CONTRIBUTED
Alexander 'Brother Clive' Mott no longer lives on the streets. His sore foot has been healed and he is now happily serving the Lord and his church community.Donna Marie Rowe, Contributor
THE PLIGHT of street people has gained much public attention over the years and especially in recent times.
People end up on the streets for several reasons and each has a special story. Forty-year-old Alexander Mott's story is quite remarkable. Also known as Brother Clive, Mott is a walking miracle. For two years, he wandered the streets until his life was miraculously changed, thanks to the effort of the church.
Now living in Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, he describes himself as dutiful. His pastor, Bishop Ivan Evans, recalls the days when "he was so pungent. When he came to the tent, the people left because of his smell."
"I came to Santa Cruz from Mandeville," Brother Clive relates. "I used to live in Kingston but I was drifting."
Before leaving Kingston, he sold plastic bags and lived with his girlfriend. He ended up in Mandeveille with a sore foot. In addition, he said a dog bit him, for which he received no care. To make matters worse, he developed 'lockjaw' and finally sought medical attention at a hospital.
Attempts were made at this time to find his girlfriend at his last address, but to no avail.
"So I became homeless - I ended up on the streets," Brother Clive remembers.
Hopping from street to street in Mandeville and Santa Cruz, he said he experienced excruciating pain "like a ton of bricks" hitting his head each time he tried to get up. He was given a crutch and people threw food to him from afar, because he was smelly. He admitted he smelt terrible and even had maggots in the sores. So bad was the stench that a man tried to set him afire. Luckily, only the cardboard he slept on caught fire.
After that incident, a few people in Mandeville bathed him and gave him a suit of clothes. He got additional help from nurses at a clinic who cleaned the wound and this helped to lessen the smell and quicken the healing process. He said all sorts of evil things passed through his mind and he felt like hurting people because he was suffering.
"I was thinking all kind of evil because I wasn't saved. I wasn't groomed -- my hair was long -- and then I heard a voice say 'Son! See a tent there. Go over there'," Brother Clive said. This voice has remained in his head to this day and he is convinced that it is the voice of God. It had authority, he said, and he had to obey the voice. At first he did not immediately see the tent but after pacing the street he finally spied the big white tent.
"Me see a gentleman there and me hop over and asked to see the pastor," Clive says. He recalls that the gentleman chatted with him for a while and then left. Brother Clive returned to the tent in the night and saw the pastor who invited him to speak and tell what had happened. He attended the tent meeting every night.
One night the unthinkable happened. His foot started to smell and people began moving away from him.
"The foot start to smell in the service and I going to tell you how people scamper," Brother Clive chuckled. "They put me on the front bench - people move - they put me on the back bench - people move. Pastor helped me and sent me to the clinic," By then he had become a resident at the tent.
"Me a live at the tent and Pastor never run me," Brother Clive recalled. He said he received clothing from his minister. Through the help of a nurse he was referred to an infirmary.
His first six months in the infirmary saw him going through a miraculous transition starting with his conversion and baptism to becoming helpful around the infirmary. There he planted a vegetable garden. He swept the roof of the infirmary and the matron rewarded him with 'nice clothes'.
"I began to get into society. People start to take care of me and me start to look good like a money man son," he stated.
His pastor allowed him to wash the church buses and rewarded him with pocket money while the Pastor's wife gave him grocery. One outstanding highlight of his time at the infirmary was the day Bishop Evans prophesied that he did not have long to stay in the infirmary.
"Not even one week pass and a lady, who always visited the infirmary came and said, 'Is alright - is you a come for," Brother Clive explained. This lady put him in charge of her 40-foot container that she had shipped from overseas. There were items to be sold as well as things to give away. She arranged for him to rent a room and Clive bought a bush whacker from which he could earn money to pay his rent.
Since his days at the infirmary, Brother Clive has been issuing things such as clothing items to the same infirmary where he stayed as well as others in other parishes on behalf of his benefactor. He is now quite happy with his new life as a Christian.
"I am shining and I am blessed," he said with obvious joy and pride. He is now living on the compound of his home church and it is his responsibility to keep the yard clean as well as open and close the church. He now has more than 10 suits and shoes that do not even appear to be worn. Although he is still conscious about his appearance as a result of the lockjaw, Brother Clive says he will not have it corrected because he tried once and the pain was unbearable.
Brother Clive, who never knew his mother because she died when he was young, grew up with his father and stepmother. While he has no biological family with him now, one of his triumphant moments was when he located his brother overseas after the church prayed, he said.
"Pastor give me a lot of help, and now I am seeing things differently since I am saved and have received the Holy Ghost."
E-mail Donna-Marie Rowe at dmarowe@yahoo.com
