Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has urged Bap­tists not to for­get their call­ing in so­ci­ety.

He was speak­ing yes­ter­day dur­ing Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions at the un­fin­ished struc­ture on Bap­tist Lands, Sig­nal Hill.

The event at­tract­ed sev­er­al THA of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor, Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett, Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary (OCS) Megan Mor­ri­son and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary in OCS Nigel Taitt. For­mer mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvon Mor­ris was al­so in at­ten­dance.

Au­gus­tine said the el­ders may re­mem­ber be­ing un­able to wor­ship, hav­ing to be silent in­stead of shout­ing and hav­ing to run from po­lice.

"Some­times, the hard­est thing to do is to keep a flame lit when you are free. Some­times, free­dom comes with com­pla­cen­cy and such com­fort that you for­get to keep the fire burn­ing. Some­times, the gen­er­a­tion that comes af­ter­ward...it is dif­fi­cult for that gen­er­a­tion to keep the flame burn­ing," he said.

Au­gus­tine said reignit­ing the flame of the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty is vi­tal.

"Where are the moth­ers and fa­thers pray­ing for our young peo­ple? Or are our moth­ers and fa­thers en­cour­ag­ing qui­et­ly be­cause the house­hold is ben­e­fit­ing from the re­ceipt of crime?"

He said Bap­tists must get ac­tive in so­ci­ety and pour their fiery spir­it in­to young peo­ple.

"Now is the time for us to pour in­to them and get them lit with the fire of hope in their souls that will not al­low them to sit still and be lazy."

He said so­ci­ety must al­so stop judg­ing and start help­ing.

Rev­erend Ucil­da Woods im­plored the faith­ful to pray for Au­gus­tine, "so he could do his best be­fore they move him out of To­ba­go, and I know it hard for him to move. They have to come bet­ter than that. He is a man of God."

Au­gus­tine al­so urged his rel­e­vant sec­re­taries to help the Bap­tists fin­ish the struc­ture at Sig­nal Hill so that 2027 cel­e­bra­tions could be en­joyed en­closed in the com­fort of air-con­di­tion­ing.