CANADIAN Bishop Lennox Walker has been waving a wand of generosity in the land of his birth – Jamaica – for the past four years.

He has led a life of success as Administrative Bishop for Eastern Canada, and Pastor at Praise Cathedral Worship Centre for many years, but it almost never happened.

Bishop Walker was a simple boy born at Crooked River in Clarendon. He was bent on getting close to wherever the real action was, which led him to move to Spanish Town, during the 1970s, then, like now, infested with violence.

And it was a certain incident that could have led to his demise, that forced him to his senses and changed his life forever.

“I rebelled and walked away from my home and went to live in the ghetto in Spanish Town in a place called Williams Lane,” the man of the cloth told the Jamaica Observer in an interview last week, after he donated $1.2 million to Kingston College (KC).

“I was cornered in 1976 by three guys who had just got bail for murder. They were notorious gunmen and they kicked off the door to the room that I was in. There was a girl in the room with me and she cried out for murder and I got away. How I got away is still a mystery to me to this day, because they had me cornered.

“It was dark and one of them shouted out: ‘Any boy want sparks now?’ which was a slang to mean if I wanted to feel some shots now. I saw death and I can’t explain,” Bishop Walker reflected.

The gunmen, who all died violently shortly after, had apparently come to kill his uncle, who had ventured off elsewhere. His uncle was a member of an opposing gang.

“It was at that point I decided to turn my life around. I said to myself, enough is enough, I am not going to live this kind of life anymore, where so much violence was happening in the ghetto,” Bishop Walker went on.

His parents had lived in England, thus his decision to “rebel” and go closer to the firing line. By the time they returned to Jamaica when he was closing in on his 15th birthday, his mother found out that he could not read, which opened up a different kind of challenge for him.

He had to enrol in evening classes where he sat the then Jamaica School Certificate examinations.

“When my mother found out I couldn’t read she nearly killed me. She said ‘Boy, every walk you walk must read,’ and she used corporal punishment, she nearly killed me. When I tell my kids about that they said ‘dad, that’s abuse’. I laughed, because that’s what straightened me out.

“My principal told my mother, ‘Mrs Walker you have a very bright son, but he is drunk,’ and he took me in his hands and the rest is history.

“I moved on, migrated to Canada, went on to college, did my masters and I have gone to some great institutions to study. I understand the value of education.”

Bishop Walker last Wednesday gave $1.2 million to Kingston College as part of his charity work.

To many, it would seem strange that a man who did not attend KC, or has any affiliation, has been giving to the all-boy school for four years on the trot. What prompted this?

“There are a lot of KC boys around the world and they are very influential. As a matter of fact my financial director is from KC and he perked my interest in KC and when I came here and saw the boys, the potential they have and the discipline instilled by the principal, I said this is a place to invest.

“The discipline that I see, how the principal carried himself, how he was such a disciplinarian and the impact that he was having on the young men, I said this is a good thing to support. So when I saw the sea of young men, and the potential, if invested properly, I said I gotta invest here, this is the best field to invest in. And that’s why I invest in KC.

Living in Canada close to 35 years now, the transition, as described by Bishop Walker was “a little rough” but he soon settled in.

“I have a mind that is very positive. I came to realise early even in Canada that if you don’t stay with the right crowd you can lose your way, and so I pulled myself away from some things, joined the right crowd, and the rest is history. We are the first ones to build a Black funeral home in Canada, it is called New Haven Funeral Home – one of the most elaborate, boutique-style establishment. People believe that its a hotel.

“We were able to build Hearts In Bloom Academy for young people and we were able to build the multifaceted, multidimensional Praise Cathedral with an Olympic-size gymnasium for the youth. So Canada has been good to me, but it all came out of a positive mind.

“I still believe that Canada is the greatest country. It’s a hidden pearl – a virgin country.”

Bishop Walker leads other charity work, literally across the world, in places like Indonesia, several African countries, including Uganda where he and his team opened a clinic.

“We have also given full tertiary scholarships to 54 African children for the past four years. It has become a part of my DNA,” he said with pride.

The married father of three sons, one of whom is a pilot with Air Canada, also revealed a touching moment while he was coming to Jamaica earlier last week.

“My son was the pilot and he announced on the intercom that my father, who is sitting at seat A so and so, is the man responsible for who I am today,’I felt like I could cry when I heard him say that.”

Of his next move, well the goodly bishop wants to enter into a zone often peculiar to men of his religious movement – politics.

“I want to go into politics. I love politics. I’m not sure I will come back to Jamaica and be involved in this political system but I will be involved in the political system in Canada,” Bishop Walker said.