Jubilation and dejection

Xolile Dlokolo (left) was healed at the Healing Jesus Campaign Crusade with his friend Mpumelelo Mzizi.
Picture: BRIAN WITBOOI

After spending time at charismatic preacher Dag Heward-Mills’s ‘Healing Jesus’ campaign, Weekend Post reporter Hendrick Mphande contemplates the miracles people claim were performed as well as the sadness of those who left without being healed

AS shouts of “Hallelujah!” filled the Dan Qeqe Stadium, people filed in by their hundreds – some rich, some poor, some ill, but all seeking spiritual guidance and divine intervention.

This week, the iconic stadium in Zwide hosted Ghanaian evangelist Dag Heward-Mills.

For four nights there was standing room only as the charismatic Heward-Mills preached at the stadium, where rows of dustbins served as collection plates.

Flanked by bodyguards, he told those attending that faith would be their salvation. It is a message I believe in. I am a Christian. I do believe in the word of God and miracles performed by Jesus. But what I saw and heard during Heward-Mills’s visit left me somewhat conflicted.

The name of the campaign, “Healing Jesus”, stirred up feelings of hope for the many who are living with incurable diseases and disabilities, or have fallen on hard times.

Xolile Dlokolo suffered a stroke 25 years ago. For more than two decades he has had to walk with the aid of a stick. His speech was also affected.

But this week, the 71-year-old tells me, he received a miracle.

Evangelist Dag Heward-Mills

On Thursday night, the former taxi operator says, his life changed dramatically. He claims he felt movement in his feet. He then moved onto the stage where Heward-Mills was listening to testimonies of those who were healed.

“Nothing laid a hand on me but Jesus,” he says. “I jumped with joy when I realised I could walk without a stick. I walked home clutching my sticks under my arm.

“I am very happy . . . It has not yet sunk into my wife’s mind that I am well again.”

Agreeing with Dlokolo’s story is his neighbour, Mpumelelo Mzizi, who says he knew Dlokolo when he was a boy.

“When he started to walk on his own [on Thursday] I was seated behind him. The devil was humiliated and God has won the victory,” Mzizi tells me.

On one of the crusade evenings, I was sitting next to a woman in a wheelchair. Briefly distracted, I did not see her get out of her chair, but she was soon on the stage and someone was holding her wheelchair in the air, declaring that a miracle had taken place.

I wanted to interview her, but was blocked by staff of Heward-Mills.

I do not understand why – I would think they would want these stories to be told. And while I do believe in miracles, I could not help being struck by the fact that while so many testified about healing, I witnessed scores of men and women in wheelchairs, with shrivelled arms and legs, going home dejected and disappointed that they had not received the healing they so desperately prayed for.