Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists in To­ba­go start­ed Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions ear­ly with an event yes­ter­day.

The pub­lic hol­i­day is ob­served on March 30, every year.

Mem­bers of the Mt Zion Na­tion­al Evan­gel­i­cal Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Faith (NES­BF) of Mt St George be­gan cel­e­bra­tions with prayers and a walk af­ter 8 am from Cas­tara Junc­tion along the Wind­ward Road to the Mt Zion Church.

Rev­erend Fitzhurbert Phillips said, “We are kick­start­ing Lib­er­a­tion Day, we al­ways get two bites of the cher­ry. So to­day we are get­ting an ec­u­meni­cal ser­vice in To­ba­go on be­half of the To­ba­go Cir­cuit. As you all know the strug­gle our fore­par­ents, our grand­par­ents went through to make this day what it is to­day.”

Phillips said the strug­gle of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists did not fall on deaf ears and they will al­ways be grate­ful to the late for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day who un­der­stood their plight. A pub­lic hol­i­day was grant­ed in 1996.

“He (re­fer­ring to Pan­day) was born in that era, he saw we hid­ing all un­der the bridge and run­ning from po­lice and all the dif­fer­ent things that took place, what we couldn’t have, what we are hav­ing here to­day,” said Phillips.

He said Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day was a day for cel­e­bra­tions and to thank God for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to give thanks.

“Thank you Je­sus, thank you prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day that made this pos­si­ble. Not for­get­ting the fore­fa­ther that was El­ton George Grif­fith that fought tooth and nail with peo­ple like But­ler, Gomez and oth­ers, so many names to men­tion to the re­peal­ing of that dra­con­ian act that caused us not to wor­ship. To­day our faith is strong,” he of­fered.

The Bap­tists of­fered prayers for T&T to over­come the spate of crime plagu­ing the coun­try. Prayers were al­so of­fered for the young­sters writ­ing ex­ams and for all lead­ers in T&T so they could work to­geth­er for a bet­ter coun­try.