Farley urges “reflection” on church pressure on single members

Stephon Nicholas

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has called for re­flec­tion on church cul­ture fol­low­ing the mur­der of his sis­ter in faith, Neisha Roberts.

Roberts, 40, was found stabbed to death at her Mt St George home on Wednes­day morn­ing. Po­lice ar­rest­ed a Trinida­di­an man af­ter he al­leged­ly fled to Port of Spain aboard the Galleons Pas­sage. He was tak­en in­to cus­tody as he dis­em­barked the ves­sel at 2.15 pm on Wednes­day.

In a Face­book post on Thurs­day, Au­gus­tine said he knew Roberts well and de­scribed her as pleas­ant, help­ful and nev­er con­fronta­tion­al.

He re­called de­liv­er­ing the ser­mon ear­li­er this year at the Mt St George Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church, which Roberts had cleaned less than 12 hours be­fore her death.

Au­gus­tine said Roberts may have un­wit­ting­ly in­tro­duced her al­leged killer to him.

“As is cus­tom­ary in our church, the el­ders stood at the door af­ter the ser­vice to greet the con­gre­ga­tion. Neisha ap­proached me with a gen­tle­man and proud­ly in­tro­duced him as her fi­ancé. I do not re­mem­ber his name, but I vivid­ly re­mem­ber how un­usu­al­ly bub­bly and ex­cit­ed she was,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said he left church feel­ing hap­py that Roberts had found love.

How­ev­er, he said her mur­der had forced him to re­flect on church cul­ture and the pres­sures placed on mem­bers.

“Some­times, with­out in­tend­ing to, we make our sin­gle mem­bers feel as though sin­gle­ness is a con­di­tion that must be ur­gent­ly cured. We cel­e­brate re­la­tion­ships so en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly that we can be­come blind­ed to in­com­pat­i­bil­i­ty or warn­ing signs sim­ply be­cause we are re­lieved that some­one has fi­nal­ly found some­one. In our ex­cite­ment, we may un­in­ten­tion­al­ly place more em­pha­sis on find­ing a part­ner than on find­ing the right part­ner.”

He urged peo­ple not to let the tragedy pass with­out re­con­sid­er­ing how mem­bers sup­port and en­cour­age those who are still wait­ing.

Au­gus­tine said peo­ple must be wary of wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing, adding that Roberts may have been de­ceived.

“Some­times evil comes dis­guised as af­fec­tion, and ha­tred ar­rives wrapped in the ap­pear­ance of love.”

Ex­press­ing con­do­lences to Roberts’ fam­i­ly, Au­gus­tine said they had lost some­one whom they be­lieved had no en­e­mies.

“It is heart­break­ing. It is un­fair. I pray that God will sur­round her fam­i­ly and loved ones with His strength, His peace, and His com­fort dur­ing this unimag­in­ably dif­fi­cult time.

“May Neisha rest in eter­nal peace.”