A pastor's struggle with infidelity
Published:Sunday | April 20, 2014 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
Countless days he had preached against infidelity to his flock, yet he easily accepted the position of adulterer, having an affair with a married woman who was a member of his congregation.
Pastor Paul Blake would be faithful for some time, then his wanton lifestyle would get the better of him.
The former lead singer of the Blood Fire Posse band, and pastor of Acts of the Holy Spirit Ministries International, watched as the foundation of his marriage to Pastor Dorrett Blake was shaken by his actions.
"As an entertainer, I had a promiscuous lifestyle. Getting married and settling down, you would think I had given up the lifestyle. I had inconsistencies. I would be faithful for some time, then something would always come up," he told Outlook in an exclusive interview.
After 20 years of marriage to the woman he still acknowledges as his soulmate, fathering two Christlike children, and nuerturing a congregation that had grown from nothing to a force to be reckoned with, the goodly pastor was presented with divorce papers. "Not once did we imagine that this was possible," they admitted. Blake said he was in the Philippines in 2007 when the Lord told him to confess to his wife. He eventually told her in 2008.
"One day, we were about to pray together and I told her I had to tell her something and I confessed."
Even though Dorrett suspected her husband had been cheating for years, hearing him admit it placed her in an emotional tailspin. That was when the upheaval in their marriage started. "It was really hard to handle. I needed time away from the ministry," she confessed.
She moved away for a month, because she wanted out of the marriage. On her return, she held a meeting with the board at their church, revealing to the members they would no longer be husband and wife. They recommended counselling and they both decided to check into a facility in the United States. However, this didn't work. They continued to live in the same house, "where Paul was still getting calls from people I was not comfortable with," said Dorrett.
Trust eroded
Then came the separation - he moved out on his wife and children. The healing was incomplete, trust had been eroded and Pastor Blake was still ministering.
Today, he looks back at his deceitful lifestyle and says, "I am naked, I am ashamed. I recognise I was a hypocrite, ministering to the people and then finding myself calling the same person on the phone." He not only moved out of his family home, but he left his flock and started attending another church.
"It was very painful. I used that time to introspect. If I had died, my soul would have been in hell," he says.
During this introspection, Blake said he reached rock bottom and called out to God. " I said to God, 'how can I do this to my family?' And that is when Psalm 51 became real to me. 'A broken spirit and a contrite heart God will not despise'."
He would tell his wife he was ready to return home, but she wouldn't give him the time of day. "God knows when you are serious, when you have repented, when you are broken, when you are ready," said Pastor Blake, stating that he remained celibate for the two years they were separated.
Dorrett would probably have given her She said he came to visit Dorrett said the Lord's response was, 'the covenant has been broken, manifest "The scripture said do not The Paul said his response to the word was to For his 24-year-old son, Stephen, who decided to Young Blake said Proverbs He warns, "Behind every great It took Dorrett a while to accept that she and Over time, "When my wife invited me to be the engineer, I Secret The first Sunday Pastor Blake went back to the This was six weeks before the decree absolute.
"I was in touch with my very first girlfriend from high school. I later But the Lord had put
husband another chance, but said it was too difficult to trust him. "I
saw him in a picture with a girl and it made the situation worse. I just
locked him off totally."
and he got very angry because he was rejected. This was a turn off for
her. "I prayed to the Lord about it," she said.
it'. So I said, are you saying divorce? Blake, who had counselled
several families against divorce, said the Lord told her to divorce her
husband. "The Lord said his conversations were impure. He gave me a word
for my husband, Proverbs 26:24-26. 'People may cover their hatred with
pleasant words, but they are deceiving you. They pretend to be kind, but
don't believe them'.
believe what he is saying," Dorrett explained.
woman who had spent several Sundays feeding hundreds of drug addicts,
mentally ill persons, prisoners and street people during their popular
Street Church and outreach programmes, said she actually went through
the pain of divorce. "It was like a tearing apart, because really,
marriage makes you one. It was like death, I felt like my husband had
died. So I wrapped my head with a black cloth, I was in mourning," she
reminisced.
start seeking help from God. He confessed again and that was when the
process began.When his wife presented him with the divorce papers in
2010, he was at the office with his son and they hugged and cried. Blake
said he refused to accept divorce and started to pursue God and not his
wife. "She said she got her instructions from God, so I pursued
God."
marry his university sweetheart during the turmoil, this was a rich
lesson. "I looked at it as something that I could learn from, an eye
opener that these things cause you not to be able to maximise your
potential. I use it as a point of reference," he told
Outlook.
5, which states that a man can lose all the glory and reputation and all
that he has worked for because of a woman, was evident in what had
happened to his father.
man is a woman and behind the fall of a great man is also a woman. I
grew up knowing right from wrong, and it was my father who taught me
those things were wrong. Yet he did them." Their 23-year-old daughter
Tiffany said the upheaval impacted her differently, she was in denial
for over a year, refusing to accept what was happening to her family.
Most of her emotion was anger. "Seeing my mother go through what she
did, I used to say to Mommy, 'I would've left him a long time
ago'."
her husband were getting a divorce. A number of pastors in Montego Bay
where they lived reached out. "They were encouraging us to reconsider
the decision. Being a popular minister in the town, about five pastors
reached out to me and I wouldn't budge."
she moved on, accepting the fact that she was going to be single. "We
weren't at loggerheads. He would cook on a Sunday and invite us over
(the entire family). "After two dinners, she stopped going. She said,
one day in 2011, the Lord said to her, "Invite him to do the engineering
in the church for the PA system. I did and he said,
'Sure'."
gladly accepted. Because she said she had not changed her mind about
the divorce, I figured I had to move on."
travel
church that he had built with his wife, there were several visitors in
attendance. Ironically, he had airline tickets in his pockets, intending
to leave Jamaica the very next day for Dallas, Texas, where he planned
on restarting a relationship that he had in high
school.
found out she was the perfect counterfeit, as she was a minister with
her own ministry, she was an intercessor, basically all that my wife
was. She had asked me to come to the United States to help her drive
across the country to her grandmother's funeral, and she bought the
ticket. I reluctantly agreed, but woke up the Sunday morning extremely
anxious and sweating because the flight was the next day. I prayed
intensely, telling the Lord I felt like I was going to die and, if this
was not of His will, to stop it."
the two back together without their permission or without them knowing.
"That morning in church, my wife, who was about to preach, informed the
church that after seeking the Lord for the word to preach, she got
nothing. But my son went up and said he had a premonition someone in there was about to do
something that would cost them their life. None of them knew I was
travelling, and that was enough for me as I went up and confessed to the
church that I was about to travel
the following morning and wasn't sure when I 'd come back as I felt estranged from my family. When I called my friend and told her, she lost it on the phone. I knew I'd made the right decision."
Now that their marriage is
healed, Pastor Blake says,"We learnt that God's word is true, I
remember when God told me that we would have a model marriage and we
would minister to people".
Still working on their
marriage, which is not perfect, the two say they are at the best place
they have ever been. "I am a trophy of God's grace. No matter how bad
you get, God's grace is able to turn your life around. I believe I was
the worst of sinners because I was a hypocrite," Pastor Blake told
Outlook.
He admits that, when he
saw the finality of divorce, that was when he was brought to his
knees.
Faith is what kept Dorrett. For her husband,
even his password on his computer he changed to 'restoration', before
the marriage was restored, "because I believed," he
said.
According to Dorrett, she has been healed from
the pain of rejection and emotional abuse. "So, I can't even feel the
pain anymore. If there are marriages that are at that place right now,
there is hope."
Having lived through the tragedies in
their marriage, the two are more than competent to host their upcoming
marriage seminar at Golf View Hotel in Mandeville, Manchester, from
April 24-26, featuring four-time Grammy Award winner Regina Bell and
childhood superstar, Junior Tucker. The two will address issues such as
rebuilding after unfaithfulness, overcoming adversity, overcoming lust,
raising children of purpose and children's point of view on separation
and divorce and how it affects them.
"Communication
and sex are vital keys to a successful marriage," says the couple. With
first-hand knowledge of a broken marriage and accepting that the state
of the nation is a result of dysfunctional families, the Blakes feel
this is a perfect event.
The two restarted their lives
in Mandeville in 2013, opening an Acts of the Holy Spirit Ministries
International, first in their garage, where they had one person in
attendance for approximately three months.
"We also
had a Wednesday night each week that was well supported, but that was
all we had."
That small congregation has grown to 50
and they have moved the church from their garage to 18B Ward Avenue at
Manchester
Plaza.