By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter 
Stitchie - Carlington Wilmot /Freelance Photographer
"Some people gave me a week. Some people gave me two weeks and some people were generous - they gave me three weeks. Well, I don't know which calendar they are using but it is now six years..."
WHEN LIEUTENANT Stitchie announced to the world in 1997 that he was a Christian, he was greeted with scepticism. Many expected that he would soon backslide and return to his life as a high-flying deejay.
His conversion to the Christian faith came about on August 7, 1997. He was on his way to perform on Reggae Sumfest in Montego Bay. The car he was travelling crashed and two of his four friends who were with him were hospitalised. The car was written off. Onlookers found it hard to believe anyone survived the accident. Stitchie was rushed to hospital for treatment of cuts he'd received. The attending doctor told him he could not perform with his injuries. The doctor wanted to stitch him up. He told the doctor, "No, doc, you can't stitch up Stitchie." The doctor reluctantly allowed him to leave. Stitchie went to Sumfest and performed at his slated time which was about 3:00 a.m. Hardly anyone knew that hours before he had been in an accident. He was his usual energetic self on the stage and he got about four encores.
BOY WHO POINTED HIM TO CHRIST
When he came off the stage, a 15-year-old Canadian boy gave him a Gideon Bible backstage. The boy was in the island as part of a missionary endeavour to give away 30 Bibles to celebrities. Stitchie took the Bible with him to his hotel room and turned its pages. The Bible had topical guides and scripture references that were applicable to such moods as grief, happiness and indecision, etc. But what caught the eye of the entertainer was 'The Sinner's Prayer' at the back of the book. "It just bowled me over. I felt several kind of goose pimples coming over me I just gave my heart to the Lord right there in the hotel," he said.
Having received Christ into his heart there in his hotel room, Stitchie immediately had little desire to do his repertoire of secular songs. "I never felt comfortable anymore and I just decided and I said to my friends, 'I am not singing any more of those songs.' I never sang slack or rude songs - I have always believed in humour, social commentary, informative and educational stuff. I just felt that the songs were not good enough."
After the Sumfest gig, he had one more contract to fulfil in Hanover a few months later. He did the show, and received five encores but each time that the emcee invited him to come back on the stage he felt embarrassed and ashamed. "I was doing it but the heart was not in it. It was ripping me inside," said Stitchie.
NOT READY FOR MINISTRY
A graduate of the G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sport, Lt. Stitchie, whose real name is Cleve Laing, wanted to abandon his singing career altogether. When I got saved, I decided I did not want to sing anymore. He was being courted by churches all around to sing and testify at their evangelistic crusades. "But I never went. I figured a lot of them just wanted to cash in on the novelty of Stitchie getting saved. I was not ready for front-line duties and I saw what had happened to Ninja Man."
For three years, he withdrew from the public limelight and stayed home studying the Bible and involving himself in the ministries of Glad Tidings Open Bible Church, St. Catherine, the fellowship where his mother who had died two years earlier, had been a member.
He did no recordings during that period. In fact, just about the time he got saved, he was working on an album entitled Raw Episode that was to be soon released. It was not released until 1999 and two songs from it did well on the Billboard charts. But with its release, Stitchie would not help the record company to promote it because of his lifestyle change.
"I have heard it said in the church... that secular artistes who come to Christ do so to make some money because 'nothing naw gwan fi dem'. I was at the peak of my career. And if you really need money, you need to stay in secular. Because it is not here (in gospel)." For him, the money as a gospel artiste is nothing compared to big bucks he earned as a secular artiste. Stitchie hit the music scene in 1983 when he won the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's deejay contest. His hits included Wear Yu Size, Nice Girl, Natty Dread, Story Time, Great Ambition, Life Goes On, Ram Dance Party, Dress to Impress and Body Body.
With the loss of income since leaving secular entertainment, it meant a radical adjustment in his lifestyle. He lost houses, properties and vehicles. "Up to March 2000 I was living on the floor of a rented house. I mean literal floor."
LONELY TIMES AHEAD
After letting the world know that he was saved, some family members stayed wide "because they had seen me as an ABM machine. That was not forthcoming anymore. I was not in the limelight. The same thing happened to with friends. Some friends, for that reason, disappeared. It was hard on me and it floored me because these were people that I loved and still love and I wanted them to be there to get support," he said.
These life experiences are to be the subject of a book that he is writing. He is almost sure to include a most potent experience that transformed into the serious student of scripture that he is. Weeks after getting saved, he was 'on the corner' with men from St. John's Road, in Spanish Town, where he is from. He was excitedly and passionately sharing the gospel and was pretty sure that all the guys would repent. Then came on the scene a friend of his who had Rastafarian orientation. He said: "Stitchie, you gone turn Christian, what you know 'bout Bible...?" The friend unleashed many scripture quotations with his own interpretative spin on it and thereby assaulted his infantile faith. Stitchie was embarrassed and the men were in awe.
"As of that day," said Stitchie, "I made a commitment that no one who nuh saved supposed to know the Bible more than me. So I started studying the Bible saying to myself 'When I see him again we going to really have a talk about the Bible.' But all now me nuh see him."
BIBLE WHIZ
Indeed, Stitchie knows the Bible. For almost every answer to this reporter's questions, he can cite chapter and verse to supplement his response. He has an arsenal of quotable quotes some original, some not with which he infuses many an answer to questions. It is second nature to him. Describing what it means to be a gospel artiste, he said: "It is no stardom business in Christ as it is in the world. There is just one star, who is Jesus Christ, the Bright and Morning Star. And, if you find that you are in gospel and you are a star, then all stars belong in the galaxy. So if I find you are a star and you are on earth, then you are a fallen star."
When he became a Christian, one of the things he did not manage to save was his marriage. The break-up began when he was not saved. By the time he was a Christian, the haemorrhage was severe and he did not manage to salvage the relationship. "When I was not saved, I made decisions ignorantly and suffered the consequences of those decisions... Even when I was saved, I was making efforts to save the relationship, but the damage had been done already... It was very painful in a lot of areas, but God brought me through it."
Stitchie remarried last October. His second wife, Sophia, formerly sang with Chaka Demus and Pliers. She is an integral part of his ministry team, Pure Gold Ministries. He attends the Constant Spring branch of Covenant Community Church; Stitchie is a member of the praise and worship team there. He also likes availing himself for the street evangelism ministry of his church. "My purpose in life is to
take the gospel to the nations, to kingdoms, to root up, to pull down, to tear down, to throw out to bring change, not to leave things in chaos but to build and to plant... the medium that I am using is reggae music."
Stitchie believes it is ungodly for church people not to accept reggae music in its liturgy. "For us to reject something that God has created because of our own personal taste is ungodly. It might not be ministering to you, but it is ministering to someone else." Nevertheless, he concedes that for reggae gospel to gain acceptance excellence must be its hallmark. "We need to present the music as unto God - with excellence. People like excellent music. Some of the times the production that we put out is substandard... We don't see the product as offering a sacrifice as unto God. I believe God wanted to raise the bar, that is why God saved us artistes from the secular bringing us into the body of Christ so that we can come with that training that He allowed us to have to bring His music to an international standard."
Many more secular artistes want to surrender their lives to Christ, but they fear that they won't be able to get by with their loss of earnings, he said. To reach them, he continued, church folk need to reach out to them and meet them where they are at without belittling them. He said Christians "must exercise the wisdom of God to show them (secular artistes) that they are special and to minister to them in love."
Stitchie is perhaps on his biggest leap of faith. He is not signed to any record label despite enticing offers. "I am now for the first time going to release my album through my own company and through my own label Drum and Bass Music." This, his second gospel album, is slated for release early next year.
"In terms of the magnitude of this thing, it is vision far larger than me. God has said to me, 'You need to put out the thing, you need to start your own company, you need to start your own label.' I don't have the know how this thing is supposed to be done. I am not a novice but there are things that need to be done that I physically won't be able to do. But I know that God will make the provision. If you get a vision and you can accomplish it on your own, it is not of God. Because the vision is always bigger than the visionary.
