Rayon Daley: From promoting dancehall music to proclaiming God’s word

THOUGH HE grew up in a solid Christian home with parents who were firm in their beliefs and principles, Rayon Daley strayed from these teachings as a teen and found himself becoming more engrossed in the secular world as he got older.

It took near-death experiences, and coming to terms with how the Lord used him to save someone from committing suicide, for him to realise the calling on his life.

From the tender age of seven, Daley gave his life to God and began exhibiting his love for music ministry. However, as he aged and became more exposed to the interests of his counterparts, his curiosity for what existed on the other side of what he knew intensified.

“I was out there enjoying the music, but some Christian principles stayed with me because I wasn’t drinking or smoking. I ended up becoming a dancehall selector, playing for sound systems,” he said.

But as he enjoyed the aspects of secular life that still had an appeal, Daley was rudely awakened by the realities, confirming that all that glitters were certainly not gold.

“I would witness people stabbing others, fighting and mayhem. I saw women giving up themselves to every and anybody and carry themselves anyhow. Some of the these that I would have seen is difficult to even make mention of because they are not nice… .”

Daley recounted how one night, while talking to a young woman, he watched helplessly as she was violated and he was held up at gunpoint.

“I was leaning on the wall talking to a young lady I had just met and I heard some noise in the bush behind us. Only to realise that a knife was at my throat, guns were pointing at my face and they took the lady out of my hands, dragged her over the fence and raped her right in front of me.”

A traumatised Daley said after he took her to the police station and then to the hospital, he never saw her again, despite his efforts to find her.

“That experience has never left me … I remember, too, my younger brother and I went to a club and having the experience I told him to stay to the back. But he went in the middle and was circled by men who was sticking him with ice prick and demanding money.”

Acting on instinct, Daley said he intervened and immediately had to come up with an exit strategy to the leave the club with his brother alive.

As it became even more apparent that his chosen life was not serving him, Daley, though conflicted, remained until he could no longer resist the call for his life to be used for God’s honour.

“I came home from a dance one morning at minutes to 4 a.m. and I saw food on the table, but I had already eaten. I heard a voice saying bring the food to *Andrea. But I ignored the voice because I didn’t want her to think I was interested in having a relationship with her. But I heard the voice a second and third time.”

The now ordained elder at the Albion Seventh-day Adventist Church and vice-president for Personal Ministries at the Manchester Lay Workers Federation, an auxiliary arm of the Central Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, said he could no longer resist the call and was later shocked to see what could have happened had he disobeyed.

“I took up the food and no one knew that I came in and that I had left the house. I started walking up the street and as I entered the gate and was walking up the hill to the house, I saw a silhouette and then I realised it was the lady, standing on the side of the tank ready to jump. I cried out and I said ‘No, don’t jump, God sent me with it’. I don’t know where those words came from but they came out.”

LOST ALL HOPE

After helping her down and giving her the food, Daley said he soon learnt that the woman was a Christian who became pregnant out of wedlock, was being abused by the man that impregnated her, was left without food or water for three days and had lost all hope.

“I realised at that moment that God wanted to use me for something more … It bothered my mind for days and I knew that God did not want me to die in the world. I returned (to the church) with a passion and while some people said ‘Where is this dancehall boy going?’, others prayed with and encouraged me.”

After a year of attending church consistently, Daley recommitted his life to God and saw even more how God was leading him into full-time ministry.

“God has used me to bring hundreds into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ … I had no CXC subjects, the lady to whom I am now married, and share my ministry with, taught me human and social biology. I was able to do my CXCs. I went to Northern Caribbean University to study religion and theology with zero dollars and zero cents, but God opened doors for me,” he told Family and Religion.

Having served in almost every office of his local church, Daley said he has been evangelising virtually to people as far as China, who are eager for the word.

“It is a rewarding feeling to see men who put on a tough exterior, smokers, drug addicts, gunmen, turning their lives around and serving God. The only difficulty I have now is sometimes physically reaching people who are far away because I don’t have a vehicle and I have to rely on public transportation, but God’s work must go on.”

Daley said his wish is for everyone to come into the knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ and accept Him as their personal Saviour.

* Name changed to protect identity.