God Wants Me to Fly in Style

Prosperity Preacher Says God Wants Him to Have a New Private Jet, Asks Flock to Pay for It

Jesse Duplantis, one of America’s most popular prosperity preachers has his eyes on a new $54 million Dassault Falcon 7X private jet, but he wants his followers to pay for it.

Duplantis, who runs a ministry and a church in Destrehan, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, already owns a private jet, in fact it’s already his third one. All of them have been paid for in cash with donations from his faithful flock, but he now wants them to once again come through for him so he can buy the three-engine Dassault Falcon 7X private jet which would allow him to fly “anywhere in the world in one stop,” increasing his global reach and reducing fuel costs, because he has his own fuel farm…

Dassault_Falcon_7X

“I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7X,” the 68-year-old prosperity gospel preacher said in a video appeal to his flock. “Now, some people believe that preachers shouldn’t have jets. I really believe that preachers ought to go on every available voice, every available outlet, to get this gospel preached to the world.”

He then goes on to tell viewers how he managed to buy his three previous private jets with donations from his followers, and explain how he could just use his current jet, which he bought in 2006, but that the $54 million Dassault Falcon 7X would actually help his ministry spread the gospel more efficiently, by reaching far away places on a single fuel stop.

preacher

In the video, Duplantis claims that God told him “I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7x”, and when he asked how he was going to pay for it, the preacher said that he remembered what God told him back in 1978 – “Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.” So he’s now asking his flock to “pray about becoming a partner for to it”, which basically means donating money to his ministry.

“So pray about becoming a partner to it, if you’d like to,” the preacher says. “And if you don’t, you don’t have to, but I wish you would, because let me tell you something about it – all it’s gonna do is touch people, it’s gonna reach people, it’s gonna change lives, one soul at a time.”

“I really believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” Duplantis added. “He’d be in an airplane flying all over the world.”

Now, if that last line doesn’t convince you to donate a bit of money for this man’s new private jet, you must not be a true believer…

As you can imagine, Jesse Duplantis’ unusual crowdfunding efforts have attracted a lot of criticism from more conservative Christians, many of whom argued that the tens of millions of dollars in donations could be put to much better use than a new private jet. Some asked why Duplantis and other preachers needed private jets in the first place, when they could just jump on commercial flights instead. But the preacher clarifies that three years ago, when along with fellow televangelist Kenneth Copeland, he defended the need for a private jet.

“You just can’t manage that today, in this dope-filled world,” Copeland said. “You get in a long tube with a bunch of demons, and it’s deadly.” Both Copeland and Duplantis agreed that private jets were essential to fulfilling their ministries’ mission.

Greedy corrupt bastards!

South African ‘world’s oldest man’ wants to stop smoking

Fredie Blom
Image captionFredie Blom says there is no special secret to his longevity

Fredie Blom spent most of his life as a labourer – on a farm and in the construction industry – in apartheid South Africa but he might soon be recognised as the world’s oldest man, as the BBC’s Mohammed Allie reports from Cape Town.

Although he gave up drinking many years ago, Fredie Blom is still a regular smoker.

“Every day I still smoke two to three ‘pills’,” – local slang for tobacco tightly rolled into a cigarette-length piece of newspaper. “I use my own tobacco because I don’t smoke cigarettes.

“The urge to smoke is so strong. Sometimes I tell myself I’m going to stop but it’s just me lying to myself. My chest chases me to have a puff and I’m then forced to make a ‘pill’.

“I blame the devil for that because he’s so strong,” he says with mischievous grin.

Celebrity status

The first thing that strikes one when meeting the centenarian is how remarkably healthy and solid he still looks.

A tall, well-built man, he walks unaided, if understandably slowly, and besides being a touch hard of hearing, he has absolutely no ailments.

The former farm worker, who turned 114 on 8 May, is said to be the oldest person still alive although this is yet to be verified by the Guinness World of Records.

The title was last held by a Jamaican woman, Violet Moss-Brown, until 15 September 2017 when she died at the age of 117.

Guinness World of Records says it is still consulting genealogists to confirm the next holders of the “world’s oldest man and woman” titles.

Fredie Blom
Image captionThere were doubts about his age until he produced his birth certificate

Mr Blom, who sports a slightly unkempt handlebar moustache and grey stubble beard, doesn’t have any special secret for his longevity.

“There’s only one thing – it’s the man above [God]. He’s got all the power. I have nothing. I can drop over any time but He holds me,” is his response when I ask him what keeps him going.

“I feel very healthy, I’m good. My heart is strong but it’s only my legs that are giving in – I can’t walk the way I used to,” he says, speaking in Afrikaans with a loud and clear voice.

He has inevitably acquired a celebrity status that has seen a constant stream of people ranging from locals to provincial government ministers coming to visit him in his modest home in Cape Town.

He said it’s a great feeling to know that people care. For his birthday, a local supermarket and the provincial department of social development presented him with big birthday cakes.

Fredie Blom and his wife
Image captionJanetta says her husband struggles to put on his shoes

Mr Blom is still strong enough to wash and dress himself although, according to his wife, he struggles to put on his shoes.

He also sometimes needs the assistance of his grandson to shave.

For someone who normally started his day at 4.30am in his working years, Mr Blom now rises much later and doesn’t do much around the house.

“I can’t do anything – I can’t even get on a ladder any longer. I just sit around. I don’t have time for the nonsense that’s on TV.”

He would rather sit outside his house and roll up another piece of newspaper and give in, once again, to the devil’s temptation.

BBC