Just after midnight Tuesday, as most of the country dozed, the vehicles bearing dozens of camouflage-clad cops pulled up quietly outside the high walls of the nondescript Transformed Life Ministry (TLM), along the major Eastern Main Road.
Normally congested during the day and a nightmare to navigate during rush hours, the road winds from Trinidad and Tobago’s crowded capital, Port-of-Spain in the west to bustling Sangre Grande in the east, and through small residential towns like Arouca, derived from the indigenous Arawak name for the region and nearby river. There are several public places of prayer from Pentecostal to Presbyterian along the way, and until this week TLM seemed like any another established religious organisation in this land of many, where missions, masjids and temples draw the devout one day at a time.
Founded in jail, about 19 years ago by Glen Awong, a reformed prisoner, turned inspirational pastor who had a grand vision of helping and healing others, primarily those on the fringes of society, TLM boasted on its website of seeking “to rehabilitate ex-prisoners and deportees through creating a safe and peaceful environment.”
