NORTH CAROLINA
Christian Today
James Macintyre 25 July 2017
The controversial Word of Faith Fellowship used its two church branches in Brazil to siphon young labourers on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale, North Carolina, to work as ‘slaves’, an investigation by the Associated Press (AP) has found.
The ‘slave pipeline’ was used by the secretive evangelical church despite US law requiring that visitors on tourist visas are prohibited from performing work for which people would normally be compensated. Those on student visas are allowed some work, under circumstances that were not met at the Word of Faith Fellowship.
Some 16 Brazilian former members told the AP they were forced to work, often for no pay, and physically or verbally assaulted.
One of those was Andre Oliveira, who answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, when his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders, supposedly for safekeeping.
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