Trinidad: Church evicted from state lands at Carlsen Field

Pastor Esther Cruickshank, head of the Soul Revival Kingdom Ministries at Carlsen Field on Tuesday.
Pastor Esther Cruickshank, head of the Soul Revival Kingdom Ministries at Carlsen Field on Tuesday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Evict­ed from state lands, Pas­tor Es­ther Cruick­shank, head of the Soul Re­vival King­dom Min­istries, said she is not leav­ing Carlsen Field.

 
Of­fi­cials work­ing the State Lands Of­fice un­der the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Ma­rine Re­sources con­firmed that on Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 14, 2020 a no­tice was served to the church ad­vis­ing them to va­cate the premis­es. Cruick­shank spoke with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day.

Cruick­shank and her 22 parish­ioners have in­di­cat­ed they would not be tak­ing the is­sue light­ly.

Cruick­shank ex­plained that she start­ed her min­istry ten years ago and en­tered the Carlsen Field area in 2012. She said the Church start­ed oc­cu­py­ing its present lo­ca­tion in 2017 fol­low­ing a meet­ing with of­fi­cials from the of­fices of State Lands.

Ac­cord­ing to Cruick­shank, a ver­bal agree­ment was reached and no writ­ten doc­u­ments by way of leas­es or le­gal pa­per­work were giv­en to the church to oc­cu­py the land that once housed Tan­teak Lim­it­ed.

Cruick­shank said since 2017, the church has spent over $35,000 to clean up the area and erect a PVC tent where ser­vice was be­ing held.

She said the church was al­so in the process of set­ting up a car wash when the no­tice was giv­en. The fa­cil­i­ty is lo­cat­ed on two acres of prime com­mer­cial land next to TTUTA’s head of­fices and is a stone’s throw from the Chase Vil­lage Fly­over that links both the north and south bound lanes of the high­way.

Cru­cik­shank said she, along with parish­ioners and res­i­dents, have planned a demon­stra­tion for lat­er this month.