Teresa McAllister suffered from an illness as a little girl growing up in tiny Richlands, northwest of Jacksonville.
She could not shake it, and the doctors could not figure it out.
Her grandfather was a minister: “He encouraged me to seek the Lord and to pray for the healing that I would need, and have faith in that,” she says.
Through her healing, she says, she experienced a relationship with God.
“I received Jesus at 9 years old,” she says.
Dr. Teresa McAllister is senior pastor at Rapha Ministries Family Center Inc., located in the WIDU radio building at 2520 Murchison Road. She and her husband, Alfonza McAllister, incorporated the church in 2018, and Teresa McAllister started a weekly Bible study in January of the following year.
“Rapha” in Hebrew means “to heal,” and McAllister says it refers to one of God’s names in the Bible.
“I experienced that,” she says.
But healing for McAllister has never been just about the body. She is inspired to help people hurting in other ways.