Avia Collinder, Outlook Writer
In Mountain View, men and women who lay their heads down to sleep at night are likely to awake, not with the twitter of birds and alarm of cock crow, but to the sullen bark of guns.
Low self-esteem is the hallmark of those who lie beleaguered behind these inner-city walls, a condition which Phyllis Coburn, who until 2006 was a counsellor working in the United Kingdom and Canada, intends to change through her Operation Restoration.
Global Harvest of Hope Ministries, located at 102 Mountain View Avenue, St Andrew, is headed by Phyllis and her brother, Collistan Coburn - intrepid returning Jamaicans who could have enjoyed well-paid careers in other countries, and indeed did, before deciding that their hearts were in Jamaica and its hurting inner cities.
Spiritual programme
Coburn believes that within every Jamaican man and woman lies the potential to be whole and mentally healthy.
They are pioneers of the Hurting People Cry Ministries, which has evolved into a full-fledged programme for the spiritual, mental, physical development of those residing in the client community.
Global Harvest of Hope offers the families of Mountain View therapeutic healing prayer, trained family counsellors delivering emotional and therapeutic support, social support in the form of food, clothes and other needs. They plan to also deliver a mentoring programme which will link the young with older men and women in the community who can be positive role models.
"What we need is hope. What we want to be is an access point for programmes which empower people," Phyllis Coburn told Outlook.
On the day when Outlook visited, volunteers from the community were assisting in rebuilding the church, which was blown down by Hurricane Dean last year.
Phyllis Coburn, who runs the ministry's 'Restore' Roots 96.1FM show (co-hosted by Mountain View youths), was inside the small church office, working away diligently at her computer and implements as she creates the programmes which will provide the ministry with the sustaining resources which it needs.
The contrast with her previous career was significant. Until 2004, Coburn was employed to Jamaica National Building Society in the United Kingdom, and also to IPARO Counselling.
She came back in 2004, she said, because she believed she could contribute more in Mountain View.
Money problems
Phyllis Coburn was forced out of the church when she got pregnant, but has returned as a counsellor on wholeness. - Photos by Avia Collinder
In the ministry, money is their biggest problem, but the counsellor has not a moment to spare for those who might suggest that she and her brother might have bitten off a bit more than they can chew.
Global Harvest also fully intends to create what they have dubbed the restore education centre, a unit which will provide training through a computer centre and a literacy centre.
"The offering cannot cover the work and so we have been giving out of our pocket," Phyllis admits. Recently, she published the book Restore: The 100 Per Cent Formula for Wholeness, the sale of which is intended to provide much-needed funds.
Until 2002, Collistan Coburn was a minister in St Kitts and a gifted preacher in high demand in many areas of the United States.
In that year, however, he decided that there was too much to be done in Jamaica, work that could no longer be ignored. He came home to do what he could in the transformation of the beleaguered community.
The book, Restore: The Formula for Wholeness, Coburn says, is coming out of her own experience as a single mother, who was rejected by the church when she became pregnant.
For many years after the birth of her son, she struggled along as a single mother in Canada, enduring the blistering stigma against her marital status and skin colour.
She was so angry that she refused to date until her son was 12. But, in time, she was able to submit to God again.
At this age, she sent her son back to Jamaica to live with her sister and started a new career of volunteering in Christian Missions in the UK and Europe, working part-time to support her heart's desire.
She never got married, she said, maybe because those interested have not been able to keep up with her numerous missionary journeys.
She believes her experiences and beliefs can help others who are in search of "100 per cent wholeness in spirit soul and body".
Drawing from experience
Her experience has informed not only the book, but her counselling programme and radio programme, as well.
"When someone is down, you do not push them down and label them. You restore them," she urges.
Today, in Mountain View, such an approach is needed, as many young people don't read. "They are used and abused. Many women are in relationships where they are beaten," Phyllis Coburn notes.
In 2002, when the decision was not yet made to come back finally to Jamaica, she recalls, "The spirit said to me, 'you are whole, you are restored'." The message has fuelled her actions ever since.
Although the financial challenges are monumental, Phyllis Coburn also expresses the opinion that, if they take authority in the spirit, all will be well.
Born in Lawrence Tavern to Wilfred and Vera Coburn, the psychologist is a graduate of Oberlin High School, who has pursued studies in administration, computer programming and psychology.
With a master's in psychology, she has completed courses at Nottingham University (UK), York University and Centennial College in Canada, B&B Institute (Jamaica), Duff's Business College and Fitz-Henley's Secretarial Institute in Jamaica.
Her son is today the head boy at Campion College in St Andrew, where he is a sixth-form student.
Phyllis Coburn believes that what she has done, every single mother who puts their faith in God can do.
A member of the Canadian Association of Child and Play Therapy, her interests include reading, travelling and visiting museums.
Her 'Take Authority' philosophy informs her actions and fuels her faith every day.
