Vex Hinn tells crowd

NOT HAPPY with the amount of money being placed in the collection bag during the second day of his weekend crusade at the Queen’s Park Savannah on Saturday, controversial US televangelist chided the large crowd of worshippers exhorting them to put more money in the bags.

“I’m not asking you to look at the offering bag but put something in it,” he chided.

“We are not here to insult God.” He admonished the ushers to stop walking past people without collecting money. “Give them a chance to give something. Walk by slowly, very slowly.

This is no joke. Everybody give something, including the ushers themselves. Just because you are collecting, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give.”

Hinn said the money would be used to do God’s work through his television global ministry. “Put something in. He (God) will bless you, your family, your future.” Hinn announced he was donating US$10,000 towards the US$50,000 required for medical care for the Guyanese boy with the stick-thin legs and Hinn asked others to do the same including his support crew of sound men and television men.

Hinn also claimed to have cured a young woman of the deadly HIV which caused AIDS during the crusade on Saturday.

After Hinn invited worshippers to receive God’s power, his associate Steve Brock brought up a young woman whom Brock said had been raped and infected with AIDS. Hinn prayed over her for both medical and spiritual healing, having earlier told the audience they could be cured of any of several diseases including AIDS. “Lord, no more bondage in these girls. No more,” Hinn shouted. Newsday was unable to meet the woman or obtain any information about her to further investigate whether or not she had been healed.

During the service, Brock said there was a lot of demonic activity at work in Trinidad, at which Hinn stepped in to add: “There is a lot of demonic activity taking place everywhere.”

Amidst a crowd numbering several thousands, a dozen came on-stage to give testimony to the miracle which they believed had occurred in their lives. A Guyanese boy with stick-thin legs was said to have had his urinary system healed. A little girl said she believed herself healed of the need to wear eye-glasses.

A woman with a cyst on her ovary said she felt healed. People gave a loud verbal expression of their belief, with praying and chanting accompanied by waving of hands. However, not all were healed. A middle-aged Indian woman with swollen feet and dressed in pink was helped out of her wheelchair by two friends and with their aid tried to walk to the stage. Her face was contorted in a mixture of what seemed to be pain and concentration on prayer. In the end she had to return to her wheelchair, her problem still present.

After the service, Newsday witnessed several other persons who had arrived in wheelchairs, depart in the chairs. In the front row, a young woman with twisted limbs hobbled away on crutches after the service. Hinn’s crusade ended on Sunday.

Comments

"Vex Hinn tells crowd"

More in this section