a di­vine force guid­ing her the night she spent in prison too.

In 2009, she mar­ried TAM’s pas­tor and crick­eter-turned-crick­et­ing coach, Kirk Newal­lo.

“It was nev­er a date be­tween him and me. It was al­ways a group of peo­ple and it had to be God be­cause…I nev­er thought of get­ting mar­ried to a pas­tor,” she re­vealed amidst peals of laugh­ter.

“He is in­cred­i­ble. He was one of the best lis­ten­ers. When you are speak­ing to him, it’s like you have his full at­ten­tion…an ex­cel­lent lis­ten­er. I think that kind of drew me to him. The things that he shared, his wis­dom, his love for God was wow…There was a peace that he car­ried,” she said.

Called “lucky” by many oth­er women, the pas­tor said rather than by luck, trans­for­ma­tion came through ac­tive­ly plac­ing her faith in God, show­ing love to oth­ers with­out judg­ment and obey­ing God’s tim­ing. It can hap­pen for oth­ers, the down-to-earth Newal­lo in­sist­ed.

She con­tin­ued to be part of the wor­ship team–nine years in all–aid­ed by for­mal vo­cal train­ing in Cunu­pia as she was the most “mu­si­cal­ly chal­lenged” of the group. They would sing and wor­ship wher­ev­er they were called; Christ­mas func­tions at the Di­vali Na­gar, be­ing one of those places.

“It was a chal­lenge for me mu­si­cal­ly, but I poured my whole heart and soul in­to it. When it was time to wor­ship on a Sun­day morn­ing or a Tues­day night, some­times if I had to fast or spend time pray­ing, I would do it be­cause when you wor­ship you want to im­pact oth­er peo­ple’s lives.

“It might be one line that would touch some­one’s heart to bring some sort of com­fort be­cause peo­ple go through lots that they don’t tell you, but you min­is­ter to them in song.”

En­cour­aged by her hus­band, even­tu­al­ly she tran­si­tioned in­to pas­toral teach­ing.

“Every year I in­creased. I went to Bible school and got a diplo­ma in The­ol­o­gy, did cours­es in grief re­cov­ery and I’m cer­ti­fied in mar­riage coun­selling.”

Her train­ing brings heal­ing, restora­tion, and whole­ness to peo­ple who have emo­tion­al bag­gage by show­ing them that to be freed of bur­dens and come in­to whole­ness, one must let go of the past, she said.

She and Pas­tor Kirk, lead mar­riage coun­selling where they em­pha­sise trans­paren­cy and for­give­ness in mar­riage and of­fer free work­shops at least once a year for church mem­bers, who al­so bring oth­ers seek­ing guid­ance in their re­la­tion­ships.

“We al­ways say if you have a strong fam­i­ly, you have a strong church, a strong com­mu­ni­ty and a strong na­tion. We want to see healthy, func­tion­al cou­ples, a healthy fam­i­ly life.”

Some have be­come mem­bers of their church through such coun­selling.

“They say this is the pas­tor that helped me. They see this church, see some­thing dif­fer­ent and want to come.”

Though she be­lieves that mar­riages are “most un­der at­tack” at present, Newal­lo coun­sels a va­ri­ety of peo­ple; from teens and young adults to sin­gle par­ents and ma­ture peo­ple. Their is­sues range from fi­nan­cial needs to dif­fer­ent types of abuse and de­sires to harm them­selves. The church al­so cur­rent­ly as­sists Venezue­lan na­tion­als, some of whom have joined their con­gre­ga­tion.

“We are a pres­ence-ori­ent­ed church. We re­al­ly be­lieve in the pres­ence of God,” Newal­lo said.

Newal­lo said she us­es her busi­ness as an ex­ten­sion of her min­istry. She has run the pop­u­lar Stu­dio 52 sa­lon for 35 years.

“You get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pray for peo­ple, coun­sel peo­ple, em­pow­er peo­ple. I use it as a fo­rum,” said the pas­tor who feels like she is “ac­com­plish­ing the best part of her des­tiny” cur­rent­ly.

She is proud that her en­tire fam­i­ly has come to know the Lord. She cred­its her 79-year-old moth­er with be­ing a source of strength to her and with keep­ing the large fam­i­ly to­geth­er at all costs.

“We call her “Uni­ty” be­cause she in­sists that the fam­i­ly must nev­er be di­vid­ed.

“My moth­er is a re­al­ly hum­ble yet strong and pow­er­ful woman. She is like my best friend. That’s how I want­ed it to be with my daugh­ter and me.”

Newal­lo said de­spite some of the past trau­ma in their lives, her daugh­ter, whom she de­scribed as “beau­ti­ful and tal­ent­ed” and “her heart­beat and joy” has emerged well. She is now 23 and works with her moth­er at the sa­lon and had worked in the chil­dren’s min­istry of their church up to two years ago.

“Her fa­ther was a good fa­ther to her. He made sure she went to the best schools and was well-pro­vid­ed-for. We had our dif­fer­ences, but she was our pri­or­i­ty.”

Be­fore the COVID-19-clo­sure of bor­ders, Thais was prepar­ing to leave for school abroad to at­tain her cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in make-up and mi­crob­lad­ing, Newal­lo said.

Though Newal­lo feels that this time has brought a re­al test for the mes­sage of the church, since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, TAM has had a greater on­line pres­ence and has seen a larg­er au­di­ence. The church con­tin­ues to con­duct three ser­vices per week.

Af­ter not­ing that some were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­creased “ten­sion” due to be­ing stuck in close quar­ters dur­ing this lock­down pe­ri­od, Newal­lo de­cid­ed to do talks on hav­ing a good at­ti­tude and cre­at­ing an at­mos­phere of peace, and on the in­evitabil­i­ty of change.

“Like in every­thing else, noth­ing bad lasts for­ev­er. We are in a sea­son. As bad as COVID-19 is, we will not re­main in one po­si­tion. This is where trust in God comes in,” she said.

In one of her on­line ser­mons, she said change hap­pens with­out us and de­spite us and we must find the ma­tu­ri­ty to tran­si­tion. In the his­to­ry of the church, of­ten in a time of chaos, there is re­vival, she said.