IT wasn’t so long ago that the grounds of the Majesty Transformation Church was a dancehall where ex-convict David Chang spent countless hours planning his next crime while belting out the latest tunes and trying to appease the string of females vying for his attention.

Today, it is a sacred place where Christians and non-Christians alike gather at least three times weekly to offer praise.

Unlike in most modern churches, congregants don’t have the luxury of an air conditioning unit or ceramic tiling. There are neither windows nor doors nor fancy detailing, just a piece of zinc over their heads, held up by dark-coloured metal beams that match the dirt beneath their feet, in addition to two large mismatched containers.

The church would perhaps seem out of place in another neighbourhood, but fits right in with the dilapidated zinc and board structures in the depressed inner-city community of Majesty Gardens in Kingston, where it is located.

Like the church, Chang has a past that is far from pristine. But in the same way the secular space has been transformed into ‘holy ground’, the pastor has made an about turn and is now shaping rather than taking lives.

“I used to involve in gun on the corner here with men,” he said, pointing to the structure which has no sign. “I used to do wrong like thief, fire gun, do robbery and all of those stuff.”

Chang’s induction into a life of crime began at age 10 when he lived in Jones Town with his grandmother.

“I saw other men in the community with gun, and I said I want to become a gunman. I saw other men rob people and I wanted to rob people too,” he said.

Chang started small, picking his classmates’ lunch money, stealing cheese from the supermarket shelves and snatching snacks from off the school vendors’ stalls when they weren’t looking.

Such small gains could not fund his desired lifestyle of wearing brand-name clothes and “having a lot of women”. So in 1983, at the age of 15, Chang and two of his friends broke into a New Kingston business place. A few weeks later, he did the unexpected — turned himself over to the police and confessed.

“I gave up myself to the police because I wanted to experience jail. While in jail, other men taught me how to fire gun and pick pocket, so when I came out, I could pick pocket,” Chang said, noting that the men would spend hours instructing him with the use of diagrams.

After a year, he was released and went about putting his newly acquired skills to use.

“Things did a work out in my favour because I start to have pretty clothes and have a lot of money and start to have girls,” Chang said. “Nobody couldn’t tell me seh bwoy this is not the right thing until I got captured in 1990 for the murder.”

The murder was that of a Montego Bay woman whom he shot to death while searching her house for valuables. Chang hid from the police after the crime, relocating to Majesty Gardens for three months before he was caught. He later pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a Montego Bay court and was imprisoned for eight years.

While in lock-up, he was touched by the preaching of the church groups who visited regularly and he eventually converted while serving his prison term.

“Three months before I left prison, the Lord told me to go back to Majesty Gardens, go Bible School and get married,” he said.

By this time, his relationship with Dionne — the pen pal he had been communicating with for five years — had grown serious. The two were married shortly after his release and he continued with remedial classes provided by the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning (JFLL), which he had started while in prison.

“It took me three months to write my own letter. When I went to school the first Monday, I didn’t know my vowels and I couldn’t say my ABC, and within three months’ time I could read,” Chang said, adding that he later attended Bible School where he obtained his diploma in biblical and pastoral studies.

But the newly converted Chang soon learnt that his past would not be easily forgotten.

“When I came back in the community, some of them believed that is something me a try; it took them about one year and six months to believe me,” he said. “I never have a church home, but I came in the community and started to minister to some children and have Sunday School because the adults weren’t paying me no mind. Probably they were watching me. But the children them, I draw them attention probably from an early stage.”

Chang aligned himself with his mentor Bishop Peter Morgan of the Covenant Community Church, who officially ordained him and paid him a salary up until 2005 when he founded Majesty Transformation Church.

Now, Chang along with his 50 church members have the difficult task of positively impacting a community where hope is a rare visitor. Undaunted, Chang has taken up the challenge to try to change the community. He has so far encouraged about 30 youths to enrol with the JFLL and got sponsorship to help others to further their education at other institutions.

“Out of the 30 persons, some of them are in college right now and some of them in a good job right now,” he said. “And then there were some young men in the group who we helped to send on missions overseas, and they get saved and get married and things good start to happen now.”

Chang has also sought sponsorship for students to attend the HEART Trust/NTA and the St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS). Another seven students attend the School of Excellence Evening Institute free of cost annually.

“You have people in the community now who have 10 subjects,” said the pastor.

One of those who have benefited from the church’s education programme is Anthony Woodfriech, 25, who is now pursuing engineering at STATHS.

“I can’t complain because it (the church) open up things to me that I never know before, like sensible things, wise things,” he said. “It teaches us how to approach things so that the pressure that the world put on you now, you can be able to handle it. The church has shown us how to face the world in a positive way, although there seems to be no hope at all.”

But while the church has been able to change some lives, challenges persist. As Anthony spoke, a boy not more than 14 years old ran by with expletives spewing from his mouth while clutching a knife. Later, there was the sound of huge stones connecting with board and a mother’s ardent scream to “behave yourself!” The Sunday Observer later learnt that the boy was in pursuit of his younger brother who had offended him.

Still, Chang does not doubt for one minute that his presence in the community was divinely ordained, while his past has equipped him with the knowledge he needs to help change those bent on living the life he once revelled in.