Mar­sha Mokool

Re­gard­less of what re­li­gion you are, there is no dis­put­ing that Je­sus Christ was the great­est man who ever ap­peared on earth.

And as Christ promised, he shall re­turn, once all his plans are ful­filled.

These were the sen­ti­ments echoed by Kes Dr Abra­ham Gar­net Springer at the launch of his book, Lo He Cometh-Every Eye Shall Be­hold Him, which was held at the City Hall Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain, on Sep­tem­ber 19.

Kes Abra­ham, as he is fond­ly called, is a well-known pi­o­neer of the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church in T&T and a com­mit­ted priest.

His book is about the sec­ond com­ing of Je­sus Christ and it con­tains the 12 Ar­ti­cles of the Creed, pre­dic­tions that came to pass and pre­dic­tions that will come to pass.

It al­so con­tains prophe­cies in the Old Tes­ta­ment con­cern­ing the Mes­si­ah and their ful­fil­ment in the New Tes­ta­ment.

"The pur­pose of this book is to sen­si­tise all the po­lit­i­cal, re­li­gious and eco­nom­i­cal lead­ers of the earth that a glob­al change is go­ing to be tak­ing place, sim­i­lar to the flood," said Kes Abra­ham.

He re­ferred to T&T as one of the "cho­sen" coun­tries.

"To­day Trinidad is one of the rich­est places on earth, yet peo­ple are clam­our­ing to get out of here," he said.

He said T&T was unique be­cause we have the best race re­la­tions in the whole world.

"T&T will rise again, but we have to spread that race re­la­tion and prop­a­gate our­selves," said Kes Abra­ham.

Link­ing with Africa

In his ad­dress, am­bas­sador des­ig­nate to Ethiopia Patrick Ed­wards, said: "This book is filled of wis­dom, knowl­edge and his­to­ry and re­flects the wis­dom of Rev Springer.

"Very ear­ly in his life, he (Kes Abra­ham) trav­elled to Africa and ad­vo­cat­ed for links be­tween T&T and Moth­er Africa.

"He sought to es­tab­lish the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Church in Trinidad in the years of colo­nial­ism. He went to Ethiopia in 1952 and brought the church back to his home­land," he said.

In so do­ing, he was able to fa­cil­i­tate cul­tur­al and so­cial in­ter­ac­tion be­tween both coun­tries.

Ed­wards al­so ac­knowl­edged how Kes Abra­ham fought for land for the Africans.

A greater sense of iden­ti­ty

In his re­marks, pro­fes­sor of the Caribbean Con­fer­ence of Church­es Dr Knol­ly Clarke said the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Church had made a worth­while con­tri­bu­tion to re­li­gion in this coun­try.

"For me this book gives a lot of in­sight in­to the Gar­vey Move­ment, which made a dif­fer­ence through­out the world.

"It has helped us to know who we are and iden­ti­fy with our roots."

He was mak­ing ref­er­ence to the late Ja­maican Mar­cus Gar­vey, an im­por­tant pro­po­nent of the back-to-Africa move­ment, which en­cour­aged those of African de­scent to re­turn to their an­ces­tral home­lands.

This move­ment has al­so in­spired oth­er move­ments to iden­ti­fy with their ori­gins.

Spir­i­tu­al in­spi­ra­tion

In launch­ing the book, deputy Port-of-Spain May­or Rishi Lakhan shared his own spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence with the au­di­ence.

"I came out of a Hin­du back­ground. In 1981 I ac­cept­ed Christ as my Lord and my Sav­iour. From that day my life has changed.

"It is book­lets like these that have in­spired me. I would rec­om­mend this book to the en­tire pub­lic, re­gard­less of what faith you be­long to," said Lakhan.

In his book, it is not­ed that Kes Abra­ham proph­e­sied the end­ing of World War II and the stages of World War III.

He had al­so pre­dict­ed the land­ing of man on the moon in 1969 and the over­throw of His Im­pe­r­i­al Majesty Em­per­or Haile Se­lassie I of Ethiopia in 1976.

In her rec­om­men­da­tion of the book, fam­i­ly life coun­sel­lor Dr Eu­ge­nia Springer, told the au­di­ence, "I have been amazed at his abil­i­ty to proph­esy. But I don't think he is say­ing things off the top of his head.

"This is a man who has stud­ied with­out a ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. He has walked with the peo­ple, gain­ing wis­dom.

"He is a walk­ing en­cy­clopae­dia.

"He has trav­elled to 87 coun­tries. He has helped to es­tab­lish a re­li­gion which taught what he be­lieved," she said.

Hold­ing the book in her hand, she said, "If you read these pages, you would see it con­tains some sol­id his­to­ry.

"If you know your his­to­ry, you are well for­ti­fied," she added.

Walk­ing with God

Mas­ter of cer­e­monies Dr Carl Theodore re­ferred to Kes Abra­ham as one of those peo­ple walk­ing with God.

In his re­marks, Kes Abra­ham said, "In every­thing we say, in every­thing we do and every­where we go, God comes first.

"He is the ar­chi­tect of the uni­verse and the cre­ator of life.

"There are no co-in­ci­dences or mis­takes in the world. As the sun ris­es every day and sets, and as the moon comes out every night; all these are works of the cre­ator," he said.

He said the book, which is priced at $100, was launched at the ap­pro­pri­ate time af­ter the Ethiopi­an dou­ble mil­len­ni­um, which was ob­served by Ethiopi­ans world­wide on Sep­tem­ber 12.