| "In
past years I have gone into the Gully and
led rude boys to Christ. Upon arriving in
the upper part I was disappointed to learn
that all but one of the guys that I had
brought to Christ on my past trips were
either dead on in prison."
CHRISTAFARI:
CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE RASTA AT A TIME!
KINGSTON, JAMAICA - Jamaica
for Jesus, “Don’t expect to change
Jamaica, expect for Jamaica to change
you”: At the end of July a few
members of Christafari had the privilege of
joining Action House and 30 of our friends
and fellow ministers in a ten day missions
trip to the beautiful island of Jamaica.
Most of the Missionaries on this trip had
heard about our venture to the island
through my e-mail updates and our ads in
major Christian magazines. God could
not have chosen a better team for us to
minister. We set out to minister to
Jamaica through concerts, drama and skits,
street witnessing and visiting an orphanage
and a children’s remand center. Our
goal on this trip was not to Westernize or
Americanize the Jamaicans, but rather to
listen to them and learn from them, and then
minister appropriately according to the
context of their culture and the given
situation. At the morning Bible study on the
first day I told the team “Don’t expect
to change Jamaica, expect for Jamaica to
change you”. It did.
The
Orphanage, “Showing fatherless children
the love of our Father”: In
Jamaica 85% of all children are born outside
of wedlock. Most of these kids are raised by
one parent but some of them are not even
that fortunate. One of the most
heartbreaking days was when we visited the
Blossom Orphanage. Upon arrival the
team immediately dispersed and everyone
grabbed a kid or two to hold and care for.
It was a love-fest as we attempted to give
these children an example of the love that
they had never received from a parent and
reveal to them the love of Christ.
There wasn’t a dry eye in our missionary
team as we went from one crib to another and
held the children. The hardest room to
visit was the one filled with kids that were
born with diseases or abnormalities. A
few of the children had Cerebral Palsy.
Some of them weren’t even given names so
some members of our team gave them one.
Outside of the orphanage we played with the
healthy children. We gave all of them
gifts (clothing, toys and hygiene products),
and blew up balloons and made animals out of
them for the kids to play with. One of
the team members brought a major percussion
arsenal with him so we played Jamaican
rhythms, and those who didn’t get an
instrument banged on buckets or anything
that made a sound. The percussion proved to
be a big hit everywhere we went. Then Max
pulled out his sax and the kids were
mesmerized. The hand drums were beating, Max
played his sax, and I chatted raggamuffin.
The kids loved it! I sang songs about
Jesus and then led them in some Jamaican
worship choruses. At the end of our
visit I had everyone on our team lay their
hands on the children and we prayed for
them. It was hard to leave this place. We
all wished that we could take these kids
home with us. We will definitely return
again to this place. In fact one of our
missionaries stated that she hopes to come
back to the island to work at the Blossom
Orphanage. Please keep these children
in your prayers.
The
Children’s Remand Center, “8 rasta
youths in solitary confinement gave their
lives to Christ”: Another life
changing experience was visiting C.O.P.S.E.
a children’s remand
center. This place is set aside for
troubled youths. Normally when a kid
between the ages of 8 and 18 is caught
breaking the law the police contact his
family and he is remanded into the custody
of his parents. C.O.P.S.E. is for
those children who’s parents refuse to
take them back into their home.
Essentially, it is a children’s prison.
While the rest of the team ministered to the
majority of the children outside, I was
given the opportunity to take a few core
missionaries into the solitary confinement
area to speak with the seriously troubled
youths. There were 9 youths in
solitary and all claimed to be rastas or
sympathizers to it’s belief system. What
followed was a long and hard-core reasoning
session with Bible verses flying everywhere.
As a result, the Lord led 8 out of the 9
youths to Grace and Salvation in Christ!
After leaving solitary we went out and sang
worship, I chatted dancehall and the kids
played percussion. As we left we
blessed them with gifts and prayed in our
hearts that God would turn their lives
around.
Action Houses, “Reaching
them with drama and equipping them to reach
others”: One of main ways that we
reached the people of Jamaica was through
Action Houses. An Action House is a
presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
through skits, drama, music and dance.
We call it a human video. Almost
everywhere that we went we held an Action
House. Whether it was at a church, a
school campus or on the side of a street,
our muti-cultural and international group
drew a lot of attention. The last skit
of each Action House titled “The Puppet
Master” always had the greatest impact and
prepared the audience for the salvation
message and altar call that followed.
At the end of every Action House lives were
changed for Christ. It was great to
see our whole missions team participate in
the skits and dramas; it created a unity
between the members. One of our main
goals with Action House was to teach the
Jamaicans how to do the skits themselves and
to put on their own Action House programs.
It was great to see the Jamaican youths do
our skits with their own island flavor.
They did it better than we did, and with
less practice. They were well received
by their audiences. It was a blessing
to see the vision of Action House spread
throughout the island. In the future
when these Jamaicans hold their own Action
Houses they will be writing their own
material and will bring the gospel across in
a way that will get the best reception in
their culture. Our goal of equipping
this younger generation in Jamaica has
already begun!
Rastafari,
“Comparing Rastafarianism to the Bible”:
During our stay in Jamaica we lived at the
college campus of Caribbean Christ
for the Nations and I had an opportunity to
teach a class on Rastafarianism and
Marijuana. I gave biblical reasons why Haile
Selassie is not Christ in His return and
shared scriptural, and medical reasons why
we should not smoke marijuana. I told the
students my testimony, gave a comparison
between Christianity and Rastafarianism and
gave pointers on how to
witnessing to Rastas. Later in the
week I was also interviewed on camera for a
documentary on Rastafarianism. I am
glad that God gave me the opportunity to
share my beliefs and convictions to rastas
across the world on video.
Midnight
Ministry Team, “Street witnessing and
salvations”: For those die hard
evangelists who really wanted to experience
the true night culture
of Montego Bay I led a late-night ministry
team. Virtually every night I took a
few team members into the center of the town
for one-on-one ministry. The women
ministered to the prostitutes and the men
reasoned with the rude boys
(gangsters). Each night was a unique
experience with it’s own set of
challenges. In the early morning, by the
time we packed 11
people into a 5 person taxi to go back to
our campus, someone had always come to
Christ or been ministered to effectively.
Spontaneous
Performance, “Mashing up the place at Pier
One”: One night during our midnight
ministry everyone in town told us that we
should go to Pier One, a local club where
they hold the second night of Reggae SumFest.
Since everybody else in town was going I
figured that we should check it out.
Besides, I wanted the team members to truly
experience the Dancehall culture. When
we got there we found out that it was a
Dancehall DJ competition. The place
was packed with people and all of the
up-and-coming DJs were taking the stage and
garnering a mixed response from the
audience. Suddenly I had a gut feeling and
decided to take a risk and follow it. So I
squeezed through the crowd and asked the MC
if I could go up and flash a piece. At first
I could tell that he was going to say no,
but then he paused...... I was one of the
only white people in the place, was
obviously not Jamaican and yet I was
speaking in patois? He said that maybe he
could fit me in at the end if time
permitted. Filled with confidence I said
“No, put me on next for one song, then
I’m gone”. He asked for my name and then
went up on stage and to my surprise
he introduced me! With a split second to
respond I hollered at the selector to play
the “Badda Badda” rhythm. This
crowd would make singing for Showtime at the
Appollo seem like a pre-school class
performance. As the rhythm played I
walked up on stage speaking in Patois. At
first the audience was shocked. I could tell
that they were about ready to start
laughing, then I began chatting the song
"Best Friend”. It tore down the
house! The crowd’s response was so loud
that I had to “Wheel” and have the
selector start the song again. I freestyled
about Jamaica and Montego Bay and then told
them about Jesus Christ in a Dancehall
Style. With crowd participation at it’s
peak I left the stage to an overwhelming
response of applause, shouts and whistles. I
HAD ARRIVED! The rest of the week in
Montego Bay many people knew me by name and
talked about how I “mashed up the
place.”
Gully, “All
but one dead or in jail”: Two times
during our trip I led my core team into the
Gully, the worst and most crime filled area
of Montego Bay. It is similar to Trench Town
in that it is aluminum shacks built around a
polluted sewage flowing gully. This is
the type of area that the police tell you
not to go into. They say that if anything
happens to you they will not come in after
you. The lower half of Gully kills people
with guns and the upper half uses ice picks
and Machetes. But I had friends in there and
a reason to go inside. In
past years I have gone into the Gully and
led rude boys to Christ. Upon arriving in
the upper part I was disappointed to learn
that all but one of the guys that I had
brought to Christ on my past trips were
either dead on in prison.
Only my one friend Mark remained. I got to
minister to him and he led us around the
area and watched out for us. We gave away
more gifts of clothing, hygiene products,
crayons, pencils and Christian children’s
books. Everyone in the gully was
grateful for our gifts and God kept us safe.
The Concerts, “Reggae in a
Christian style bearing fruit”: We
rented the amphitheater in downtown Montego
Bay and set up a stage, sound and lights for
two nights of ministry. This was the weekend
before Jamaican Independence/Emancipation
and Reggae SumFest, the world’s largest
reggae festival. The Amphitheater was
in the center of a major round-about, so we
had traffic driving around us the whole
time. Many pulled over and parked and
each night the crowd that attended witnessed
an Action House and a reggae concert.
For the first night we were blessed with a
performance by the Christian reggae pioneer
Lester Lewis and his band. This guy has been
doing Christian reggae music in Jamaica for
over 25+ years! He was well received
and Max and I were called up on stage and
had an opportunity to perform some songs
with him. The second night we had
another Action House followed by a
Christafari concert. Max, Vanessa and I were
backed by some local musicians and performed
a set that was primarily dancehall (given
the audience). I finished up the
concert with the message of salvation and an
altar call. Many lives were
transformed by Christ that night including
some rastas!
Baptisms,
“Fulfilling the Great Commission”:
On a Sunday after Church we
went to a local beach for a baptism. I had
the privilege of baptizing one of our team
members who had never been baptized before.
Throughout the previous week everywhere that
we went we had a group of kids following us
around. We spent some quality time with them
and bought them dinner each night. One of
these kids came to Christ at our concert in
town the night before. So on that
Sunday I also had the privilege of baptizing
him in the aqua blue Caribbean Sea.
Trials and
tribulations, “Robbery”: In
addition to all of these positive
experiences in Jamaica we also faced our
fair share of trials an tribulations. It
seemed like every time we took two steps
forward, we took one step back. One day
while two of our team members were on the
beach relaxing, one of them was robbed at
knife point. She ended up chasing
after the thief rebuking him and commanding
him to give her the
money back in the name of Jesus. Two times
while running away from her, he ended up
giving her a portion of the money back to
appease her incessant demands. When all was
said and done he ended up getting away with
over $100 US. Talk about being bold. You go
girl!
“Injury”:
At the amphitheater we had major problems
with our power source for the stage.
With no sound and lights for the majority of
the first night and part of the second we
were forced to improvise using flashlights,
car headlights and a portable stereo. During
one of our performances an Action House
leader fell into a hole in front of the
stage and punctured her shin to the bone.
As she was rushed to the hospital to get
stitches she insisted that the show must go
on. It did, and the power finally came on in
time for the Gospel message to be amplified
throughout the streets for all to hear.
“Comedy”: To add
humor to our trials was my experience while
performing on stage: It was in the
middle of our song “Best Friend” when I
had the band do a hard mix and I jumped up
and down in a frenzy delivering rapid fire
lyrics. While I was leaping higher and
higher I came down harder and harder and
then all of a sudden “CRACK”! I broke
the stage! It was hilarious, this 4 foot
high stage was cracked like a “V” in the
middle. While laughing under my breath I
continued to sing the song without skipping
a beat. Meanwhile the stage crew crawled
below to repair the damage. Perhaps I need
to ease off on the Jerk Chicken and beef
patties?
Come Again, “Our
return”: Towards the end of the trip
I got to go to Reggae SumFest for Legends
night and I also had the opportunity to meet
with some concert promoters. They
drove all the way from Kingston to meet with
me. They are working on bringing the
whole band back to Jamaica this November for
a major ministry outreach concert with Judy
Mowatt and Papa San at the University of the
West Indies. Please keep this in your
prayers.
Conclusion, “Over 40
Saved. Praise God!”: I praise God
for bringing such a good team together for
this year’s Jamaica for Jesus trip. I have
never worked with a team that was such a
great representation of all of the parts of
the Body of Christ and had such unity.
They took all of the trials in stride and
truly gave God the glory for all the
wonderful works that He accomplished during
our visit. I am especially thankful to
Action House for all of their hard work and
great administration. It was 9 years
ago when I first went to Jamaica as a
missionary. In my last 8 visits I had
always dreamed about taking a large team to
the island. It was this Summer through
our partnership with Action House and the
provision of the Lord that all of this was
made possible. Most of all I am
grateful to God for changing all of our
lives and the lives of those that we
ministered to. We estimate that over
40 people gave their lives to Christ for the
first time on this trip. Praise God!
We will definitely be back again!
In His Steps,
Mark Mohr Christafari/Jamaica for Jesus
-----
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