Saving prisoners in song

JENSEN LA VENDE

It is the calling of God.

This is how mother of two Patricia Morris described her role with the Port of Spain prison choir, which is not even a month old and is being received with open arms.

Morris, a clerk at the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital, sat down with Sunday Newsday at her Simon Valley Road, St Ann’s, home and talked about how she inadvertently became a choir director to men who society generally had turned their backs on.

From behind the prison walls on March 28, those gathered for Roman Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon’s debut service for prison ministry could not deny they were moved by the choir of remanded prisoners led by two convicted men who are part of the prisoners band.

Morris said she began singing at prison functions around 2002 and continued doing so whenever called. She never thought of becoming a choir director leading “clients” as the inmates are referred to by prison officers. But on March 19, the day the country inaugurated its first female president, Paula-Mae Weekes, she was asked to form a choir for a service days away.

“At first the men were saying that they couldn’t sing so I started singing ‘Jesus loves me this I know’ and they started singing along and it started from there. What happened that day was the anointing of God,” Morris said.

Morris said she first began singing publicly at her father’s funeral in 1996. Prior to that she was heckled and told her singing was causing rain to fall. Since then, she was asked to sing at funerals and so began her passion for singing. She added that she noticed, from having to go and sing and occasionally using the prisoners band – made up of only convicts – that the behaviour of the inmates was changing as they played the instruments.

“That day, I saw those men get a fresh hope. They are inmates, yes, but they were singing and even the men who were heckling them while we were practising in the choir stood up and were applauding them,” Morris said adding she told the men in the choir that they were not performing but ministering.

Morris, the older sister of Clayton Morris, former captain for the Strike Squad football team who now runs the futsal training and competition in the prison, said the two inherited a generous spirit from their parents. The Morris’ self giving started when Clayton donated pans that their father owned to the prisons after hearing the prisoners playing on very old steel pans and, according to his sister, they are just fulfilling their God-given purpose. She said the choir is unnamed and she believed it was not her place to christen it.

“In the two weeks I was training them I noticed a transformation in them, it was rehabilitative. They were willing to be structured and to learn. There were people laughing at them and calling them ‘sissy boys’ and I told them to sing for an audience of one.”

She said her parents planted a seed of generosity and the remaining nine of 11 children are reaping the benefits.

The worship leader at Deliverance Ministries, Morris said the choir is all about Jesus getting the glory and took little to no credit. She encouraged others to remember that the inmates were just humans. The men trained for an hour a day for five days and were supported by the prisoners band, Outfit International.