Young preacher makes family, congregation proud
CHICAGO — The teen preacher addressed each person in the pew: the grandmother, the teenage usher, the unemployed father, the single mom.
“You are only blessed because you can be a blessing to others,” he implored, and the faithful of Greater New Mount Eagle Missionary Baptist Church rose to their feet in praise that could be heard outside on 123rd Street.
Some hollered “Amen!” Others applauded. One woman slipped out to cry, moved as much by the message as its messenger: the Rev. Donald Abram, 17.
On Friday, Donald graduated from Chicago Military Academy in Bronzeville. In the fall he will leave behind the tough neighborhood of Roseland and head for the lush green campus of Pomona College in sunny Claremont, Calif., where he earned a full scholarship.
In some ways, Donald has followed in the footsteps of his father, now a preacher in Port Arthur, Texas. But he has managed to avoid the mistakes of his father, who did time on death row before winning his release and becoming an ordained pastor.
Donald has shown the congregation what can be accomplished when a community invests in its young people— and when they give back.
“God has given me the ability to reach many, and he’s been speaking through me and allowed me to be dynamic,” he said, sitting on the front porch of his Roseland home, facing the church. “It’s not me bragging on myself. I’m astonished and amazed by the things God has done for me.”
Preaching has brought Donald closer to his father, he says. It also has given him a way to escape the dangers that surround him in Roseland. Although he rose to the rank of captain at the academy, worked for the high school newspaper and graduated salutatorian, the church gave Donald a place to belong in a way high school never did.
“It’s a rough time for me,” Donald said, referring to high school. “The place I really fit in is church because I serve a purpose. I serve a role. Preaching is a part of who I am.”
His mother, Paulette Cameron, raised Donald and his three siblings as a single mom. After her relationship with Donald’s father ended, she never went back to church, until it was time to support her son.
Instead, Donald’s grandmother Muriel Lawrence took him and his siblings to church every Sunday. Donald, a quiet child, preferred spending his time with the adults instead of other children. He became an usher and joined the choir.
“My grandmother kept me in church. She made it mandatory,” Donald said. “There came a point in my life where she wasn’t making me go. I wanted to go because I had developed a relationship with Christ myself.”
When Donald was 14, he started having a dream. In the dream, he saw himself at church. But instead of sitting in the pews, he was standing in the pulpit.
Donald interpreted the dream as a call to preach and delivered his first sermon in December 2008.
Established African-American preachers often don’t give young aspiring ministers the spotlight, said the Rev. Fredrick Wilson, senior pastor at Greater New Mount Eagle, because they lack the life experience necessary to relate to people in the pews. But when he needs someone to put “a spark in things,” he turns to Donald.
Cameron has made sure she instilled values and lessons to steer her son in the right direction once he lands in college on the West Coast.
“Donald has so much to offer to other people, I have to sit back and accept that I have to share my son with the world,” she said.
