One of the most fascinating things about Evangelist Sharon Prince, is the story she tells about her interaction with the supernatural. It’s part of what rivets people to the lessons which she has been delivering at the request of pastors from all denominations in western Jamaica for the past seven years.

“The angel looked like an ordinary man. He said to me, ‘your time is up, death has come.’ I said ‘no, this can’t be, Look here, I’m not ready to die, if you give me a chance I promise I’ll preach the gospel’.”

The conversation, which Prince says took place in a dream she had seven years ago, represents, for the time being, the climax of her life story which began on May 30, 1968 when she was born in Mandeville.

She grew up in Kingston though, where she attended the Pembroke Hall Secondary (now high) School.

Upon graduating she studied nursing at the National Academy and then began to practise at the Alma Jones Medical centre.

At age 17 she received her first visitation. “It was a dream…the Lord said he was taking me out of Kingston,” she said. When she told her mother and sisters they said she was being foolish. Ten years later though at the age of 27, she found her self in Montego Bay at the invitation of a man with whom she had become friendly. She was, by then, the mother of two children, having backslidden from the adoption of Christianity at age 12.

He was a friend to whom I turned when I found out I was pregnant with my second child,” she said. He invited us all down and that’s how I got here,” she said.

On arriving, she felt a great sense of calm. “I knew when I got here that I was supposed to be here, that I would not live anywhere else in Jamaica,” she said.

However, that sense of calm was soon rattled by the climatic visit from the ‘angel of death’.

“I jumped out of bed and recommitted my life to the Lord immediately. When I told my friend, who was also a Christian, he was shocked, but we decided to get married,” she said.

The marriage lasted for approximately five years.

After the divorce she really began to get into her ministry, which was formally launched recently.

Today she is known in western Jamaica as the ‘Powerhouse woman’ after Powerhouse Ministries International.

She’s currently enrolled in the Fairweather Bible School at Prospect in Duncans, Trelawny, formalising her credentials to teach or if you prefer, preach a message designed for Christians who have backslidden as well as others. The essence of the message which Prince will deliver nightly starting this Sunday at the First Church of the Open Bible in Montego Bay, is restoration.

“It’s always restoration, no condemnation, in essence it says ‘although you had missed the mark and walked away, God’s plan has been extended for you. His plans will prosper you, not hurt you. Without restoration we’re going nowhere,” she told the Observer West.