RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says it was the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist faith that saved her fa­ther’s life and in­spired the guid­ing prin­ci­ple she has car­ried through­out her own jour­ney—“put God in front and walk be­hind.”

Speak­ing at the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in Moru­ga yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered an emo­tion­al ad­dress, re­count­ing a deeply per­son­al child­hood ex­pe­ri­ence that shaped her faith and lead­er­ship.

She told the gath­er­ing that at the age of nine, her fa­ther, Lil­raj, be­came grave­ly ill and re­mained hos­pi­talised for weeks, with doc­tors un­able to de­ter­mine what was wrong.

Des­per­ate for help, she said the fam­i­ly turned to a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist church in Pe­nal.

“As God is my wit­ness, from the very first ser­vice he at­tend­ed, his health be­gan to im­prove, and his life was spared,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the gath­er­ing.

She ex­plained that from that mo­ment, her fam­i­ly em­braced the faith, and she was lat­er bap­tised at Quinam Beach—an ex­pe­ri­ence that left a last­ing im­pact.

“From this day, put God in front and walk be­hind,” she re­called be­ing told dur­ing her bap­tism, adding that she has car­ried those words with her through­out her life.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that prin­ci­ple guid­ed her through chal­lenges in Par­lia­ment, in Cab­i­net, in the courts and dur­ing dif­fi­cult per­son­al mo­ments.

The Prime Min­is­ter, flanked by mem­bers of her Cab­i­net, was warm­ly re­ceived in Moru­ga with rhyth­mic drum­ming, singing and danc­ing by mem­bers of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty.

The vi­brant spir­i­tu­al wel­come marked her fifth con­sec­u­tive year at­tend­ing the cel­e­bra­tions at the Moru­ga/Table­land site.

De­scrib­ing the lo­ca­tion as sa­cred ground, she said it holds the mem­o­ry of the strug­gles and re­silience of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith.

She traced the faith’s ori­gins to the Merikens—freed Africans who set­tled in south Trinidad in the ear­ly 1800s—and high­light­ed how their tra­di­tions en­dured de­spite the 1917 Shouter Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance, which crim­i­nalised their form of wor­ship.

For more than three decades, she not­ed, fol­low­ers prac­tised in se­cret, pray­ing in the bush and hid­ing their bells, but nev­er aban­don­ing their faith.

“They tried to si­lence you, but your faith grew stronger,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­flect­ed on the re­peal of the Or­di­nance in 1951 and the es­tab­lish­ment of Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day as a na­tion­al hol­i­day in 1996 un­der a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment.

Turn­ing to de­vel­op­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter reaf­firmed her com­mit­ment to the com­mu­ni­ty, an­nounc­ing that Gov­ern­ment will es­tab­lish a long-await­ed sec­ondary school for the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty.

She not­ed that dur­ing her pre­vi­ous tenure, land was grant­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port was pro­vid­ed for the es­tab­lish­ment of the St Bar­bara’s Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School and EC­CE Cen­tre in Mal­oney Gar­dens.

“The path­way out of pover­ty, to em­pow­er­ment and dig­ni­ty, is ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed to the lega­cy of in­sti­tu­tions such as Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary School in Moru­ga as ex­am­ples of how com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven ed­u­ca­tion can up­lift gen­er­a­tions.

In clos­ing, she urged cit­i­zens to draw in­spi­ra­tion from the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty’s re­silience, faith and uni­ty.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is too blessed to be bro­ken,” she said.

She end­ed her ad­dress with a call to praise and thanks­giv­ing, en­cour­ag­ing the crowd to make “a joy­ful noise un­to the Lord” as cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ued.