RELIGIOUS LEADER Reverend Dr David Durant has appealed to the youths of Brittons Hill, St Michael, to make the kind of choices that will help a neighbourhood that has often been hit by gun violence.
Youths had the power in their hands to change the image of the area and get a positive response to the question: “Can anything good come out of Brittons Hills?” the Government senator and head of Restoration Ministries International said yesterday.
He was delivering the sermon at the funeral of 31-year-old father of three Llamar Ricardo James, a September 2013 gunshot victim.
James, of Dalkeith Village, St Michael, died last February 25, 17 months after being shot and crippled while attending a children’s party in Bonnets, Brittons Hill.
Relatives and friends of the late Llamar James, including sister Olivia James (left) and uncle Rodney Clarke (standing at head of casket), saying farewell to their loved one.
Durant told the scores of youths who packed Restoration Ministries International’s new church in Brittons Hill for a service punctuated by cries of anguish from children and some adults, that the best way to honour James was to lead a positive lifestyle.
“The buck stops with you,” he declared.
Preaching on the theme Wrong Decisions Or Wrong Choices, Durant said young people were free to make whatever decisions they wanted but needed to understand that whatever happened, they had to face the consequences of those actions.
He urged the young people of the area to battle against low self-esteem and the feeling of marginalisation, saying they should never feel that other people were better than they because they too had special talents.
At Durant’s prompting, several young people stood up and said they were prepared to change their lives for the better.
Durant told them that James, who was also known as “Sherman” and “Fruits”, had “accepted Jesus Christ” in later months and had wanted to attend services but did not make it to church. “His heart was in the right place,” Durant told the gathering. (TY)
