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Religion

A cop by day and prophet by night

A Pinellas County deputy and her followers have founded End Time Message Ministries to prepare people for the Second Coming.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published February 26, 2005

PALM HARBOR - By day, Edith Darling breaks up fights.

She tracks down stolen GameBoys.

And makes arrests.

But by night, the Pinellas County sheriff's deputy sheds her badge and gun and, sworn to uphold another kind of law, moonlights as a prophet and evangelist.

Working out of her tree-shaded home just over the wall from the luxury houses in the ritzy Highlands of Innisbrook development, Darling, 35, a school resource officer at Palm Harbor Middle School, is a self-described visionary and translator of God's words.

Darling and her followers have founded a ministry called End Time Message Ministries to prepare the world's people for Christ's Second Coming.

Last year, she self-published a book called The Anointed Book of Scripts: Translated Words from Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In it are pages of scribbles that Darling says she received from God, along with translations. Although no apocalypse date is given, the messages warn of the dangers of living in sin, because the end could come at any minute.

A passage on Page 76 reads: "My children, now is the time to get ready for my return. I will come again for my people, my good and faithful servants. My church will be without spot or wrinkle."

With help from her dozen or so supporters, she had about 2,500 copies printed. She doesn't know how many she has sold yet. She has given away about 300 copies, some of them in Williams Park in St. Petersburg.

Darling's faith journey began when, at age 10, she announced to her parents that she wanted to change the world. Growing up in St. Petersburg, she and her family attended Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. When she was 18, her beloved father, Tommy Lee Siplin, died. When she was 25, her sister also passed away.

While many people turn away from God at a moment like that, Darling turned toward him, asking him: "Why am I here?"

From 1995 to 1998, she went into deep prayer. Then, she said, "the Lord touched my life."

After that, when she attended services at her church, she began to jump and shout, alarming others in her conservative congregation.

"I would be in one pew, and end up in another pew," Darling said. "It was like fire shut up in my bones."

Darling said her mother was confused about what she was doing, and her friends were wondering if she was suffering from a mental illness.

"My sister said, "Are you faking?' " she said. "I said, "No, it's God.' "

On a visit to a sister church, Darling felt so filled with the Holy Spirit she began speaking in tongues and was escorted out by the ushers to the lobby.

Still fired up when she got home, she couldn't sleep. At 3 a.m., "The Lord said "Sit down and write,' " Darling said.

She put pen to paper and scribbled a series of symbols. When she stopped and looked at the page, she said the writing looked Arabic.

She sent the works to universities to find out what kind of language it was, but no one seemed to know the answer. One college said it might be satanic, an idea Darling rejected.

She calls it "scripts."

Last year, she was licensed to preach the gospel by her pastor at Friendship Missionary Baptist.

"Edith possesses a unique calling," said the Rev. John A. Evans Sr, the church minister. "It is unusual. She possesses a gift I have not seen in my 27 years of pastoring, the gift to write (in tongues). I would call this extraordinary."

Ole Anthony, founder and president of the Trinity Foundation, a religious community in East Dallas, Texas, and Christian watchdog group, said he's never seen such writing except in the occult.

"It doesn't mean it doesn't exist," he said. "It just means I've never seen it in 30 years of doing this."

He said his organization has seen a lot of people calling themselves prophets these days. He doesn't buy it.

"To call yourself a prophet is suspicious. It's the opposite of what the Scriptures teach," Anthony said. "If they advertise themselves as prophets, I run from them. They're trying to enhance themselves. It's not necessarily evil; it's just goofy."

But it's not goofy to Leslie Fortune, a lawyer from St. Petersburg who is the ministry's secretary.

Two years ago when the two first met, Darling told Fortune about her visions and messages from God.

"I thought it was wonderful she received this gift," Fortune said. "She's sincere, and I know it."

Jackie Bersch who works with Darling at Palm Harbor, agrees. She said her mother's cancerous tumor was reduced thanks to a prayer Darling said for the woman.

"I knew (God) has used Edie in this," said Bersch, the school's community involvement assistant and a ministry board member.

Because they do not yet have an office to house the ministry, Darling and the board members meet at the house she shares with her husband, Bruce, and teenage children, Candice and Jeremy.

She is accepting speaking engagements and hopes one day to minister all over the world.

"She was somebody who was in bondage and wanted to be free like a bird," said Evans, her pastor. "She will be accepted by some and rejected by many."

Eileen Schulte can be reached at 727 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 26, 2005, 01:15:19]