The Tribune

SOME time yesterday, July 31, 2017, as we went about our daily lives, a community was scrambling for its life, trying to beat a bulldozer scheduled to demolish it.

This was not a community of illegal immigrants, nor was it a shantytown with unsanitary conditions posing health risks. This was a 4.5-acre community off Prince Charles Drive in Nassau that for more than 20 years under the auspices of Ambassador Chorale has been helping the homeless, educating abandoned or at risk children, finding safe havens for the abused, providing emotional and professional guidance for those who were lost. Nearly every week, someone from the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Ministry of Social Services or Red Cross drops off someone to the property, a lost, hurt or hungry soul who needs care and attention. Most of the time the drop-offs are unofficial. The government does not contribute to the care and feeding by Ambassador Chorale. Members raise funds. You see them on street corners dressed in light blue shirts holding the well-worn Ambassador Chorale collection tin. That is what the founder Reverend Michael Bullard calls the public donation. Every dollar collected is recorded. Some international funding helps. Records are transparent. Expenses are accounted for.

There is never enough money to go around and when times are tough, as they often are, Rev Bullard, a man with a PhD. and two Master’s degrees, sleeps in his car. So do some of the other men. But financial worries are not the major concern right now. The land they have been on and have been paying on for more than two decades is at the heart of a property dispute. They say they have never lost in court and they insist that the property description of the land in contention is not the land they are on. The addresses of the roads do not match. Even the signage on the road differs from the road identified in the matter.

Still, they have been the target of numerous attacks, including a bulldozing in 2006, another in 2008, fires in 2010 and on January 21, 2016, the attack that destroyed nearly everything but their beliefs. On that day, families watched in horror as the first bulldozer tore through the property, smashing trailers, buildings and windows, crushing furniture they had built by hand. Children and adults scrambled and the heavy equipment plowed down hand-laid stone structures. It killed dogs and cats and only the screaming saved the life of a 4-year-old boy who was running after a dog trying to save its life as the bulldozer nearly mowed him down, the machine operator probably unable to see the small child.

The story of Ambassador Chorale is a tale of tragedy, pain and heartbreak but it is also a story of hope. It is living proof of what the human spirit can accomplish when people, shown unity, love and attention, are offered a better chance in life. The story should never have unfolded the way it did, but there may be a way to change the next chapter. To do so we must pull together as a people and put it right. We need to show we care.

The past months have been brutal but in recent days since yet another warning was issued, strangers and friends have come forward to open their homes and hearts to dozens of the displaced, the mothers and children in motels and rental rooms, the clothes, furniture, books, documents stored in homes of supporters across the island of New Providence.

What cannot be saved is the years of toil that produced vegetable gardens, the hens, chickens, fruit trees that helped feed those who depended on Ambassador Chorale.

What cannot be heard is the songs of the birds who filled the trees or the parrot that called the retreat home.

What cannot be salvaged is the spirituality that filled the acreage creating within its boundaries a sanctuary of hope and healing. What has been silenced is the laughter of children after school or on Sunday when after church, they came back to the oasis that love built to sing more and enjoy the food cooked over open fires.

While we who call The Bahamas home have much to be thankful for, there are those who have much less, but The Bahamas is their home, too. When last have we stopped and shown appreciation to those like Rev Bullard and other Ambassador Chorale members who spend their lives looking after hundreds who have a chance of success because of the care they received?

We do not know what will happen with the dispute nor are we rendering any sort of opinion or judgment. We do know the clock is ticking. We do know Ambassador Chorale needs to build a new home and a new life for the 194 families they are looking after, fathers, mothers and children split up and strewn all over the island in temporary housing. We do know land is available. With the hundreds of thousands of acres of available Crown Land, all Ambassador Chorale needs is 10. Ten acres, such a small amount that could do so much.

They are willing to start building all over again, including a full vegetable farm that would feed hundreds and enable them to earn some of the revenue they need to be self-sustaining, less dependent on begging that has been the main source of revenue since the equipment of five small businesses they operated were destroyed.

Surely, we are not so cold-hearted as to ignore their plea. If we do, we can only ask, ‘What happened to us? What happened to Bahamians who once met an emergency without hesitation, rushing to show they cared about each other?’

Let us demonstrate that we are still our brother’s keeper, and our sister’s and the lesser among us who deserve a chance. Let us show we still have a heart and that heart beats strong. As a private individual, you can pressure your MP or write a letter to the editor. You can start a campaign or a petition. You can simply say, Crown Land, please, Sir, for Ambassador Chorale. They have been singing for someone else’s supper for a very long time and we cannot afford for the music to end.