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Single parent Basil Reid gives his two girls a good Christian foundation

BY NADINE WILSON Sunday Observer staff reporter wilsonn@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The average parent will probably tell you that the best thing they have ever done for their children is to get them educated, or buy them a car or a house or even endure an unbearable experience to prevent their children from suffering.

Basil Reid, however, insists that the best thing he has done for his nine and 10-year-old daughters was to baptise them himself at a Sabbath service at Northern Caribbean University (NCU) last month.

Pastor Basil Reid pronounces the baptismal sentence to baptise his daughters, nine-year-old Aneicia (centre) and 10-yera-old Mikhala to climax a one-week evangelistic series organised by the Dorado Pathfinders Club of Northern Caribbean University (NCU) at the university a few weeks ago. Holding the microphone is Pastor Robert Wright, assistant pastor for the Adventist Church at NCU.

“The whole idea of them being baptised, I think, is the ultimate that I can do for them,” he said. “I think this is the greatest act that I can do for them, this is the greatest direction that I can give them. Better than house or land or any other inheritance, that’s how I see it.”

Reid, who is the director of the Helen G White Research Centre at NCU, has been a single parent since his wife of 12 years died eight months ago from breast cancer.

Despite losing their mother at such a young age, he said his two daughters - Mikhala and Aneicia - have been doing well.

“It has been a pretty challenging situation with two girls and a father, but we have done excellently I believe,” said Reid. “They have been examined emotionally by a psychologist, and they are doing very well. In their school work, they are performing great.”

Reid also lectures part-time in the School of Religion and Theology at NCU, having earned his Bachelor’s degree in Theology from the institution in 1967. He also earned his Master’s in Religion from Andrews University in Michigan, United States and in 2008, his doctorate in Ministry, also from NCU.

He said he and his late wife had hoped that their children would one day get baptised, but they waited for the kids to say they were ready to do so.

“They asked for it and I waited until much of the trauma of mommy’s death had passed. We talked about meeting mommy again and they understand the philosophy and the doctrine of the church and the Bible about the resurrection and meeting their loved ones again,” he said.

“When I say mommy is dead, they correct me and say mommy is sleeping; mommy told them that she is going to sleep, so mommy is asleep,” he added.

He said the fact that his children have been raised in a Christian household has made their upbringing much easier. In fact, he noted that they are considered well-disciplined and exemplary students at school.

“The idea of having a Christian environment lends itself to so much more, even discipline and such,” said the proud father. “I have never flogged my children. I discipline them just by talking to them. And they are also able to make decisions. I don’t abuse them, neither verbally nor otherwise, and so we are able to get along very easily.”

Because a housekeeper takes care of the general domestic duties in the home, Reid is able to spend a lot of time with his children while managing his career.

“I go to work, I do my work, and the children go off to school. We begin the day with prayer and we end the day with prayer. We have our morning worship, not church service, just worship. So we pray, sing and then after that they go to school, I go to work and after that I pick them up in the evenings,” he said.

After they get home, Reid said the girls are given some time to watch television, they eat their meals and he assists them with their school work. They pray and have Bible studies and then they go off to bed by nine o’clock.

“I think some parents allow the television to control the activities of their family and believe me, my children watch television, but not the type of programmes that some children would watch,” he said. “They watch, for instance, educational programmes and social programmes so they don’t have to turn off the television when I walk in the room.”

While he believes he has been doing a fair job of raising his children so far, he said there are some things he will never be able to do for his girls as a father; but he knows the Lord will help him with “his inadequacies”. He said he ensures that his daughters make regular visits to their maternal grandparents and other family friends who have also been contributing to their development.

And while raising two young girls might seem like a mammoth task, Reid said he and his wife went over everything concerning their daughters before she passed on.

“Before the death of my wife, we spoke freely about the children. As a matter of fact, we spent the last four months together in one room as mother, father and children,” he said. “It was prime time. We talked everything over with the children and so they were well-prepared for her death. And that had helped me to see my role as a father in a new light, not only as father but the role of mother too.”

Unfortunately, this was Reid’s second such loss, as his first wife of 27 years died due to ill-health. As such, he sired his two girls at an older age than he had wanted. But this has only strengthened his resolve to be the best
father possible.

“I think at this stage for me it is something that I never knew would come my way, so it came with added joy, added responsibility and there is a sense of maturity, obligation and responsibility that I know I have to carry through,”
he said.

Although he tries to get his daughters active at church and at school and monitors their lifestyles, Reid is clear about his desire to see his children enjoy their childhood.

“I don’t press them to become adults, so we play games together,” he explained. “Sometimes they make up their little games and we would play together. And then there are times when they play by themselves. They have a number of dollies and toys, and they name everyone; they have them in a family setting, which one is the mother of who and that sort of thing.”

Although there is no guarantee that his daughters won’t stray from the path he and his late wife have set for them, he revels in the knowledge that they have tried to raise them the best way they knew how.

“No parent can ensure anything when raising kids. We can only do our part, we can only do what we know we ought to do as parents and allow our children to make decisions,” he said. “It is like studying currency, we don’t know all the false currencies, but we study the genuine. When the counterfeit comes, I think if the child is taught the genuine, then they will know when the counterfeit comes and the possibility is that they won’t choose it.”

China’s economy is also showing some positive signs

The pace of decline of the world’s major economies is slowing, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The composite leading indicators (CLI) index for the 30 countries in the OECD rose 0.5 point in April, but was still 8.3 points lower than April 2008.

“It is still too early to assess whether it is a temporary or a more durable turning point,” the OECD said.

The CLI index for the UK rose by 0.7 point, and the US was up by 0.2 point.

In the eurozone, the CLI index increased by 0.8 point, but was down 6.3 points from the same month last year.

‘Reduced pace’

The global economy is poised for its worst year since World War II as the major economies have fallen into severe recession.

The organisation said countries not included in the OECD were still declining at a fast pace, with the exception of China and India. Both those countries showed similar signs of easing to the US and Europe.

The data points to a “reduced pace of deterioration in most of the OECD economies with stronger signals of a possible trough in Canada, France, Italy and the United Kingdom”, the OECD said.

World stock markets have recovered from their lows in March on hopes for a global recovery, based mainly on survey data of consumer and business confidence.

Many investors are betting Brazil will recover faster than other countries

Brazil has gone into recession after its economy contracted by 0.8% in the first three months of 2009.

The figure from statistics agency IBGE was still better than expected and a big improvement on the 3.8% decline in the last three months of 2008.

Most economists define a recession as being two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Also on Tuesday, Romania went into recession following a decline of 4.6% in the first three months of the year.

It had contracted 3.4% in the last three months of 2008, according to the statistics agency Ins.

The International Monetary Fund, which has recently approved a 12.9bn euro ($18bn; £11.1bn) loan for Romania, predicts that its economy will contract by 4.1% in the whole of 2009.

‘Momentum’

In Brazil, while household spending grew 0.7% and government spending expanded 0.6%, capital spending fell by 12.6% in a sign of companies cutting back on investment.

“The stronger first-quarter number should add some momentum to the view that the second-quarter recovery could be stronger than expected and growth may not be as bad for the whole year,” said Paul Biszko from RBC Capital Markets.

“Obviously it’s positive for the currency and I think it will lessen the need for the central bank to cut interest rates aggressively, moving forward.”

Foreign investors have been putting money into Brazil recently in the hope that its economy will recover more quickly than other countries.

The Ibovespa stock market index has been reaching levels not seen since before the global financial crisis.

Existing stimulus measures are “completely extraordinary’, Mr Trichet said

Governments that have borrowed heavily to fight the economic crisis should not accumulate any more debt, the president of the European Central Bank has said.

Jean-Claude Trichet said existing stimulus packages were “sufficient”.

“There is a moment where you cannot spend more and accumulate more debts. We are at that moment,” he said.

Mr Trichet added that global economic activity should come “close to stability” later this year, and that some growth would be seen in 2010.

‘Extraordinary’

Stimulus packages are, essentially, government spending aimed at jump-starting economies.

Speaking to France’s Europe-1 radio, Mr Trichet said that any new stimulus packages offered by governments would would only drive further into debt that would have implications for future generations.

He added that the stimulus packages already in place were “completely extraordinary”.

“In our analysis, this is sufficient,” Mr Trichet said.

Many European countries have indicated that they will not be offering further economic stimulus, despite continued spending in the US.

In February, US Congress approved President Obama’s $787bn stimulus package.