Believers flock to former farm seeking healing

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JERREY ROBERTS

Nina Lafond, of Chicopee, front right, and others, sing Monday night at God is Love Church on East Street in Easthampton.

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JERREY ROBERTS

The Rev. Wallace Quinn preaches to a group gathered at God is Love Church Monday.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Rev. David Newberry, center right, lays his hand on Louise Gundersen, of West Brookfield, to try to heal her cancer as others surround her to pray Monday at God is Love Church in Easthampton. Beside him, left, is God is Love Church Pastor Jeannette Domina, who founded the church in 1989.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Karen Young, of Windsor Locks, Conn., sings Monday night at the church.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Maritza Manchester, of West Springfield, left, and her friend, Louise Gundersen, of West Brookfield, sing Monday night at God is Love Church in Easthampton.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Louise Gundersen, center, of West Brookfield, reacts to the touch of the Rev. David Newberry, right, as he attempts to use the power of God to heal Gundersen of cancer Monday at the God is Love Church in Easthampton. Looking on behind Gundersen is God is Love's assistant pastor, Chris Domina.

They came with allergies, gallbladder pain and a thyroid condition. They came with asthma and cataracts. They came with hearing problems, cysts and tumors. They came with physical maladies undiagnosed by doctors and medical conditions under full treatment by physicians. Some came for other people - a grandmother seeking relief for her grandson's crossed eyes and a child asking for help for his mother. One young boy presented his sore throat.

This was not a television evangelist, or a faith revival under a tent in the deep south, though the healer, the Rev. David Newberry, did have a proud Texas drawl.

This was in the God is Love Church located on a former farm at 285 East St. in Easthampton, where 50 people from all over the Pioneer Valley and beyond sought healing and salvation Monday night. From Aug. 2 through Friday, Newberry, and a fellow traveling preacher, Wallace Quinn, also from Fort Worth, held nightly meetings for healings and miracles of faith.

God is Love Pastor Jeannette Domina, who started the church in her home in 1989 and moved it to the former Duda farm in 1994, says Newberry and Quinn will likely be back again, their meetings were so well-received.

Among the faithful Monday were Irene and Lionel Chagnon of Easthampton, with Irene, 82, wearing one, not two, hearing aids. She was able, she said, to get rid of one after Newberry had put his healing hands on her at a previous evening.

"I took it out and I can hear better than I could with both," she said, broad smile on a face framed by silver curls. "I believed it would. When you have a laying on of hands you have to believe it."

Hours later, her husband Lionel, 87, who the pastor proclaimed had been healed of cataracts in an earlier service, stood and walked slowly to the front for more healing. Like his wife, he sought relief from hearing problems. His was caused when the removal of a brain tumor led to hearing loss.

This problem would need more than simple healing Newberry said, as he placed his hands on the man's ears.

"Father in the name of Jesus, I pray for that ear that needs a creative miracle," he thundered. "I ask you, Lord, for a miracle!"

With a sudden movement, Chagnon fell backwards, caught gently by two assistants, who slowly set him on the ground and covered him with a small blanket.

"Just let him lay on God's operating table," said Newberry before moving on to a young boy who explained he was there for his mother, though he couldn't articulate precisely her problem.

The pastor closed his eyes and proclaimed: "He just wants God to touch his momma," eliciting murmurs of sympathy, raising of palms, and prayers.

One woman sought help in her battle with alcohol. Newberry held her head and bellowed "Lord, I ask you to deliver me from alcohol and set me free!"

In his preaching prior to the healing, Newberry warned the crowd that he was no entertainer, and that healing requires the participation of the sick. They have to listen to Jesus, he said, believe in Jesus, and take action based on that faith.

When a woman reported kidney pain even though her kidney stones had been removed, he said, "We're going to BELIEVE God can make her whole!"

Anyone who came for a quick miracle was disappointed. The actual laying on of hands came two hours into the meeting, following 30 minutes of lively songs praising Jesus and a fiery sermon from Quinn, who mixed what seemed like stand-up comedy with passages from the Bible and his own personal testimony. ("I got news for you, I got born again, but I don't understand it," he said. "When I first started preaching I was as lost as a goose in a snowstorm without eyes.")

He quoted Bible passages, and preached that Jesus is the answer to all the world's ills, ending with a flourish: "He's not a quitter, just don't quit on him!"

When Newberry took the podium, there was still more preaching and focused Bible study before the healing commenced, as he explained the good news about being born again.

"For a Christian, this is the only hell we'll ever know, but for a man who doesn't have God, this is the only heaven he'll ever know, and that's the sad thing," he said. "The Bible says all things are possible for him that believeth."

Louise Gundersen believes. She came from West Brookfield, and sat through two hours of preaching with a pillow behind her back in obvious discomfort. When the time came, she made her way to the front, seeking healing for cancer. After a partly whispered conversation, Newberry explained that she had multiple cancerous tumors, had undergone surgery and was receiving chemotherapy.

"We're going to curse this at the root and believe God and get this cancer to go from her," he boomed. "Lord, I curse this tumor and this cancer in her body! Go in Jesus now, Lord, for it to die at the root and be gone from her body!"

Gundersen, 48, fell backwards, was placed gently on the floor and covered with a blanket, while Newberry moved on.

For nearly an hour people believed: a man with prostate problem, a woman seeking help with her voice box. "Loose this woman!" he said.

Later, Newberry asked a tearful Gundersen to go to the bathroom to see if her tumors had begun shrinking, while he went on to others seeking healing and miracles.

When Gundersen reported not much change, he laid hands on again, asking those gathered to pray with him.

"This woman needs a miracle," he said, as 10 people surrounded her, palms open, praying with him. "Cancer we curse you to die at the roots. We come at you not with chemotherapy, but Holy Ghost therapy!"

Newberry asked her to return another night for more prayers, noting that sometimes the healing is progressive, not instantaneous.

And so it went, people timidly or boldly believing - presenting their ailments like trinkets to a God, hoping for healing and relief.

Earlier, Newberry had described the role they each would play in their own healing. "I can't pray the prayer of faith for you," he said. "You have got to pray for yourself. You've got to believe."

In a converted farm stand on the former Duda farm at the base of Mount Tom, they sang, they prayed, they accepted Jesus as their savior, and bore witness.

But mostly, they believed.

Laurie Loisel is the Gazette's cities editor and can be reached at lloisel@gazettenet.com.