Robbed to Riches
Part 2

The school term was about to end and I got most of my grades and although I did good I could have done a lot better. My boyfriend did not call me for my birthday and I did not hear from him until a week after which was strange. I decided that when he called I would use my birthday as an excuse to break off the relationship. To my surprise when he called he told me that he had gotten another girl pregnant but he still wanted me in his life. I hung up the phone and never spoke to him since. Hurt, anger and relief made the decision easy. Billy and I had plans that evening and I was really looking forward to it, we went to a Chinese restaurant and while I used a knife and fork he ate with chopsticks. He told me more about himself and how he was named after his fathers brother because he was the second boy and he was born on his uncles birthday, he was a Virgo. He also told me that he had three girls ages 14, 12 and 9. He also said they lived with their mother who he married at 25 and then divorced at 37. This did not make him any less attractive I just listened to all he had to say and spoke when it was necessary. After a long talk he asked me if I had anything planned for my school break and I told him that I was going to see my family and he asked me how was I planning on getting there and I said by bus. After my response he laughed and said that he was going to give me a number to a man that could take me anywhere I wanted to go at anytime. I asked him how safe would it be for me to go with a strange man all the way to Clarendon and he said he is no stranger he had known him for 15 years. He dropped me off and reminded me to call “Carl” in the morning an hour or so before I was ready and I told him thank you.

It was Friday and I was packing my bags to leave, my phone rang and on the other line was a man who said, “Good morning miss, di boss seh mi mus call yu, what time will you be ready please?” I told him that I would be ready at 12:30pm and he said that he was on his way and he would meet me then. Call me naive but all this time I thought this was a taxi man, but when he pulled up he was in a blue pick-up. Earlier in the week I had made plans to travel with my room mate and did not want to leave her alone to take the bus. Before I could think Carl took my bags from me and put them in the bag along with that of my room mate. While driving home I was in a daze, my room mate had a puzzled look on her face as well. Carl asked me if I wanted something to eat and I said no and he asked us another five times. After he dropped off my room mate he handed me an envelope and told me that “Mass Billy ” told him to give it to me I took the envelope and dropped it in my purse. He dropped me home I told him thank you and he said to me if you need me you can call me on this number and he gave me the number again. When I got inside I greeted Mama and she told me my mother was not there and my aunt and sisters had gone to the market. I was anxious to see what was in the envelope as it seemed like a thin piece of paper when I opened it, it was a cheque written in the sum of 60,000 thousand dollars, I was shocked. My aunt returned and they told me that they wanted to make me fry bammy and fish but did not expect that I would return that quickly and I told her that I got a ride. Fish and bammy always taste good to me especially when she cooked it. The night passed and the first person to call me was Billy I was happy to hear him and he was happy to hear me. He asked me if I was allowed to go out and I laughed he also asked me how was it driving with “nascar” Carl I told him that Carl was courteous. Nothing was said about the cheque. He said he was happy I was happy with my driver, because he will be picking me up at 1:30pm in the afternoon.

Patrice was a good friend, a girl I knew for many years, she called me crying the night before and I decided that I will visit her the following day. With Billy’s invitation I knew I would not be able to make it everywhere I wanted to go unless of course I called Carl. I called Carl and he said that it was no problem he will pick me up. My aunt was present when Carl came to pick me up and thought it was strange that he called me “Miss”. Shr asked me who he was and I pretended like I did not hear her. Carl asked me where I was going and I told him the bank and then to Patrice’s house. Patrice lived with her mother and did not have a lot of family support, her mother worked in a bar as a bartender. Patrice’s father lived in the US and since I have known her he has been filing her papers and that is a long time. When I saw Patrice she looked distressed and very pregnant. “Patrice, yu pregnant?” I said “Mi nat even wah talk bout it.” she responded. I sat down on the bed and she explained to me that her boyfriend went away to England four weeks ago and she has not heard from him. To make it worse she was told that he got married a year ago and he left to be with his wife, this was not good news especially with her being five months pregnant. “Weh mi a go do,eeh? Mommy a stress mi an a tell mi seh mi wutless, and mi jus cah tek it, mi cah tek it. Weh mi a go do mi neva plan fi dis.” she cried. Patrice said that there was no way of her to go to her doctor’s appointment and it was very hard on her as she depended on her boyfriend for support. I told her not to worry I can help in whatever way I can I gave her 7,000 dollars and told her to take it easy because she was pregnant. She was very concerned and wondered how I could afford to give her the money I told her to just take it. It was not a good time to tell her about Billy so I just did not explain myself. Carl waited patiently outside for me and I left Patrice about 11:45 a.m., I stopped quickly to get a few things went home had a bath and left for Billy’s house. Carl Patiently waited a few houses down because I did not want it to look suspicious. We drove up to a long drive way the gate was automatic and it opened once we got there. We were happy to see each other he hugged me and my stomach moved he told me that we were going to go Port Antonio. He asked me if I ever got sea sick and I told him I never have and that’s because I never been on a boat and he laughed. The lawn of his home was beautiful he lived in what seemed to be a bungalow until I went in side and saw that there were stairs inside the house. There were a lot of pictures, too many to count all over his house. One picture stood out, you could see that it was taken a very long time ago. It had a very dark lady seated with three children with a white man standing behind her, he told me it was his mother and her parents. His house was big and spacious and it was well kept his kitchen lead out to a back patio and it was bigger than my entire house. I did not go upstairs I just wandered with my eyes until it was time to go. He said that we were going to have a long drive and his driver would driver would do the driving and he sat in the back with me.

Being with him made me happy and I cannot explained what came over me, he was 19 years my senior and I have never been this comfortable with any man. He held my hand all the way to Port Antonio a place where I would always return. I was not only excited but I felt excited with all the preparations he made for me, we went on the boat approximately 5:30 pm and he showed me the Blue Lagoon and Frenchman’s Cove these are things that I had never seen before even though I was living in Jamaica I was not living in his Jamaica. The sunset was what he wanted me to see an after I saw that my eyes were opened and I knew I would spend my life with this man. it was a long drive home and I fell asleep, when I woke up I was in a strange bed I could hear someone talking loudly in Billy’s voice but I could not hear anyone responding. I looked at the time and it was 9:00 am and I got open the door but it led to a bathroom I turned the opposite way and was given personal items by a lady who greeted me at the door with Good Morning. The conversation Billy was having continued and I heard him say that he was being more than kind and if the person did not like it they should find a job. It was his ex-wife. and this was not a healthy relationship. The argument lasted for about twenty minutes then he told her that she was charging too much personal items on the credit cards and it was was for his children. I also over hear him saying that she got 4,000 US dollars each month and did not pay for her house and had a credit card with 15,000 CAD credit limit. I cleaned up my self and then I went out to where he was and he told me Good morning and asked me if I had a good rest. He said he was up from five because he had some things to attend to. He said I should not mind the phone call. He then laughed and said ” I call my children every morning but their mother still loves to hear my voice.”

Aunty called me and I told her it was too late to go home so I stayed at my friend’s house as it was not unusual for me to do that. We had breakfast on the patio and it was served to us by a lady called “Ann”. Ann was his helper and she was very polite and kept a smile on her face. He said that there was another lady and that I would meet her in a few weeks because she was on vacation. I had fish and bananas for breakfast and that proved that he was a good listener because I did tell him that I loved fish. Ann was a good cook, and when I was leaving she gave me a bag of oranges and said she was glad someone could take some because it would rot. I would see Ann many times after that and she was always polite. I would also see Carl who never failed me he was always on time and every week he would bring me a cheque in an envelope. The last time I checked I had about 200,000 in the bank which I wanted to put towards my student loan. During the summer I went to many different places like Strawberry Hill, Sumfest and such. Although I went out a lot with Billy it was never around his family so when he told me that he was inviting me to go with him to his niece’s christening which would be in November I was excited but nervous.
Timed passed and it was about six months that I and Billy connected and the only time we spent apart was when he was working or when he went to visit his children for 2 weeks in Canada. His birthday was coming up and I did not know what to give him I could never match his kindness. I had to come up with something extraordinary and since we have never taken it all the way I decided that I should give him my body. This was something that I had to do well because I wanted to keep him not lose him.

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‘I clobbered him with the hot dutch pot cover’

Women say enough, and fight back when men hit

By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE All Woman writer

Monday, April 04, 2011

 

A whop to his left ear with a hot Dutch pot cover, followed by a silent count to 10, and then a clobber with a soup bowl.

Her husband had smacked her in the face during an argument over food — specifically, his fists had joined his voice in demanding to know when the dinner would be ready — and she retaliated, just as she’d told him she would 10 years before, by striking back.

It was on about their third date that 38-year-old Michelle said she and her then boyfriend had the beating talk. They were watching a movie on Lifetime when he made the comment that only cowards hit women.

 

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“I countered with: ‘well any man who hits me knows he’d better not sleep’,” she told All Woman. “The hot-oil-in-the-ear discussion followed soon after.”

She said after that discussion, she was surprised when 10 years into their marriage, he decided to strike in anger. The woman, who has been married since 1996, said her first instinct was to do as her grandmother had instructed decades before, and strike back.

“Actually, her instructions were: pour hot oil in his ear while he’s sleeping,” Michelle said. “But in this instance, the pot cover was closer.”

She said since that one incident, the marriage has been violence free, as she believes her husband has “learnt his lesson”.

Everyone has a limit. This is no different for women who find themselves being abused. And while some suffer in silence, hiding behind dark glasses and incredible stories, others retaliate.

Retaliation may come in the form of actually physically fighting back, or having a friend or family member do the fighting for her.

Experts have noted that women who commit violent offences are more likely than men to do so with someone very close to them, like a lover, and it is often the case of ‘victim precipitation’ — where the victim provoked the attacker.

This was depicted in a 2002 film Enough with Jennifer Lopez playing a wife who, fed up with her husband’s abuse, perfects the art of self-defence, eventually corralling and killing him.

She had had enough.

Last week, commenting on a video which went viral showing a young girl being beaten by her boyfriend because she broke his necklace; and on the reactions of the persons taping and watching, who suggested that the woman deserved the beating, psychologist Dr Leachim Semaj said that there are women who will not allow men to even lift their hand the first time around to hit them because whether directly or indirectly, they make it clear that they won’t stand for it.

This, he said, was the ultimate thing that keeps domestic violence in check.

“When a woman makes it clear to the man that ‘you can hit me but it’s the last time you’re going to hit anybody’, they tell men that, and the men know that, and those women don’t get hit,” said Dr Semaj.

He said when this is laid down in the initial stages of the relationship the man will not take the chance with the woman because he knows there is a penalty for it.

Mary Lynch, a once prominent St Andrew housewife who single-handedly hacked her 54-year-old husband Leary to death in 1992, had cried domestic abuse in defence of her actions.

In court she revealed that it was the systematic abuse, and an act of self-defence, which led to the crime – evidence from the trial revealed that Mr Lynch was chopped 25 times, some inflicted before death.

“The first lick mi get mi gone,” 25-year-old Stacy-Ann Bent told All Woman when asked about tolerating domestic abuse. “Even if I don’t get the lick but him raise him hand and threaten mi, mi gone!”

She said if it was a case where he begins to beat her before she could leave, she would fight back.

“If I can’t manage him then I would get someone to beat him,” she added.

Stacy Cole, who has been married for four years, shared similar views.

“As him start mi kill him!” she said passionately. “I love my husband to death and if him put him hand on me I am not saying anything. I will just allow him to go to sleep…

“I am not going to say a man can’t beat me, but it’s what will happen after,” Cole added.

Alecia Morgan, who has been in a relationship for two years, said she would cautiously give him a second chance.

“The first time might be a push or so, and so I would make it clear that if he ever does it again I would hurt him,” Morgan said. “But if he does it the second time I would hit him down!” she said. “Even if it’s to hit him and run. But more than likely from the first time he does it, you would be planning what you’re going to do if he ever tries that again. So this time I would be well prepared, and when he thinks there’s peace and safety, it’s sudden destruction. I would lick him down flat!”

8 ways to tell he will be abusive

IT is never easy to tell from the onset of a relationship that the soft, gentle, caring man you fall in love with will become someone who feels that a woman should be subdued through a whipping, but there are signs to look out for that will indicate that he’s indeed suspect.

Here are a few:

* He hit his ex. He admits to hitting his former girlfriend ‘once’ but says he knows he will never do it to you since you are nothing like his ex. Of course he would hit you too! The moment you do something that he is not pleased with, will guarantee you the same treatment that he gave to his ex. Chances are he told her the same thing when they were starting out.

* He drinks heavily to the point where he cannot control himself. He will be abusive with the excuse that ‘the alcohol made me do it!’

* He is jealous and controlling. This may be flattering at first, but will be a curse later on as this jealousy can lead to control and even an obsession. At this point his controlling nature will lash out when words fail to control you.

* He grew up in an abusive home and thinks it’s normal. If in conversations he told of abuse in his family while giving the impression that it’s normal, while also admitting that he has never been counselled, more than likely he will be an abuser as he knows no other way of resolving conflicts.

* There’s past child abuse. While this is not always a given, if he was abused as a child he may begin to relive the experience with you and/or the children being on the receiving end.

* He’s short-tempered. Men who are extremely short-tempered and easily angered are not able to deal with frustration and often find it easier to lash out physically than to resolve issues verbally.

* He’s cruel to animals. If he abuses and mistreats pets, or gets great enjoyment from seeing their pain, more than likely he will get satisfaction from seeing you being hurt.

* He has low self-esteem. A man with low self-esteem and who is insecure about his own masculinity will seek to convince himself that he is ‘the man’ by exercising his physical strength on his weaker partner. This gives him the feeling that he is still in control of things.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/allwoman/-I-clobbered-him-with-the-hot-dutch-pot-cover-_8612742#ixzz1J1yelDEm

What Are the Signs of Demonization
Per all of the articles we have in our Spiritual Warfare section on how to deal directly with demonic spirits, the first thing you will need to do once God leads you to work with someone who may be demonized, is to make sure that it really is demons who are attacking this person and not something they are imagining or conjuring up.
If demons are attacking someone from the outside position and they are not actually in that person’s body, this is what you call basic demonic “oppression”. These types of cases are much more easier to deal with than an inside case. Just find out what their legal rights are, properly break them before the Lord like we have showed you how to do in our other articles, and then command the demons to leave the person in the name of Jesus.
However, when demons are literally living on the inside of someone’s body, this is what you call “demonization”. But again, the rules are the same. Find out what their legal rights are, properly break them before the Lord, and then proceed to cast them out in the name of Jesus. However, these inside cases may be a bit tougher and there may be some additional things you may need to do, depending on how many legal rights the demons are operating on and how long they have been on the inside of that person in the first place.
In this article, I just want to concentrate on the very first thing you will need to do if you are working with someone who has demons living on the inside of them. And that very first thing is to determine if there really are demons living on the inside of them.
Here are some of the basic signs and manifestations you may come across when dealing with someone who has demons literally living and operating on the inside of them. Since we cannot see demons with our natural eyes like we can see people and material objects in our natural realm, you will need some of these types of signs and manifestations as guideposts so you can determine whether or not you are dealing with a person who is really being demonized from the inside of them.
1. The Person Will Already Know They Have Demons on the Inside of Them

The first “sign,” the first “tell” you will have on these types of cases is that the person many of the times will already know that they have demons living on the inside of them. They will tell you they can sometimes hear voices on the inside of them and at times can actually feel or sense the demons moving “in and out” or “up and down” in them.
Many of these people may at first be very reluctant to admit this to anyone for fear that they will either be misunderstood or thought of as being crazy. But by the time the Lord leads you to these types of cases, many of these people will be ready to work with you and they will be more than willing to tell you anything and everything on their story so you can properly work with them to get them completely delivered, as many of them have been bound up and under torment from these demons for quite a long period of time.
So the first thing you will need to do is to not turn these types of cases away when they do first come your way, as there is always the possibility that it is God Himself who is guiding this case your way so you can try and work with them to get them completely delivered from these demons.
Just listen very carefully to the person’s entire story and then be led by the Lord and His discernment on the case so you know whether or not you are dealing with the real thing. One of the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of discerning of spirits. And part of this gifting is where the Holy Spirit Himself will give you the supernatural ability to be able to see or sense if this person really does have demons operating on the inside of them.
2. Look For These Basic Demonic Manifestations

As you are listening to the person’s entire story and how they may have gotten these demons on the inside of them in the first place, look for some of these basic, demonic manifestations in their story. And also do not be afraid to ask the person if they have ever had some of these basic manifestations occur with the demons.
Now here are some of the basic manifestations that demons will do with the people they are inhabiting. One or two of these manifestations may not be able to stand by themselves, but when you get someone that has quite a few of these manifestations occurring on some type of regular basis, then the chances are very good that they really do have demons literally living on the inside of them.
Hearing voices on the inside talking to them. These voices may also refer to the host in the third person.

Feeling or sensing the demons moving on the inside of them. Feeling pressure and movement in the head and stomach areas. Demons can also attack the central nervous system so it feels like the person is going crazy at times.

Having bad and frequent nightmares, sometimes with the same bad and horrific nightmare being repeated over and over again.

May have seen some of the demons in an actual vision.

Can sometimes smell the demons, who have a very putrid and toxic smell to them. Demons can also smell like burning sulphur at times.

Will have strong, inner compulsions to do bad things that are not in their normal behavior patterns like having bad thoughts of suicide and murder. Can also have very strong addictions to things like drugs, alcohol, and pornography.

Abnormal fascination with the occult or any type of criminal activity.

Abnormally strong feelings of rage and hate in them that are not a part of their natural personality and makeup. Demons can also transmit heavy feelings of despair, hopelessness and depression and that they have committed the unpardonable sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.

Irrational fears, panic attacks, and phobias on some type of a regular basis.

Periods of having loss all sense of time from minutes to actual hours and can sometimes end up somewhere and not knowing how they got there. Also, regularly doing things for which they have no memory of actually doing.

At times, can sense an evil presence on them, in them and in the houses they live in.

Will feel cold spots in certain areas of the houses they are living in with these cold spots not being by any open windows.

Will sometimes see dark shadows running across some of the rooms in their houses, especially in their bedrooms.

Can have poltergeist type phenomena occurring in their houses such as material objects flying across the room, doors opening up and slamming shut all by themselves, drawers opening up on their own, hearing footsteps shuffling across the floors and scratching type noises on the walls, along with the electricity going on and off from time to time and material objects actually disappearing.

In the more extreme cases, the person can literally find themselves levitating right off of their bed at times.

May have the ability to speak in a foreign language of which they have no natural knowledge of.

Can be capable of great, abnormal, physical strength.

Can receive mild to strong trembling and shaking sensations on different parts of their bodies. Can also receive choking sensations and a tightness around their head and eye areas.

Abnormal amounts of dizziness, blackouts and seizures.

Very heavy, uncontrollable twitching type activity on certain parts of their bodies like their face and their arms.

May have had some out-of-body experiences, especially in cases of sexual abuse and satanic ritual abuse.

Have a very hard time in praying and reading from their Bibles. Can also have an actual revulsion of the Bible to the point of wanting to try and tear it apart or burn it.

A compulsive desire to want to curse and blaspheme God and Jesus.

Can have multiple personalities in them which are known as alters.

May have tried other kinds of treatments and medications from other psychologists and psychiatrists with no real help or relief ever being given to them.

The demons can at times take control of the vocal cords and speak right out of the person’s mouth. When this occurs, the tone of the person’s voice could change, like a woman speaking out in a man’s deep, husky voice. Demons can also emit animal like sounds out of a persons mouth and vocal cords like the hissing of a snake, the growling of a lion or tiger, or the emitting of a baying type howl like a wolf. They can also let out very loud screams and yells, especially when being directly confronted by the deliverance minister during the actual deliverance itself.

The demons can also manifest in the person’s eyes where you can see them literally looking at you. What you will see when this occurs is pure evil and pure hatred looking at you. You will also see this look from the demons being captured in some of the person’s past photographs, as some of these demons love to show themselves in the person’s eyes and countenance when photos are being taken of them. Another type of look you can see when the demons are looking out of someone’s eyes is what I call the “hollow look.” When you see this type of demonic look, it is like you are looking into someone who has no personality. They will look “soulless” and “lifeless” to you when you see this type of look coming out of their eyes, and you will also know that it is not the personality of the person you are looking at.

Different types of facial contortions which no longer look like the person, such as glazed eyes, blank stare type eyes, eyes rolling backwards where all you see are the whites of the eyes, and stretching the skin of the face into a contorted, hissing like expression.

Different types of bodily contortions like people slithering across the floor like snakes, getting on all fours and barking like dogs, growling like lions, or howling like wolves. Abnormally stretching out their spines, fingers and hands locking up and going rigid, and demons grabbing a hold of a person’s throat in order to try and stop them from talking with you. The demons can also whip the head in a very rapid side-to-side type movement, stretch the neck out as far as it will go, along with jolting portions of the body causing those portions to move in a very rapid side-to-side type movement.
If the person has had any of this type of activity in their background, or if any kind of this activity surfaces or manifests while you are talking or praying with the person, then there is a very good chance that you are truly dealing with a person who has demons living on the inside of them and they will now need a full scale deliverance from the Lord.
CONCLUSION

With many of the churches still not doing enough in-depth teaching on this subject matter, you still have some people sitting in many of the churches across the world who are being demonized like this on the inside and they feel totally hopeless, helpless, isolated and alone.
They feel that if they try and speak out on their conditions, that people will either not believe them, or if they did, they would think they are evil or that there is something mentally wrong with them. They also do not want to deal with the possible stigma of having demons attached to them. As a result, they slip underneath the radar screen in most of the churches they belong to and no one, including most of their close friends and family members, even knows they have demons living on the inside of them.
Sadly, most of these people go on for the rest of their earthly lives and never get set free from their demons. That is why every single church should have some type of basic teaching system in place on this part of our walk with the Lord so people like this will not be afraid to try and reach out for help.
This little website alone has stirred up some of these hornet’s nests, with people coming to us with demons being attached to them, but with them being too afraid to go to their own pastors for fear of either ridicule or disbelief because this subject matter is never talked about or taught on in the churches they have been raised up in.
Once you start talking about these kinds of issues and give people some basic working knowledge to fully understand it, then they will be willing to come out of hiding and seek help because they will then feel that someone will understand what they have been going through. But if you never talk about it, then they will assume that you are either not interested in it, you don’t believe in it, or you are too afraid to deal directly with it yourself. As a result, most of these people will never get delivered and they will then have to battle this inner torment for the rest of their earthly lives.
1. To any of you out there who feel like you do have demons attached to you, but have never sought out help for some of the above reasons, it would be our strong recommendation that you read our article, “Looking for a Deliverance Minister,” and then follow the logical and straight forward steps that are in there to try and find a good deliverance minister in your area who can work directly with you to get you set free.
As we have said in that article, God is raising up more of His people to be able to do deliverances and there is a very good chance you can find someone in your area who will be able to deliver you if you will just put for forth the time and effort to try and find this person if you are not confident enough to try and do a self-deliverance on your own. Ask God to guide you to this person and where they are located at, and the Holy Spirit will then move to guide your steps so you can find the right minister who will then be able to set you completely free from these demons.
2. If by chance you know someone who does have demons attached to them, but they have never sought out help for some of the above reasons, do not be afraid to approach this person and offer them your time, your help, and your assistance to try and find a minister who will be able to set them completely free if you do not feel comfortable in trying to do this yourself.
Again, go to our article, “Looking for a Deliverance Minister,” and follow the straight forward steps that are in there and God will then move to take up your case and use you to help get this person delivered if they are too bound up or too afraid to try and do this on their own.
We have a testimony of that actually occurring in this article. A woman’s roommate was being seriously demonized on the inside of her as a result of her engaging in white occult magic. She then decided to take on her case and got her roommate fully delivered from the demons by seeking after the right deliverance minister who could get the job done for her. She had to go to three different pastors, but the third pastor she found was able to get her roommate fully delivered from her demons. And all of this all got accomplished because she just took the time to do this for her roommate, since her roommate was too afraid and too bound up to try and do it for herself.
I have seen God move time and time again on these types of cases if people would just step out of their safe boats and take on these kinds of deliverance assignments from time to time.
As we have said in our article, “The Great Commission – Save, Heal, Deliver and Disciple,” one of the main ministries Jesus is calling all of us to do for Him is to get people delivered from demons when we do come across these types of cases. You can either learn how to do it for yourself, or you can help guide these people to the ones who will know how to do it for them if you are to afraid to try and learn it on your own.
But either way, we should not be having people with demons tearing them up on the inside sitting in our churches when this type of subject matter could be easily taught on in every single church – especially with Jesus Christ Himself telling us to include the deliverance ministry as part of the Great Commission that He has asked all of us to do for Him.
We hope this article will help educate and enlighten some of you on some of the basic demonic manifestations people will experience when demons are actually attached to them, especially with demons who are living on the inside of them.

ONE of the world’s leading bioethics publications, Developing World Bioethics Journal, says Jamaicans are making it difficult for men who have sex with men (MSM) to be monogamous. The publication also suggested that Health Minister Rudyard Spencer is unhappy with the fact that his government “continues to support legislation that contributes significantly to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among MSM”. Following are excerpts from the recently published article:

“It is tempting to feel sorry for Jamaica’s Health Minister, the Hon Rudyard Spencer. There he is, trying his best to do his job, and, among other urgent health matters, reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS in his nation.

 

Health Minister Rudyard Spencer 1/1

Unfortunately, on his own account, this is proving to be next to impossible unless Jamaicans change their cultural attitudes to — you guessed it — sex. The Jamaican Ministry of Health’s website quotes him with these eminently sensible concerns about specific attitudes:

“These include a widely held belief that sex with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS, the high level of sexual relations between older men and young girls and a persistently hostile anti-gay environment which all contribute to the stigmatisation and discrimination of infected and affected persons. A strong religious culture also inhibits open discussion on matters of sexuality… We too need to begin the process of unlearning those beliefs that endanger the health lives of others and rethinking the tendency to be obscene and degrading in rejecting values that conflict with our own…”

Public health experts are very familiar with the long-standing conflict between a utilitarian approach to harm minimisation and harm reduction and a cultural context that prizes firmness in the ‘fight against drugs’ over demonstrably positive health outcomes for individual drug users. It seems as if this same culture war is being played out in the Caribbean where centuries old religious teachings on sex take precedent over the insights of 20th and 21st century sex research.

“A bit of pertinent background on HIV/AIDS in Jamaica: a 2008 study commissioned by the Ministry of Health concluded that about 31.8 per cent of men who have sex with other men (MSM) are HIV infected in the island state. There is a strong correlation between men being HIV infected and them belonging to lower socio-economic groups, and them having been victims of anti-gay violence. The number of AIDS deaths per year is decreasing because the country has begun the rollout of anti-retroviral medicines.

“Jamaica reports the second-highest HIV-prevalence rate among MSM in the world, right after another notorious violator of the human rights of gay people, Kenya.

Homosexual men in Jamaica rarely ever live in monogamous relationships because of the security risks involved in living with a member of the same sex over longer periods in the same household. This is partly a result of colonial legislation prohibiting same sexual activities among men… The flowery prose under the heading ‘Unnatural Offences’ is sufficiently antiquated:

“Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for a term not exceeding 10 years… Whosoever shall attempt to commit the said abominable crime, or shall be guilty of any assault with intent to commit the same, or of any indecent assault upon any male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding seven years, with or without hard labour.

“Up to 10 years at hard labour for a mature-age man who has voluntary sex with another consenting adult male is a fairly draconian penalty for a self-regarding act.

One justification for this law is hidden under that well-known Christian natural law moniker of ‘unnatural’. There is no such a thing as unnatural conduct. If something is physically possible it is very much within the laws of nature, and therefore by necessity it is natural. The phraseology of the ‘unnatural’ explains or justifies nothing. However, normatively nothing follows from this trivial insight.

“Many natural things are not desirable, natural conduct can be unethical, even criminal. Furthermore, as is well known among legal philosophers, even if such behaviour were ‘unnatural’, and even if we declared it unethical, nothing would follow with regard to the question of whether or not it should be illegal. The Jamaican law is not making a case for why same sex sexual conduct between consenting male adults is problematic, and why it is legislated against.

“Declaring homosexual conduct unnatural is arguably unintelligible and it begs the question of why the law exists to begin with. For good measure ‘abominable’ has been added to this ‘crime’. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary enlightens us that the 14th century originated adjective ‘abominable’ means that something is variously disagreeable or unpleasant or worthy of causing disgust or hatred. All of these are terrible foundations on which to build sound moral judgments. Finding something disagreeable or unpleasant is insufficient to make it illegal…

“No doubt, plenty of Jamaicans hate gay people, but how does that provide a justification in terms of outlawing same sex sexual conduct among consenting adults? One does not have to be an old-fashioned liberal in the tradition of John Stuart Mill to realise that the criminal law has no right to interfere with important self-regarding actions of consenting adults. Surely, by any stretch of imagination, our sexuality determines, to a significant extent, who we are.

“Jamaica today finds itself in a difficult situation. Sectarian religious mores have been enshrined in law by its former colonial master, and have since been duly maintained as the gospel by generations of Jamaican politicians. The US-based human rights organisation Human Rights Watch published a report a few years ago highlighting the pervasive nature of oftentimes violent homophobia in Jamaica. The price MSM are paying in Jamaica for this situation is very significant indeed, as can be demonstrated by the extraordinarily high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among this group of Jamaicans.

“Unsurprisingly, research has shown that gay Jamaicans are reluctant to present with health problems that could disclose their sexual orientation to health care providers out of fear of reprisals by health care professionals and others…

“…Many Jamaican MSM patients’ reluctance to consult health care professionals is indicative of the climate in the country. It cannot surprise then that the country’s health minister laments the harmful impact of existing legislation on reasonable public health objectives. In his government’s report on HIV/AIDS to the United Nations General Assembly (2010) he (Spencer) explicitly acknowledges the problems this legislation is causing:

The political framework towards HIV has not changed. With outdated laws that present obstacles for adolescents, SW (sex workers), MSM and prison inmates, prevention and treatment efforts to these populations are not able to be fully maximised.

“The existing political framework has also been implicated in contributing to the stigma and discrimination faced by MSM. Several efforts have been made in this area, however, through the review of laws that stand as obstacles to prevention, but to date no major achievements are noted in this aspect of political support. Enlightened politicians such as Jamaica’s Health Minister Spencer and his staff find themselves in an unenviable situation. They are representing or working for a government that continues to support legislation that contributes significantly to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among MSM.

“Unlike in South Africa where church leaders have come together to support efforts aimed at reducing the incidence of HIV/AIDS, in Jamaica, church leaders are busy trying to preserve the homophobic climate and legislative framework that helped bring about some of the public health problems the country faces today. It will be interesting to see how the situation will evolve in Jamaica…”

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Jamaicans-making-it-difficult-for-gays-to-stay-with-one-partner-_8567822#ixzz1IyMomNWz