This one was just too good not to blog:
I received a call yesterday from Norma Mooney, pastor at Sweet Springs and Concordia She was calling about Concordia. As she started to talk about the issue at had, I kept thinking "I've gotta blog about this." And with her permission I do:

Norma gave me some of this info and I found out more when I did a little research. Kathryn Kuhlman was a very popular healer-evangelist whose ministry spanned several decades, from the mid 1940s until the early 1970s. This same Kathryn Kuhlman was born in Concordia MO (in my district) and had her born again experience at the age of 13 or 14 in Condordia Methodist Church. That must have been in 1920 or 1921. She felt the call to preach and no denomination would let her do so in one of their churches at the time...so she quit high school and went on the road as an evangelist. There is so much info out there on Ms. Kuhlman, and since those of you of a certain age know about her already, I will not tell much more about her. She remains the boldest icon of women faith healers in the 20th century. She was quite the looker and had a TV show for some years on CBS.

Yes, she was born in Concordia. She was actually buried in Concordia too, but under a set of circumstances about which I do not know, her body was exumed and she was flown to California to be buried there. But there now is a placque in town and I guess everybody knows about this, but I just hadn't heard

The story gets better. Norma called me yesterday with the news that Benny Hinn, who feels his ministry really is a continuation of Ms Kuhlman's ministry, is coming today to Concordia on his (annual!!!) pilgrimage, with a bus load of followers. Every year they go visit the placque, eat lunch at Topsy's (a local restaurant) and then come to the (now United) Methodist church to honor Ms Kuhlman. Last year, Benny even led a prayer service in the church with his co-pilgramage folks. Norma and the good folks who now make up the church wondered if it was okay to ask Rev. Hinn (pictured above along with 2 pictures from a Kuhlman crusade) for a donation to fix the basement of the church, which is cracked and in need of expensive repair.

I had to stop Norma a couple times to make sure I was getting this right, and also to guffaw. I told her that of course, she should ask for a donation,

This has got to win the prize for HND Odd Story of the Year.