Martin
Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
HIS SCARRED face tells the tale of the furious pace at which he has lived his life. But, if you should listen to his story, you will find that the scars, these days, might be telling a lie.
John Fitzgerald Kenneth Martin was never a purveyor of knives and guns but he has lived a life of tragedy among the gangs of Seaview Gardens and New York city, a tale he now uses to council the young men against doing the same.
JFK Martin, as he is known, is the creator of the FUDGE (Family Up against Drugs and Guns Everywhere) club, an inner-city ministry for which he is known.
The truths of his life are a painful tale to tell, but for the 'youth' whose lives he hopes to change, he tells all.
It is not a matter of pride to him that he is a deportee. He no longer rejoices in his bad connections, which he may have celebrated once-upon-a-time.
Political scar
"I got the scar in a political war at age 16 in Seaview Gardens," he says. "I was supposed to be at school. I left and went to Caymanas (horse racing track) with my friends where one of them was pounced upon by an older man, a political activist." He decided to defend his friend and was stabbed in the face in the attempt. In New York city to which he migrated in the '90s he acquired more scars while defending drug turf against "other guys".
He admits too, that he was also on drugs. In 1988, after Hurricane Gilbert, right after his father's death, a friend handed him a box of 'angel dust'. "I smoked it and it felt good."
Travelling back and forth between Jamaica and other countries as an ICI, JFK Martin indulged his desires to the limit, as he had the money, he says. Then, in, he got involved in political activism.
'Don men', contract work
"I saw 'Don men' get money to do contract work," he says.
He wanted money too. He never carried a gun he said, but admits that he was "very influential". Others could and did do things for him.
When, in 1994 he went to live with his mother in New York, he got deeper into drugs. By 1999 he was busted.
Though he had attempted, before this, to turn over his life to God, he returned to the track of revenge when a friend, Donovan Powell, was killed. In 1999 he was convicted for trafficking narcotics and spent time in Riker's Island and several other prisons. It was in prison that he saw the need to pray. It was really stressful in there, he says. At he same time, he was inspired by the devotion of the mother of his last son, who want to the prisons every time she could.
In 2000 when JFK Martin was deported, he says that it was a good feeling to be home, but this feeling was short-lived. In Portmore, St. Catherine where he lived with relatives, he found that Jamaicans were 'changed'. Gone were the old days when every one was willing to share what little they had. "People were juts materialistic" he recalls, remembering how he was shunned because he had come back with little or nothing.
Suicide
In Portmore, he almost committed suicide, recalling that when he was about to place the rope around his neck, the phone rang and an old friend and then her pastor (from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church) talked him out of it. JFK Martin left Portmore and went to Cockburn Pen, where, surprisingly, he said, there among the poorest of the poor, he discovered the spirit of generosity again.
"In the ghetto, where life is real, true friends showed me that they loved me for what I was, not for what I had." With a new feeling of happiness, he started to feel a part of the community again and began the formation of the FUDGE (Family Up against Drugs and Guns Everywhere) club.
"I saw the whole society going mad," he recalls. His club, he believed, would bring young men and women back from the brink, back from a lifestyle of drugs and crime.
"Based on my life and testimony, if given the privilege to share these, I believe that those who hear it would not take the chance."
FUDGE involved "football, netball getting them (young community members) to know God, helping them to find jobs, running food wagons, establishing neighbourhood watches and running summer camps." The corporate response was sufficient to do all of this, then. At Cling Cling Oval, the meeting place, JFK gave many motivational talks. He was also encouraged to do leadership training courses which he did with The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce. Today he is also a certified counsellor.
Although the activities of the club have been reduced, JFK now goes from school to school in the Corporate Area telling his life story. His work is now called the JFK Personal Ministry.
"If you do not smoke drugs, you cannot talk about it. If you have not lost a loved one to drugs, you cannot speak. I know what it is to go to bed hungry... to walk their walk and to talk their talk."
This knowledge, he says, is his gift to the young who will listen to him.
The father of six children, he still relies on the generosity of his mother in New York for his support. But, even with his children, there is an understanding.
"We respect each other," he says.
He has found his purpose and there is nothing more that he desires.
