?In his state­ment to the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day on the con­tro­ver­sial church be­ing con­struct­ed at the Heights of Gua­napo, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning al­lud­ed that two jour­nal­ists had a spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence when they went on as­sign­ment at the church.

Man­ning said, "I am call­ing on those two jour­nal­ists to re­port to­tal­ly, com­plete­ly, ac­cu­rate­ly, and faith­ful­ly ex­act­ly what hap­pened in that ex­pe­ri­ence. "I know all about it. So I am in a po­si­tion to au­dit what they say. I'm giv­ing them one week in which to do it. It put the fear of God in their hearts. And I am sure that they are now re­think­ing their po­si­tion on all of this... but I leave that." Guardian re­porter Michelle Loubon vis­it­ed the church on Tues­day and al­though she had a news re­port on Wednes­day's Guardian, the fol­low­ing is her ac­count on how she ob­tained the in­for­ma­tion:

It was a hot day when pho­tog­ra­ph­er Kei­th Matthews and I drove past the two stout pil­lars that led to Ceme­tery Street, Heights of Gua­napo, on Tues­day. In the dis­tance, the site of the con­tro­ver­sial Light of the Light-house Church of Je­sus Christ was spot­ted. As we got clos­er, we saw, perched on the rooftop, Chi­nese men in yel­low hard hats. A dread-locked woman in a black se­cu­ri­ty guard uni­form stood out­side an en­trance to the site. A stone's throw from the church, it sound­ed as though church was in ses­sion. In­deed, it was. On the ground floor of a build­ing, singing waft­ed across the mid­day air. Oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers used the top of the build­ing as a van­tage point to take pho­tos of the church.

With cam­era in hand, Matthews said, "Talk to those peo­ple in there." At first, I hes­i­tat­ed, think­ing how could I in­ter­rupt the ser­vice. But, I grabbed my note book and left the car. At the en­trance, a half-Chi­nese woman, in a blue top ap­proached me. At first, they, too, seemed cu­ri­ous as to who these "strangers" were at their place of wor­ship. I in­tro­duced my­self. I told her that we had been hear­ing these ru­mours about Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with a church in this re­mote com­mu­ni­ty. We want­ed to clear the air on whether there were any links with a "seer­woman", Ju­liana Pe­na. I al­so apol­o­gised for in­ter­rupt­ing the ser­vice.

The woman, whom I would lat­er learn was Shirlain Fer­min, launched in­to a his­to­ry of the Fer­mins–who had been tied to the land for gen­er­a­tions. She ex­plained her an­ces­tors had bought the land for agri­cul­ture. "We are the third gen­er­a­tion of Fer­mins," she said. Again, I broached the sub­ject about Pe­na. Fer­min said, "She adios out of town. We re­mained here. The Lord raised up a new work. Over there (point­ing to the site) is Light­house Min­istries of Je­sus Christ. We are Je­sus The Light of This World Min­istry." "Rev Pe­na took some mem­bers and left," she added.

Church ser­vice

"The Lord raised up a new place for us," Fer­min said. Her nephew David Madeira got the vi­sion for the art­work which dec­o­rates the church's walls. Fer­min en­quired whether I knew the Lord. I told her yes. Matthews ap­peared in the door­way and Fer­min in­vit­ed him to join in the ser­vice. She asked him if he knew the Lord and he said yes. Every­one stood up. Singing, clap­ping and wor­ship­ping be­gan. A young woman stood up and led the con­gre­ga­tion in the singing of cho­rus­es. Then, prophet­ess Cindy Blanc be­gan speak­ing in tongues. Fer­min said Blanc would bring the word of prophe­cy.

Build­ing is God's

At­tired in a long skirt and blouse, a bare-foot­ed Blanc said the con­tentious build­ing had been or­dained by God for his work. Blanc said the Lord had re­vealed to her: "That build­ing is mine. My name is on it." Among those in at­ten­dance were Fer­min's rel­a­tives in­clud­ing her sis­ter Pas­tor Cathy Fer­min. There were al­so chil­dren present.

Flag the sto­ry

Blanc told us to be care­ful. "Your job is a dan­ger­ous job. You have to write a re­port. But some­times you might not come back," she said. She al­so said the sto­ry of the church was not a sto­ry to be pur­sued. "Keep it alone. Do not pur­sue it. God has a hand in it. What­ev­er we have told you, do not pur­sue it," she said. Blanc said, "PM can do what he wants. Any­one that riseth up against me will be brought to noth­ing." Af­ter the ser­vice, Fer­min re­mind­ed us."You heard what Blanc said,'Kill the sto­ry'." Fer­min, too, de­fend­ed the build­ing say­ing the Lord had told David to build a tem­ple. As the ser­vice pro­gressed, she reached for Matthews and be­gan pray­ing with him. She was joined by oth­er el­ders like Fer­min and her sis­ter Cathy Fer­min. Then, Blanc be­gan pray­ing with me. She said, "If you say you are a child of God, you have to do the things that are of God." I agreed. As we drove off, we pon­dered the things we had ex­pe­ri­enced in our hearts.