Terry Farrell
Record staff
Simone and Brad Lafountain have seen the light, both biblically, and literally.
And they saw the light by turning on the light.
Confused? Get ready to become enlightened.
Simone Lafountain is a woman of simple tastes.
For her 40th birthday, she didn’t ask for a trip to Europe, or a new car.
All she wanted was a Himalayan crystal salt rock lamp.
Little did she know she’d end up with a deity.
“I said to my mom, ‘I want a rock,’ ” explained the Comox Valley resident. “All the kids were getting rocks, so I wanted one, too. So my mom got me this rock. It’s about 10-12 pounds, with a light that goes into the middle of it, so it lights up.”
The Lafountains took a while to find the perfect spot for the lamp in their home, moving it from room to room.
“It wasn’t bought specifically to sit next to a Bible, or anything like that,” said Simone.
But that’s exactly where it ended up; not only next to a Bible, but a Bible that has a picture of Jesus Christ on the cover.
“We tried it in a lot of different rooms around the house. We would put it somewhere, and focus it where you think you are going to enjoy it, but it didn’t ever seem (to fit). So then we put it in the (bedroom), because it’s dark back there. I started shifting it this way, and that way, and all of a sudden this image appeared. I wondered, ‘am I really seeing that?’ So I asked Brad and he said ‘wow. Yeah. I see it.’ ”
What they saw was an image; an image they say looks remarkably similar to the image on the cover of the Bible sitting next to the lamp.
There, in the bottom right-hand area of Simone’s Himalayan crystal lamp, was the image of Jesus Christ.
They haven’t tampered with the crystal in any manner.
“You can see for yourself; it’s just a rock,” said Simone.
A rock… with a glowing Jesus face inside.
Brad is convinced that the item has divine healing powers.
“A couple of years ago, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, so I said ‘let’s take it to her and let her look at it and enjoy it,’ ” he said. “So I took it to her, and she was very skeptical.”
“It took her a few days to spot the face, but she called one night all excited, saying ‘I see it, I see it,’ ” said Simone. “So we left it with her for a little while longer, then brought it home. Well, she’s been cancer free now for two years. Whether the two have anything to do with each other, we don’t know, but we believe they do.”
(The Lafountains admitted that Brad’s mom did have radiation therapy.)
The Lafountains consider themselves non-denominational Christians.
“We don’t go to church, but we are spiritual,” said Simone.
“We sort of do ‘home churching’,” said Brad. “Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, people like that. We have their books and we do it that way.”
Brad said he expects criticism and skepticism as the story of their discovery circulates.
“I already have taken a lot of teasing about it, but that’s OK. We know what we see, and we know what we believe.”
“It’s like nothing we have ever seen,” said Simone. “So we just wanted to show people.”
