My fellow citizens and residents,
Greetings!
I pray God’s blessings on us as a people and country.
We are too familiar with the Christmas refrain, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
Certainly here in St. Kitts and Nevis, Christmas invokes pleasant memories of loved ones, family and friends. It is also a time of reflection. Reflection on a year nearing its end and all that have happened to us, our families and of course our country.
I continue to pray for all who have lost loved ones to senseless violence. Your Christmas may not be filled with joy. However, i am reminded of the comforting lyrics “weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning!”
As we reflect on the state of our beloveth country, sadness sinks in. For we cannot but recall that, 2014 has been among the most murderous year to date. Already we are up in homicides in 2014 compared to the international record in homicides, which we chalked up in 2013 when we ranked 8th in homicides not in the OECS, not CARICOM but in the entire world.
When we consider the many families affected who are affected by these homicides, we find hope and substance in the knowledge that there is a Christ child able to deliver.
As we reflect on the challenges of our country we wince at the hardship pervading the land. There are limited jobs available to our young people and even our graduates are condemned to a jobless life, or to minimum payment under ‘PEP’. We know our people deserve better. Let us this Christmas ask the Almighty God to deliver the better we deserve.
I know many will not be happy this Christmas. For example, the mothers whose children are wrongfully held without bail are losing confidence in the criminal justice system particularly when they witness others being released on bail, having been charged with even more serious crimes. The mother whose son was shot dead by the police in suspicious circumstances, and to whom no senior public official took time to extend condolences or to attend the funeral can be forgiven if she is more reserved than usual this Christmas.
Those who are unable to pay their bills for food, electricity, rent, mortgage, medicine, etc. are not very focused on the essential message of Christmas. The graduate up to his/her neck with student loans and unable to find a job may have issues this Christmas. Our civil servants who are denied promotion based on merit may have a gripe this Christmas. Those who were misled into believing that double salary was out of style now know why the learned judge described the misleader a stranger to the truth.
These are but some of the perverse circumstances for which the Saviour was born. He was born interalia to shine a bright light into the darkness of our lives and circumstances and to deliver us from the darkness into the safety of his light. Our Saviour was born the way he was born, to whom he was born; to let us know that there is hope for all people.
To the citizens whose country is being made a pariah by one bad leader, there is hope.
To the single parent unable to care for her children, there is hope.
To the unemployed, there is hope.
To the young person whose dreams are falling in the abyss, there is hope.
To the hardworking civil servant who is being denied promotion, there is hope.
To every Kittitian and Nevisian yeaning for a better country, there is hope.
To the young man who can find no help to get his business started there is hope.
To the pensioners who are barely making out on a small pension, which is out of sync with their long years of labor, there is hope.
To those who cannot make ends meet, there is hope.
To the many in the debtors’ jail, there is hope.
To the family steeped in poverty, there is hope.
To the small businessman who cannot pay his bills as they fall due, there is hope.
To those among us who are discriminated against on account of politics, sex, religion and their country of origin, there is hope.
To those with no money to pay for medical attention, there is hope.
Christ through his birth taught us that hope is accessible and available to all.
Yes he was born in a manger.
Yes there was no room in the inn.
Yes there was a price tag on his head and Yes he became our Saviour.
May the hope of this season rest close and dear to our hearts. Merry Christmas to everyone! And a prosperous New Year!
May God bless our beloved people and beautiful country!
I thank you.
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