Colette Davis – Raising a high achiever by faith

WHEN we previously caught up with young Aleena Brown, she was exulting in her acceptance to the prestigious Princeton University in the United States (US). Considering that the school typically accepts barely four per cent of all applicants (and an even lower percentage of overseas students), and that the application itself was already under a deadline extension, Aleena’s success, coming after considerable hardship, was viewed as nothing short of miraculous.

But for her mother, Colette Davis, miracles are par for the course. The proud and elated mother, who was raised in the Bog Walk area of St Catherine, where the family still lives, related that her extraordinary faith sprung from her own tale of overcoming, which included growing up with a very generous but iron-willed mother.

“I was part of a very big family, and not just biological relatives,” she recalls. “My mother used to take in children from all over off the street and look after them as if they were her own. Sometimes, even mad people she would take in and keep them at the back of the house.”

This, she says, was done over and above the objections of her father, and it resulted in young Colette having to share virtually everything she had. “Every day, as wi going to school, my mother would warn us to not get the school uniform dirty and to come straight home as there would be someone going on afternoon shift who would be waiting to get it to wear.”

One antidote to the poverty and the pressure of her living conditions came through the Church, where she says she not only received spiritual comfort, but practical teaching.

Her faith enabled her to endure through much deprivation as an adult, including having to live in a pest-infested abandoned building, having to find funds to secure a heart transplant for one of her other children, and the general travails of raising three children with little or no support.

Fortunately for Davis, she did get outside help, from the church community, but also notably from Food For the Poor Jamaica, which not only provided a home for her and her charges, but also met the cost of her children’s education at various stages (including the four per cent of Aleena’s tuition not covered by her scholarship).

While she is unquestionably grateful to Food For the Poor and to her other benefactors, Davis insists that it is the reward for writing her goals and vision down and then faithfully trusting God to bring them about.

“I remember that Aleena had practically given up on the prospect of Princeton because they demanded a lot of essays just to consider the application, and it was already late and she didn’t believe she could do them or have them ready in time,” she recalls. “I pleaded with her to write them anyway, and I declared that the Holy Spirit give the ability and that she would be accepted.”

With the application dispatched, there was the tense wait, with days of Davis repeatedly asking her daughter if any word had yet come, and with the answer, “No, not yet,” repeatedly coming back. Until the fateful day, when a large envelope bearing the seal of Princeton University would finally arrive, setting in motion a joyous frenzy of activities that would culminate in Aleena boarding a plane to depart Jamaica for the United States.

Since that time, Davis reports that her daughter has assimilated very successfully, which is not surprising as she had previously (in 2019) had a limited tenure (summer session) with another prestigious US school — Yale University — as a member of its Young Global Scholars Program. The initiative allows students from some 150 countries as well as all 50 US states to participate in interdisciplinary sessions, whether at the school’s historic campus (third oldest in the US) or online.

Aleena is already maintaining As and Bs in her chosen fields of study, as would be expected under the terms of her scholarship, and Davis shared that further travels are in the works for her in the summer. With South Korea being recognised as among the global leaders in the fields of microbiology and immunology, the “girl from Bog Walk” will be going trans-Pacific to pursue further studies at a leading institution there later this year.

Not bad for a young lady who formerly slept on the floor with the often bone-jarring noise of rail cars passing nearby. And it’s no wonder that Aleena names her mom as one of her biggest influences. “My mother didn’t really have a house and she struggled to keep my siblings and me with her, and I am a living testimony to her strength and the power of her faith,” she said.

And the exercise of said faith is Davis’s own message to mothers and to women everywhere who are faced with difficult circumstances: “Pray and trust God. Don’t despair, no matter how rough it gets, but write your vision down and keep speaking it with belief until it comes to pass.”

And Colette Davis believes there are many more visions she will be blessed to witness through her children’s achievements.