Several people continue to receive medical, lodging, nutritional and financial help from Winner’s Chapel International. Since the past few weeks Douala residents continue to receive free medical consultation, treatment and hospitalisation. The gesture is the fruit of collaboration between the Winner’s Chapel International, a Pentecostal church, and a local hospital. Ninety per cent of patients receiving the medical aid are non-Christians, five per cent are Christians of other churches while Winners constitutes another five per cent. Pastor Triumphant Obamoh of the Winner’s Chapel International in Douala made the disclosure while addressing a news conference at the Bali neighbourhood on Saturday on the necessity of helping the less fortunate in society.

The pastor announced that the scheme, whose purpose is to help society develop to its full potential, is now opened to people with disabilities, widows and orphans. The church will be organising a gospel crusade tomorrow during which the vulnerable people will be ushered into the scheme. Not only will they henceforth receive free medical attention at partner hospitals but also free food and spiritually edifying books and prayers. Placed under the theme “Divine solution”, the six days crusade will offer the opportunity for a personal encounter with God that will lead to spiritual health, which is necessary before the physical. The spiritual event will mark the beginning of lasting collaboration with traditional chiefs, quarter heads, and hospitals through which the church will identify and carter for vulnerable persons. Beside nutrition and medication, the target group will be catered for in the area of lodging and education.

Pastor Obamoh said patients also need spiritual deliverance before taken to hospital, because no one would be any better without God. “Funds for the charity come from the church itself,” he disclosed, adding “nobody is under obligation of being a member of the church or to join the church solely on this basis. One of the biblical prescriptions is being good at all times and to everybody.” Already several millions have been spent. The church is also coming up with a programme to foot hospital bills of all persons injured in the course of accidents. Questioned on the proliferation of churches, the man of God linked the evolution to the need people have for them. “A single church cannot the meet every need. Everybody has right to choose how he wants to serve God. So long as God continues to call people to different ministries, new churches will be created. What we must do is not to allow any church to tamper with the destiny of the people,” he emphasised. It should be noted that Winners Chapel International established in Cameroon in 1996 and within the past few years it has been involved in helping its communities.