Healing hands - By East Lothian Newsroom 18/8/06
PLANS are underway to set up a healing room in Haddington following claims by members of the West Church that hands-on prayer sessions have transformed their lives - curing them of mental and physical illness.
Over the last ten months, around 20 people have been gathering in the West Church sanctuary after the Sunday evening service to pray for the recovery of sick parishioners.
Sometimes they touch the person on the shoulders and organisers say that heat can transfer between two people.
Haddington man Richard McGill, 56, of Gifford Road - who was forced to give up work because of a vocal cord cyst and depression - is emigrating to Brazil after a healing session which changed his life.
Wife Ivonete, 40, fasted and prayed for her husband as he battled with a year-long depression and a throat condition which caused muscle spasms.
Father-of-one Richard - who goes to church every Sunday - went to a healing session after two unsuccessful operations to remove the cyst.
He said: "Prayers were said by several people in the circle. My mood could not have been lower and I put myself into Christ's hands.
"I then visualised that I was lying flat on my face at the foot of Jesus' cross, and I became aware of a strong smell of wood and sensed warm blood dripping on top of me. I was overwhelmed and moved to tears by the experience."
Richard said his life had changed as he knew he had nothing to fear and the family now planned to move to the north east of Brazil to help fight poverty.
And a fully-trained 36-year-old nurse from Gifford - who asked to be known as Claire - said a hands-on prayer healing session at the West Church cured her instantly of arthritis and a "vicious depression".
She had thrown her anti-depressants in the bin after battling the illness for 20 years.
Two years ago, Claire - who also suffered from arthritis in her right knee - was told to leave her job as a nurse at the Royal Infirmary because of her illness.
She said: "I was in no state to work. I was extremely depressed. I was on the edge of being suicidal.
"I had no concentration and I was miserable the whole time. It wasn't a good situation - to have patients around me and, as a professional, you can't continue to work."
Claire - who has been going to the West Church for six years - went for counselling and took anti-depressants but said that neither helped.
The self-confessed former cynic didn't want to go to the healing at first but said she felt moved by God to go up to the front and join the circle where parishioners prayed for her recovery.
Claire added: "I felt totally and unconditionally loved and having had years of depression, I felt I had lost touch with God. But at that moment, I knew he hadn't abandoned me.
"It was a feeling of complete peace and joy. I felt heat through their hands on my shoulders and it was the single most profound experience of my life."
When Claire returned home she realised that the eight-centimetre swelling in her arthritic knee had completely disappeared.
She threw her antidepressants away and has now returned to work after two years off sick.
Claire added: "I was stunned - it's something I can't explain from a medical point of view. I think what God did was a long way outside conventional medicine."
Organisers say they have seen remarkable results from the healing sessions and want to start a healing room in Haddington where residents battling sickness can drop in to receive a recovery prayer.
And a weekend hands-on prayer for healing training conference will be held at the West Church over September 8 and 9 for Christians of all denominations who are interested in faith healing.
The conference - which will be led by Steven and Helen Anderson and Kent Roberts, of Healing Rooms Scotland - will run from 7.30 to 9.30pm on Friday 8 and between 10am and 4pm Saturday 9.
Reverend Cameron MacKenzie, minister of the West Church, challenged cynics to come to the faith healing conference where past traditions would be revived.
"It's very new in Haddington West Church but it's something that has been happening ever since the gospels were written," he said.
"The tradition in the church has been lost over the years with the upsurge in medical expertise. People have lost the core belief system that God is a supernatural being."
He told sceptics: "Come along and be as sceptical as you like - we are not asking people to heckle but come with open ears."
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