NEW YORK – Jamaican-born author and minister Pastor Oral Patrick has started his motivational speaking tour. The tour is called Introducing Oral Patrick. It supports his health and wellness book, Restorative Healing Begins With Rest. Pastor Patrick is also a two-time survivor of 9/11.
Co-authored by his daughter Deborah Patrick, Restorative Healing Begins With Rest tells Patrick’s story. It covers his health issues after he volunteered for several months at the World Trade Center site, where he used to work. He avoided possible death by losing his job on September 10, 2001. This was less than 24 hours before the planes hit the Twin Towers. In the book, he shares methods that help rest the mind, body, and spirit. These methods helped him fully recover after more than a year of serious illness.
Natural Healing Tour
The Introducing Oral Patrick tour includes Pastor Patrick visiting churches, colleges, alumni groups, and businesses. These visits will take place in the New York Tri-State area. He will give a talk about the life-changing spiritual and physical events he experienced before and after 9/11. He will also share everyday tools from his book that he believes can help us all achieve and keep good health.
The presentation is followed by a moderated Question and Answer session. In addition, it culminates with a sale and autograph signing session for the book.
Patrick said the idea for the tour came after a successful press campaign. He ran this campaign in August and September. It was to promote the book during the nation’s annual 9/11 commemoration events.
“I did an extensive media tour doing interviews with many print, radio and television outlets here in the USA, Jamaica and the Caribbean,” he recalls, “And the response to my story – which so many people were hearing for the first time- was quite overwhelming. The idea that I essentially survived 9/11 twice- firstly by being fired from my job on September 10 and therefore not being in the World Trade Center the next day- and then secondly after having to recover from several illnesses I contracted while being a volunteer at the site later on – led to significantly increased interest in the book. And so my team and I decided that we really needed to take the story on the road to the people who may need to hear it- anyone struggling with spiritual, physical or emotional ailments or who wishes to maintain the great overall health that they may currently have, or who may just want to learn more about how essential rest is for the human body to function correctly. So we will start with the New York Tri state area, which is home to me, and expand outward from there.”
Inaugural Tour Stop
The Introducing Oral Patrick tour started in early November at Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens. It was hosted by Father Rudolph Anthony. Patrick said the tour was a big success. Many church members bought several copies of the book for their family and friends.
“This gives us a great deal of encouragement going forward as we look ahead towards venturing into other states and hopefully internationally in the near future.”
Born in Old Harbor, Jamaica and a graduate of Vere Technical High School and The University of The West Indies, Patrick, along with his parents and eight siblings, immigrated to the USA in 1987.
9/11 Journey
After being fired as a Computer Systems Engineer on Floor 83 of One World Trade on September 10, 2001 due to staff layoffs at his company, Patrick was heading back into the city from his New Jersey home the very next day to seek new employment when the two planes slammed into the towers. He watched from a Manhattan deli as both structures- including the one he had worked in up to the day before-crumbled before his eyes.
Within days he returned to the site of the tragedy for what would be the first of several weekly trips. Determined to ascertain the whereabouts of his former co-workers and other friends who had worked nearby. He would eventually become an informal volunteer, handing out water to first responders as they went about their tasks of rescue and recovery.
Deteriorated Health Conditions
But over the next few months, his health dramatically deteriorated with changes in his vision, breathing and skin tone as well as skin rashes and respiratory congestion. As months passed and his symptoms became worse, he realized that conventional medical methods were proving wholly ineffective for him, and he began pouring himself into the world of natural healing, doing an in depth study of wellness and how to overcome chronic illnesses.
“After consulting with several natural health practitioners,” he recalls, ”I learnt that almost any device will work again if you unplug it for awhile and then reboot it- even our bodies. So I decided to put rest to the test. ”
In a short time, his mood, sight, hearing, appearance, and mental clarity improved a lot. His joints, which were once painful, became flexible and pain-free. After being unemployed and facing financial struggles during his illness, he turned his life around in two years. He started several successful businesses and began sharing his message of natural healing. He became the pastor of Word Of Wisdom Church (WOW) in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Inspiration
He was inspired to write Restorative Healing Begins With Rest by others. They used his natural healing methods and had great results.
He maintains that it was rest alone- within the trifecta of body, mind and spirit- that brought him back to health, stressing that “Rest is not merely sleep. Resting the body involves avoidance of junk food in our diet as well as periodic fasting, so that the life force that normally goes towards digestion will go towards repairing the body instead. The mind requires resting meditation, which reduces and eliminates stress hormones such as cortisol, allowing the body to return to proper balance. Resting the spirit is about authentic and complete self acceptance, with full gratitude for who and what you are in totality, which allows you to be calmer and more centered.
In our Introducing Oral Patrick presentation, I discuss these ideas from the book with the audience. It is an engaging and informative talk that has changed many lives.
