Poor ***
Devout parents who 'tried to cure baby's baseball-size face tumour with faith healing' are charged with ***** *****
A ****** and ****** put their faith in God to heal a tumour on the face of their baby that threatened her eyesight, an Oregon City court heard.
By the time the little girl, Alayna, was six months old the benign tumour had grown to the size of a baseball. Even when it pushed her eyeball out of its socket, her parents, Timothy Wyland 44, and his wife Rebecca, 24, still refused to take her to a doctor.
They are both members of the Followers of Christ Church, an unorthodox Christian sect based in the state of Oregon that shuns medicine.
Accused: Timothy Wyland, left, and Rebecca Wyland, centre, stand in court charged with criminal mistreatment
The tumour, known as a hemangioma, can cause blindness if it develops around the eye. Alayna, now 17 months old, has received treatment for it and been placed in ****** care.
Her parents, meanwhile, face charges of criminal mistreatment, which carries a five-year prison term.
‘Timothy and Rebecca Wyland recognised that medical attention was mandated for this condition, but instead anointed her with oils and laid down hands,’ state prosecutor Christine Landers told the court.
The Wylands’ case is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding the Follower of Christ Church.
Disfigurement: Jurors were shown a photo of Alayna's huge tumour
In 1998 an investigation by newspaper The Oregonian claimed that 21 out of 78 ******** belonging to followers of the faith had died from entirely preventable causes – some that would even have been treatable with simple antibiotics.
Ten years later members of the sect began finding themselves behind bars, after the overturning of state laws that had previously protected parents who had religious reasons for shielding their ******** from doctors.
The parents of Ava Worthington were given 60-days sentences after the two-year old died of pneumonia. And when Ava’s teenage uncle Neil Beagley died of blocked urinary tract complications his parents were locked up for 16 months.
Faith: The Wylands belong to the Followers of Christ Church, which believes in the power of prayer over traditional medicine
The Followers of Christ was founded in the 1890s in Kansas but moved its base to Oregon City in the 1940s.
The devout followers firmly believe that the power of prayer and the laying on of hands – where ministers lay their hands on believers while praying – can cure illnesses.
It’s thought that some followers secretly visit traditional doctors, but if found out, they are likely to find themselves ostracised.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-face-tumour-faith-healing.html#ixzz1NpiY6tMb
