Crim­i­nals can choose to leave the path of law­less­ness, said Fa­ther Trevor Nathas­ingh. He was at the time speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day when the St Pe­ter’s RC Church at Or­ange Val­ley, Cou­va cel­e­brat­ed its 67th an­niver­sary. 

Nathas­ingh said “to our broth­ers and sis­ters who have cho­sen a life of crime, I reach out to you and I say you don’t have to do that, you could al­ways make a de­ci­sion. We live in a world that has gone crazy, but we have to make de­ci­sions about trans­form­ing it. If all of us come to that place of mak­ing a de­ci­sion we will make a mighty change, as dif­fi­cult as it seems, it is pos­si­ble be­cause Ad­vent re­minds us hope is al­ways present.”

Sun­day sig­nalled the start of Ad­vent, a four-week sea­son in the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar ded­i­cat­ed to an­tic­i­pat­ing the ar­rival, or ad­vent, of Je­sus of Nazareth. It is a time of re­flec­tion for most Chris­tians.

Nathas­ingh al­so had a spe­cial mes­sage for the politi­cians. He urged those in pol­i­tics to be men and women of hope in spite of the dark­ness be­ing seen around the coun­try.

“I would like to think many of our politi­cians have a Chris­t­ian back­ground and they would know and un­der­stand what the word hope means be­cause in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty we func­tion, we are all meant to bring hope to peo­ple."

Un­der Nathas­ingh’s watch, the St Pe­ter’s RC Church was ren­o­vat­ed and re­fur­bished in the last year. The church was tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed to the near­by com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre so the di­lap­i­dat­ed board floor­ing could be changed to con­crete and the walls were re­built. The fa­cil­i­ty was al­so fenced and will be air-con­di­tioned in the near fu­ture.

The con­gre­ga­tion of the church has grown from 10 to 15 on most Sun­days to over 75. Wor­ship­pers have al­so been do­nat­ing what­ev­er they could to help the less for­tu­nate in so­ci­ety.