Healing center offers
alternative medicine
By
Connie Cross (7/18/04)
Carmen Rocha, 46,
of Toledo, Ohio, arrived in February at Gilead Healing Center
with a 33-year history of severe asthma and health problems
associated with prescription drugs. Staff members put her on
a diet and nutritional supplements. After a week Rocha was free
of sinus pressure, a previously untreatable throat infection
and wheezing. She has not had an asthma attack since.
“This summer
I’m involved in outdoor activities I could not do before,”
Rocha says.
Patient and Christian
singer Pam Allison lauds the “peace and love of God”
at Gilead where she is receiving successful treatment for migraine
headaches.
Gilead Healing Center,
a ministry of Mount Hope Church and International Outreach Ministries
in Lansing, Mich., opened two years ago in a 21,000- square-foot
facility valued at nearly $4 million. Gilead offers a Christian
and alternative medical approach to heal spirit, mind and body.
Mount Hope Church
Pastor Dave Williams says in 1983 the Lord impressed upon him
to build a facility for those who could not be helped by traditional
medicine.
Pastoral care staff
members pray with and counsel patients, seeking divine healing
as well as uncovering emotional and spiritual roots to illness
such as unforgiveness, bitterness and grief. Between Sunday
church services, the pastoral care department of the center
is open for prayer.
Several miraculous
healings have been reported. After Scott Reynolds suffered two
heart attacks, doctors told him he probably wouldn’t live
another year. He went to Gilead for prayer and then returned
to his physician, who ran more tests, which revealed a completely
normal heart.
Dorothy Sundeen’s
doctor told her she needed surgery for a hernia. After prayer
at Gilead she no longer felt pain. The following week a Gilead
doctor found no hernia.
Since February, Gilead’s
three doctors have provided alternative treatment plus advice
on nutritional supplements, diet and exercise.
“Prescription
drugs are used only occasionally to bridge people to alternative
medicine,” says Pastor Rich LaBelle, 54, Gilead Healing
Center senior administrator.
Missionaries and
ministers are treated for free. Gilead is funded through private
contributions, foundation grants and memorial gifts.
The center has treated
approximately 500 patients, most of them Christians. But Gilead
also honors Christ’s mandate to both preach the kingdom
of God and heal the sick. Many who have been treated were cancer
patients given no hope by traditional medical practitioners,
LaBelle says.
