Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

We live in a law­less, in­dis­ci­pline so­ci­ety. What is even more shock­ing is that in­dis­ci­pline is some­times af­firmed and ap­plaud­ed. This shock­ing state did not de­vel­op overnight. No, a thou­sand times no. It was a grad­ual process as spir­i­tu­al val­ues were re­placed by the 'tal­ent­ed' god­less and reck­less en­ter­tain­ers. Think about the fol­low­ing sit­u­a­tions: pri­vate cars, max­is and trucks break­ing the law with mu­sic blast­ing, dis­turb­ing every­one. Vis­it some of the all-in­clu­sive fetes-peo­ple are drink­ing as though they would die the next day. Po­lice and sol­diers are drink­ing in bars and threat­en­ing in­di­vid­u­als. Think of the men who go to fetes in the Wood­brook/St James area and while in­tox­i­cat­ed, uri­nate on walls, pave­ments and on parked cars. I have to ask this ques­tion again and again: Does Car­ni­val give more to the so­ci­ety than it takes? Then you have fa­thers who abuse their wives af­ter a drink­ing binge. Some of these fa­thers al­so abuse their chil­dren. Af­ter, when so­bri­ety ar­rives, they apol­o­gise. But this sce­nario has gone on for years. The ac­cep­tance of the apol­o­gy leads to greater abuse. Through­out this quag­mire health ed­u­ca­tors, pas­tors, coun­sel­lors must be bold and pro­claim the drug-free mes­sage. Our task is to be coura­geous enough to go to the street-cor­ners, schools and church­es and in a dy­nam­ic fash­ion, ad­vise the youth to say no to drugs-mar­i­jua­na, co­caine, al­co­hol, to­bac­co, etc. What about the date-rape drugs? Un­scrupu­lous men in an all-in­clu­sive par­ty last year spiked the drink of a naive young la­dy. Then they at­tempt­ed to kid­nap her. For­tu­nate­ly, there was a fe­male of­fi­cer who was at the right place at the right time. She was weak, could of­fer very lit­tle re­sis­tance but she had enough strength to beg the po­lice to res­cue her. The par­a­site thugs then sped off. This is an in­dis­ci­plined, law­less so­ci­ety. But thank God, there are those who have de­cid­ed to make a dif­fer­ence. I have warned teenagers that "they should not hug the thug!" We have the cri­sis of moth­ers drunk and stum­bling in front of their chil­dren. Next morn­ing, these moth­ers are telling their chil­dren that they should not drink al­co­hol. Dear youth, Car­ni­val or no Car­ni­val, you must say no to drugs. D for dis­as­ter, D for dis­tress, D for dev­as­ta­tion, D for de­struc­tion, D for di­vorce, D for de­spair, D for de­pres­sion, D for death. Life is about choic­es and mem­o­ries. You make good choic­es, you have great mem­o­ries; you make poor choic­es, you have hor­ri­ble mem­o­ries.

Car­ni­val or no Car­ni­val, say no. Have you ever heard about Jim Long­neck­er? He used to play foot­ball and lacrosse. But he end­ed up in a wheel­chair. As a ju­nior, he helped his team win the state cham­pi­onship. He was a top mu­si­cal per­former, great foot­ball quar­ter­back, a bril­liant ho­n­our stu­dent. This is just part of his sto­ry: "It hap­pened the sum­mer be­fore Jim's se­nior year. A top ho­n­our stu­dent, Jim had just re­turned to St Louis from Bal­ti­more, where he'd been at­tend­ing an in­vi­ta­tion-on­ly sem­i­nar at Johns Hop­kins Med­ical School. Jim planned to be­come a doc­tor. Jim's mom and sev­er­al friends met him at the air­port to cel­e­brate his home­com­ing. From there, Jim went with his bud­dies to a birth­day par­ty. A keg of beer was at the par­ty, too. Dur­ing the par­ty, Jim and his friends de­cid­ed to move the cel­e­bra­tion to an­oth­er place. Jim climbed in­to an open-top Jeep with four friends. All five kids had been drink­ing. As oth­ers cars fol­lowed the jeep in a car­a­van, the dri­ver of Jim's car be­gan "car surf­ing," veer­ing back and forth across the road. In the back, Jim was stand­ing up, clown­ing around and wav­ing to kids in the oth­er cars. But when Jim grabbed for the roll bar, he missed and fell out of the Jeep. Sud­den­ly, the par­ty was over. Jim lay in the street. He was qui­et. Too qui­et. Soon, pierc­ing sirens filled the si­lence. "Is he go­ing to die?" Jim's mom asked the doc­tor at the hos­pi­tal. "No. But he prob­a­bly won't be the boy you used to know." For a week, a res­pi­ra­tor breathed for Jim. His cheek­bones and an eye sock­et were crushed. His jaw and col­lar­bone were bro­ken. He lin­gered in a deep co­ma for two weeks and was fed through a stom­ach tube for two months. Af­ter five long months, Jim start­ed speak­ing. Some of his ear­li­est words were lyrics from a Bea­t­les' song. "He heard some­one singing in the hall, then fin­ished the song him­self," re­calls Pen­ny Long­neck­er, Jim's mom. Jim now lives in a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter in Sedalia, Mis­souri. He has suf­fered se­ri­ous mem­o­ry loss. He is al­so blind in the right eye.Some­times, he just ex­plodes.

In the Jour­nal Drugs: A Dead­ly Game, he pro­vides 5 tips:

Don't drink. Drink­ing is dumb. If you think it will get you a girl­friend, you don't want that kind of girl­friend.

Drink­ing is not worth all the work it takes to get bet­ter af­ter an ac­ci­dent like mine. Its just not.

Don't ever ride with some­one who's been drink­ing. Rid­ing with some­one who is drunk is like dri­ving drunk your­self.

Look out for oth­er kids who have been drink­ing. If they get in­to a car, try to stop them, even if you have to call the po­lice.

If your friends make fun of you, just say you're be­ing smart. Tell them, "Jim Long­neck­er gave me a good rea­son not to drink and dri­ve." Maybe my sto­ry will help them, too.

He con­cludes by stat­ing that he did a re­al­ly dumb thing. He says, "I made a bad de­ci­sion, and I'll have to car­ry it with me for the rest of my life." Dear youth and par­ents, Car­ni­val or no Car­ni­val....say no! A loud no, a soft no, a vi­brat­ing no! Say yes to de­cen­cy, com­pas­sion, sta­bil­i­ty. Say yes to mau­by, or­ange juice, ap­ple juice, lemon­ade. Say yes to emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence. Say yes to se­cu­ri­ty and good choic­es.Say no to pre-mar­i­tal sex.Say yes to gen­uine friend­ship. "I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all, but what­ev­er I have placed in God's hands, that I still pos­sess."-Mar­tin Luther