Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A Tor­tu­ga pas­tor, whose church was burnt to the ground in an ar­son at­tack on Mon­day, has vowed to re­build the church, which he said has been a main sta­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Pas­tor Ralph Young­hoi was moved to tears as he re­flect­ed the work put in to es­tab­lish the Tor­tu­ga Open Bible Church at Mayo Road. He said the de­struc­tion of the place of wor­ship will not stop the work they do in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“You have a heart for God and for peo­ple and when you see these things, some­times you feel like giv­ing up. But you see me, I am not giv­ing up, this have to build back. Yuh see this, this have to build back. I will do all with­in my will and my pow­er to see that this come to fruition and peo­ple come to know the Lord, that is the main thing in peo­ple’s lives.”

Young­hoi said he has been pas­tor­ing at the church, which was made most­ly of wood, for the past four years and in the last year, a man who has been ter­ror­is­ing the com­mu­ni­ty, be­gan van­dal­is­ing the church’s wa­ter pipes and oth­er items and dis­rupt­ing Sun­day School sit­tings.

He added that around 2.30 am on Mon­day, he re­ceived a call in­di­cat­ing the church was on fire. This was af­ter some­one al­so at­tempt­ed to break in­to the pas­tor’s of­fice. Young­hoi said he and oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty made re­ports to the po­lice about the man, who he claimed used to sleep in the area where they staged Sun­day School ac­tiv­i­ties and van­dalised the books used dur­ing that ac­tiv­i­ty.

De­ter­mined to re­build, he said pas­tors in the area planned a meet­ing yes­ter­day to as­sist with the re­build­ing and wel­comed as­sis­tance from those want­i­ng to do so. Young­hoi said the 45 mem­bers at the church were ac­cus­tomed to help­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with ham­pers and food and with oth­er re­lief ef­forts, but said they were fi­nan­cial­ly un­able to re­build on their own.

Asked how he felt about hav­ing to restart from scratch, Young­hoi, who be­gan cry­ing, said: “It is hurt­ing me be­cause of the ef­forts and the en­er­gy that have been placed in­to this. We know that God is in con­trol but I dun­no where peo­ple are go­ing in this world. Peo­ple are get­ting more wicked and evil, but I will not give up the fight. I try­ing to do God’s work in the com­mu­ni­ty and af­fect the world.”

This is not the first time places of wor­ship have been at­tacked.

In May, the An­ju­man Sun­nat­ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) con­demned the des­e­cra­tion of places of wor­ship, ap­peal­ing to the van­dals to “cease and de­sist from any fur­ther at­tempts to de­file re­li­gious build­ings in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The state­ment came af­ter van­dals de­stroyed six mur­tis at the Bharatiya Vidya Ab­hyas Man­dali tem­ple on Watts Street, Curepe in May.