http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=733395
Parents prayed with ministry founder
He called family night before diabetic girl died
By BILL GLAUBER
[email protected]
Posted: March 27, 2008
On the night before 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died of complications from untreated diabetes, her parents did not call a doctor.
Instead, Dale and Leilani Neumann prayed over the telephone Saturday with the founder of a religious Web site named
AmericasLastDays.com.
The stunning detail was revealed Thursday by David Eells, whose Unleavened Bread Ministries operates the Web site that focuses on religious healing and the apocalypse. Leilani Neumann, who lives in the Town of Weston, wrote two posts on the Web site.
Eells, 59, who lives in Pensacola, Fla., said he was asked by an elder to call the parents and pray for their daughter.
In a statement posted on the Web site, Eells says that the child had started to get sick "in just the last day or so" and the parents "asked me to pray and agree with them in prayer, basically because she appeared pale and listless. They did not seem overly concerned because they had had healings before. This is not an unusual kind of request to us."
Eells said he received another call from the Neumanns on Sunday as the family "followed an emergency vehicle with Kara in it. They told me that she had stopped breathing and asked if I would pray that the Lord would spare her and raise her up, which I did."
The girl was pronounced dead at St. Clare's Hospital. An autopsy determined she had diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious complication of untreated insulin-dependent diabetes.
Faith healing
Everest Metro Police and the Marathon County Department of Social Services are investigating the case, which has aroused national attention.
The case puts in stark contrast the issues of parental rights to practice religion, the welfare of children and the state's role to protect minors.
It has also cast a light on the practice of faith healing.
Eells said the Neumanns "do not deserve this persecution" and wrote that authorities "don't investigate the people who put their trust in doctors whose family members die by the hundreds of thousands from medical mistakes every year."
Eells says in the statement he had communicated with the family via e-mails over the past few years.
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Eells said the Neumanns "are honest people, good Christian people. I believe their word. They're just good people and they believe Jesus heals like we do."
Eells said he started the Web site in the mid-1990s and that his ministry is "full Gospel."
In addition to concentrating on the apocalypse - the end of the world after the return of Jesus in evangelical theology - the Web site is focused on healing and includes discussions against conventional medicine. It includes a number of posts that recommend using prayer instead of doctors, medicine and other traditional treatment for illnesses.
The Web site received 7,636 U.S. visitors per month over the past three months, according to a Web tracking site.
Leilani Neumann has said the family, which includes three other children, does not belong to any organized religion or faith, but believes in the Bible and that healing comes from God.
A window into beliefs
The Neumanns told authorities they did not know their daughter had diabetes. They had not taken her to a doctor and were trying to heal her through prayer.
Leilani Neumann's two posts on the Web site provide a window into her beliefs. In a poem titled "I'm Tired of It," she wrote of her determination that the "old life's gotta stop."
"Why do I have to climb this mountain?
"Because I need to get to the top.
"Jesus, it will be worth it, if I don't give out."
On Feb. 28, she posted a long essay titled "They Shall Speak with New Tongues." She wrote of praying in tongues and described a "Women of Favor" group she was leading at the coffee shop that she and her husband operate. She describes a vision of leading others to speak in tongues. And in one passage, she described how God talked to her.
"Many times the Lord has told me things that are going to happen many years down the road, but this was the first time I had experienced this kind of preparation for that very day," she wrote.
One couple she was able to reach through prayer - and e-mail as it turned out - were the Wormgoors, who traveled from California to Wisconsin.
"The hunger for God's word in Randall (Wormgoor) has led them all the way to WI to study with Dale and I," she wrote. "Althea (Wormgoor) had been fighting receiving the Holy Spirit as the scripture says, because of prior teaching."
On Sunday, Randall and Althea Wormgoor spoke with emergency dispatchers in a 911 call placed from the Neumanns' home, authorities told The Associated Press.
With screaming and wailing in the background, and the sound of a barking dog, Randall Wormgoor told the dispatcher, "The girl is not breathing."
The dispatcher then spoke with Althea Wormgoor and provided instructions to perform CPR.
"Did she respond? Did she respond?" Althea Wormgoor shouted as someone attempted to revive the girl.
well there ya go!
