Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

The lead­ers of the Wa­ter of Life Taber­na­cle must be con­grat­u­lat­ed. Why? You have dis­played awe­some courage, dy­nam­ic re­silience and supreme faith in God. You un­der­stand the text that says, "No weapon formed against you shall pros­per." Like Moses, you know how to stand still and see the sal­va­tion of God. You know what it is to suf­fer, to be per­se­cut­ed, to be en­dan­gered. You can­not and should not be in­tim­i­dat­ed. There is a prin­ci­ple called re­spect for hu­man dig­ni­ty. We are here to­day, call­ing up­on the lead­ers of our na­tion to ob­serve that there is a com­mod­i­ty called nat­ur­al jus­tice. Ar­ti­cle 18 of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights states: "Every­one has the right to free­dom of thought, con­science and re­li­gion; this right in­cludes free­dom to change his re­li­gion or be­lief, and free­dom, ei­ther alone in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers and in pub­lic or pri­vate, to man­i­fest his re­li­gion or be­lief in teach­ing, prac­tice, wor­ship and ob­ser­vance." Lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all must not be a clich&ea­cute;. As Catholic schol­ar Min­nerath has said, "There can be no re­al peace with­out jus­tice." The Wa­ter of Life Church has been plunged in­to a cri­sis. But God is big­ger than any prob­lem you and I may have. Where is the IRO in this sce­nario? Af­ter 26 years on this land, you ex­pe­ri­enced enor­mous pain as you watched the de­mo­li­tion of your church. This could on­ly be de­scribed as a crim­i­nal act. I agree with Bro David Ab­du­lah. He com­ment­ed on your fight to get free­dom for decades. Nev­er for­get the state­ment that he made, "Peo­ple were jailed, they lost their jobs, but be­cause you had faith and per­se­vered you won. And you will per­se­vere and win this strug­gle."

The cadas­tral plan proves that the land be­longs to Ca­roni (1975) Ltd. We have heard that this is­sue will be dis­cussed when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar meets with the lead­ers of the five po­lit­i­cal par­ties in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. You have the sup­port of the MSJ, you al­so have the sup­port of the Caribbean Re­li­gious Lib­er­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (Car­la). Oc­to­ber 12, 2011, was a trag­ic day in the his­to­ry of T&T. Those who de­stroyed your church can atone for their mis­takes by giv­ing you a new build­ing. This would pro­duce the type of heal­ing that is re­quired. Os­wald Pierre con­tin­ues to be the bridge be­tween Car­la and the Wa­ter of Life Taber­na­cle. He must be con­grat­u­lat­ed. Re­mem­ber that no storm lasts for­ev­er. This is not an easy na­tion to gov­ern. Lead­ers re­quire the ex­per­tise to cre­ate uni­ty in di­ver­si­ty. There is a link be­tween race, re­li­gion, class and pol­i­tics. How­ev­er, there are in­di­vid­u­als who seek to ex­ploit the di­vi­sions in the so­ci­ety for per­son­al gain. They are an­gry when told that we must put coun­try be­fore self. All the share­hold­ers in­clud­ing the Es­tate Man­age­ment De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny have an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate RDT: rain­bow de­vel­op­ment think­ing. On No­vem­ber 27, 1917, the Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance be­came law. This act was re­pealed on March 30, 1951, af­ter 34 years of in­tense strug­gle led by your cham­pi­on glad­i­a­tor, El­ton George Grif­fith. At that time your pi­o­neers had to hide be­cause you were de­nied re­li­gious free­dom. Let us re­mind all of our cit­i­zens that re­li­gious free­dom is a gift from God to peo­ple every­where. The om­nipo­tent Cre­ator, Je­ho­vah Jireh, gave us that spe­cial priv­i­lege. We are free to choose a re­li­gion, change our re­li­gion or have no re­li­gion. This fun­da­men­tal hu­man right must be re­spect­ed. I was priv­i­leged to at­tend your Prayer Pil­grim­age on Feb­ru­ary 26. It was an ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­pe­ri­ence. On that day we sang and claimed the vic­to­ry.

The at­tack on the Wa­ter of Life Taber­na­cle was un­fair, un­for­tu­nate and un­war­rant­ed. Your re­sponse has been de­cent and dig­ni­fied. You have ex­hib­it­ed enor­mous re­spect for the lead­ers of var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions. You have is­sued a call for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion. You have ini­ti­at­ed di­a­logue with sev­er­al im­por­tant peo­ple in­clud­ing the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter. You have a vi­sion and God will help you to ac­com­plish this vi­sion. You were not de­signed to be a vic­tim; you were de­signed to be a con­queror. Do not for­get the apos­tle Paul's sum­ma­ry in Ro­mans 8:36-39: "36. As it is writ­ten, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are ac­count­ed as sheep for the slaugh­ter. 37. Nay, in all these things we are more than con­querors through him that loved us. 38. For I am per­suad­ed that nei­ther death, nor life, nor an­gels, nor prin­ci­pal­i­ties, nor pow­ers, nor things present, nor things to come. 39. Nor height, nor depth, nor any oth­er crea­ture, shall be able to sep­a­rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Je­sus our Lord." Many re­li­gious groups have re­mained silent. Why? An­drea Be­sikof vowed to tell the sto­ry of the Nazi bru­tal­i­ty in­flict­ed up­on her grand­fa­ther and oth­er rel­a­tives. Imag­ine, the Ger­man beast Adolf Hitler forced peo­ple to dig their graves and while they were scream­ing for mer­cy his sol­diers buried them.

Ms Be­sikof made a very im­por­tant state­ment: "Not to trans­mit an ex­pe­ri­ence is to be­tray that ex­pe­ri­ence. The sto­ry must be told." Your cel­e­bra­tion will be on March 30. I hope that there will be a speedy res­o­lu­tion be­fore Fri­day, so that the cel­e­bra­tion will be mean­ing­ful. Let hope re­place pes­simism. Let faith re­place dis­cour­age­ment; let light re­place dark- ness. The tide will turn be­cause God is an awe­some God. Do not sur­ren­der. Your cause is a just one, nat­ur­al jus­tice will tri­umph. Pray with­out ceas­ing.

This is not a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test but groups such as the me­dia must play an ef­fec­tive role. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans should be hon­est and give sup­port to this no­ble strug­gle. Those who de­mol­ished this taber­na­cle sought to hu­mil­i­ate the wor­ship­pers and de­stroy their will. But the op­po­site has tak­en place; it has em­pow­ered your re­solve. You know that faith in God is the key to vic­to­ry. You do not know the fu­ture, but you know who con­trols the fu­ture. When you walk through the storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dawn. Please teach your chil­dren to be paragons of virtue and courage. Teach them to de­vel­op mon­u­men­tal faith in God. Sun­set will al­ways give way to sun­rise. Arise and shine.