Aabida Allaham

HOLY GROUND: The Arima Girls Government Primary School where Apostle Reverend Juliana Pena conducts regular worship services. Inset: The classroom in which they spend close to seven hours chanting and praying. -Photos: Aabida Allaham

JULIANA PENA, the woman being labelled as Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s spiritual adviser, has been conducting church services every Sunday at an Arima school for over a year.

Sources told the Sunday Express that Pena, who is in her early 60s, has been using a classroom on the second floor of the Arima Girls’ Government Primary School since early last year to offer spiritual guidance to a small group of ’underprivileged’ people.

Former president Sir Ellis Clarke admitted yesterday that he has met Pena, having been introduced to her by Manning, a few years ago. Clarke said he does not remember where the meeting took place.

When asked if he believed she was in fact Manning’s spiritual adviser, he said Manning, ’never denied that he had one, but that is his business and he might have more than one, for all I know’.

The congregation at the Arima school, the source said, consists of less than a dozen people and they would normally gather at the compound from about 9 a.m and stay there until about 3 p.m. without breaking for lunch or a snack.

’They would get dropped off by a taxi or something, or come walking while she (Pena) would pull up in a fancy (greenish/blue) Jaguar,’ he said.

The source could not say if Pena was paying for use of the premises, but said a former teacher at the school was also a member of the congregation.

’Yes, she would come and they would be praying, and signing…the songs, sound like Pentecostal, but it is a kind of mix-up…they have they own kind of thing so I can’t say if is born again or what,’ the source said.

Attempts to contact the school’s principal, Annestar Ramsey, as well as communication officers at the Ministry of Education, Elton Wickam and Rory Subiah, about the use of the school to conduct these services were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, a visit to Pena’s family home along the Arima Old Road yesterday also resulted in many dead-ends.

Her youngest brother, who only wished to be identified as Mr Pereira, said he did not like the media coming to his home because neither he nor his family has had anything to do with Juliana or her church.

Pereira, 35, saying he was 30 years younger than Pena, also said he only heard from his sister when she called to talk to their mother Minitra (Pena) Pereira, and even then, he said, the conversations did not go beyond ’hello’.

Asked why he did not keep in touch with his sister, Pereira said, ’we just have different ways’.

Other sources said Pena spent most of her life in Arima until migrating to the American Midwest in her twenties, the so-called Bible belt, which is where she supposedly developed her religious fervour.

Sources also said Pena has been married twice, her first marriage was to a former national footballer who reportedly got custody of the couple’s children following their divorce.

Pena subsequently married a man named Devonish and reports are that the couple is currently in the process of being divorced.

Trevor Devonish, Pena’s brother-in-law, told the Sunday Express that his brother, who lives in Cumana, has nothing to do with the church being built in the Heights of Guanapo by the Shanghai Construction Company for an estimated $30 million and is very ’worried’ about his name being called in this.

’She has always been a very religious person…she and my brother used to go around to old people’s home and pray with them and help.

’I did not even know where they used to find them, but these were people who needed help and that is the kind of thing they used to do. So I am sure if she is building a church, it’s to do good work and I don’t know why the media has all this negative spin on it,’ he said at his business place along the Eastern Main Road in Arima yesterday.

When the Sunday Express asked how Pena, who is currently using her mother’s maiden name, would be able to get the funding to build such an elaborate church, Devonish said, ’Julie have international connections and she is very well connected’.

He said she was really very good at what she does.

’She has the ability to really get in touch with her spiritual side you know…there were times when I was having some tough times in my business and Julie would just show up and do her prayers and thing and everything would fall back on track,’ he said.

Still, he could not say why his estranged sister-in-law had not come forward and cleared her name or made a statement about the church.

Another one of Pena’s brothers also called the Sunday Express offices yesterday and said whatever she was doing was nobody’s business.

Describing himself as the older sibling and a former police officer, he said he wanted the media to stop hounding them down and leave his sister alone because, ’whatever she is doing, wherever she getting money from is none of all yuh business’.

’The Prime Minister says the church is not his and he can give donations to who he want, what all yuh want again.’ he added.

Her youngest brother, who asked that he be called Mr Perreira, told the Sunday Express he last heard that his sister lived somewhere in St Ann’s. (Trinidad Express)