Testimony Page
 

     In October 2003, I had a heart attack and subsequent double bypass surgery.  The heart surgeon had as his assistant a physician’s assistant.  My insurance, unknown to me did not recognize their field of expertise and therefore refused to pay the $1,535.00 charge levied for removing veins from my leg for the bypass.  When I received the bill I was totally shocked and took it to my union insurance representative. We filed an appeal.

     When the appeal was denied, I sought the Lord in prayer and petitioned my brothers and sisters in the Lord to believe with me that the bill would be paid.  I felt in my spirit that the Holy Spirit was telling me to take the bill to church and place it on the altar.  Having done so, we prayed over the issues on the altar during prayer time on a Thursday night.

   In the following months, two more appeals were written both being rejected. Approximately eight months after the occasion, I received a letter stating that the insurance carrier and the union had been in negotiations concerning PA's services even before my surgery had taken place and it was added to the agreement that they would be accepted.  It went into effect January 1, 2004 but since the agreement was signed on October 1st of 2003, ten days before my surgery, they were going to pay the bill.  To God be the praise, He knows all things before and after.  Trust in Him, He opens doors that no man can open.                          

 Keith R. 

     My husband, Anthony and I, have gone through several financial hardships in the past couple of years and it seemed about three months ago we were finally coming out of it. We actually had money ahead; we weren’t just living paycheck to paycheck. Then just as we felt we had finally gotten our heads above water, we were faced with both of our children getting really sick.  We weren’t sure what was wrong with them.  We took them to several doctors, urgent cares and specialists to finally find out that it was mono.  Our daughter eventually had to have surgery and make several more trips to the doctors.  Then Anthony had to go to the emergency room in extreme pain which turned out to be kidney stones, and after that his back went out.  With all of this, our medical bills and prescriptions were adding up fast and we were both missing work.

    Sometimes when money is so tight you get scared to give because you don’t have much to give after paying tithes and all of your regular bills. Then one Sunday, a prophet of the Lord got up and asked people to give something more than their tithes, to go above and beyond.  I just really felt something stirring up inside of me, kind of an overwhelming feeling that made me cry and I just felt the Lord telling me to give a hundred dollars.  That may not be a lot to some people, but to us it was a lot considering we only had around two hundred dollars to our name at the time.  I wrote that check out as fast as I could and I couldn’t wait to give it. 

    A couple of weeks after that on a Monday, Anthony’s battery died in his truck and we had to have a new one.  Needless to say, we didn’t have the money until we got our checks on Friday.  He was just going to drive his company’s box van until then.  On Wednesday, the Gideons came to the church and took up a collection for Bibles.  At that time we only had about twenty dollars in our account and fourteen dollars in our wallets.  I thought it’s not going to matter if we have this money or not, but one thing I do know is that it will help someone else to have a Bible.  So we gave!  Ten dollars to the Gideons and a couple of dollars in the offering.  In the natural, people would say we were crazy for giving, but God is so amazing!  I want you to know that before we got our checks someone bought Anthony a new battery.  Someone else came up to him at church and gave him a $100.00 and it even gets better.  Someone else gave us $1,050.00.  You cannot out give God and He truly will supply all your needs.                                        

Heather E.

Most of my early life I had no time for God, in fact I did not believe in His existence.  I thought of religion as a crutch for weak people.  But He kept me protected from things that should have killed or seriously hurt me, waiting for the day.  Like the time as a teenager I flipped a motorcycle end over end 3 times at fifty miles per hour and walked away with barely a scratch. 

In 1987 after sixteen years of marriage, my wife Pat suggested that we start to go to church. She was thinking about a divorce and thought going to church might save our marriage.  I scoffed, but we visited a couple of large, nice churches.  I wasn’t impressed and that was that.  God worked through the death of a favorite uncle’s death.  A local church provided a time for a memorial service, so the Lord used that event to get me back to church.  I enjoyed hearing the pastor and decided I would give it one more try.

The church was a small group of people meeting in a rented room.  The message that day was a Bible story about Sampson.  I had heard of him but always thought he was a mythological character.  I was impressed that the pastor made him sound so real like - he really existed.  To everyone’s surprise I was ready to go again the next week to hear another Bible story.  God was waiting and pastor told the story of David and Goliath.  God had me hooked and I was back the next week for another story.  This was Mother’s Day 1988.  This time pastor preached a message about Bible scoffers that had never read the Bible.  I felt convicted because pastor kept quoting things I had said.  So I told myself that I would read the Bible, so that I could prove the things I believed to be true.  Then came the altar call.  As the previous two weeks my stomach knotted up, and I wanted to leave.  This time Pat stood up and grabbed my hand and stood me up. Reluctantly, we walked forward. The pastor, after leading me in the sinners prayer, prophesied over me.  He told me I would be like a new recruit in the army and the training would be fast and furious, that I would quickly learn things of God.   He told me every time I questioned God’s truth, He would prove it to me.  It happened that way, every time I questioned something new I learned, God found a way to prove it. 

    Years later I had an opportunity to share my testimony about the day I went up to accept the Lord as my savior.  When I told him that Pat had stood me up and I looked in her face wanting to know why she had done that, she stopped me.  At which time she informed me that she was not in the room when I went up front, that she did not grab my hand and stand me up.  So who grabbed my hand, that I thought was my wife?  There is no doubt in my mind that God is real and that the Bible is His Word and accurate with no mistakes.  And that He loves His creation.  It has now been over 20 years and He continues to amaze me with His love, grace and mercy. 

                                                                           Roger F.

     Our daughter Micah was born very oxygen deprived.  She was very dark blue and the doctor thought she was born dead.  It took a long time before she even made a sound and that was a little cough.  She was unable to come through the birth canal after a six hour labor, and it cause a lot of trauma to her head.  She had a huge hematoma, and her head was very bruised.  Her head was so misshaped that the doctor believed that her skull was fused together. The x-ray showed that her brain had bleed and they told me that she had severe to moderate brain damage.  That night she had a seizure and quite breathing, and they put her on a respirator and took her to our children’s hospital. 

    Things started looking worse before they got better.  She did not wake up or make a sound for seven days. When they took her off the respirator she went into cardiac arrest. They said that her kidneys were not working.  She could not suck or swallow and was on a feeding tube. She could not keep her body temperature up to 98 degrees.  Her airway was floppy and made it hard for her to breath.  She had no strength in her arms and she held her hands in way that the doctor were talking all around cerebral palsy.  When I would ask when my daughter was coming home they would get angry at me, and tell me that they did not even know if she was going to live. 

     I told the doctor that my daughter would be home in two weeks before my husband had to go back to work.  She had a very abnormal EEG, and the MRI gave a very bad report that my husband and I refused to believe as the truth.  My husband and I discipline ourselves to speak the Word only, and we did not let anyone that would speak death or sickness over her to come in to she her.  We had our Pastors come to lay hands on her because of James 5:14-15 Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders (the spiritual guides). And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord's name. And the prayer [that is] of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him... If anyone asked about her, we told them she was fine and coming home in a few days.  Things started turning around on day five, and she could keep her body temperature.   

     She woke up during a bath on day seven and cried.  I rejoiced because I had never heard her cry.  Day eight was a new beginning and she knew my voice and wanted me.  All of her test started coming back normal.  A baby that could not suck, swallow and breath without going into cardiac arrest, was able to nurse.  The doctor that would get mad at me for declaring that my daughter would be home in to weeks signed and released her two weeks from the day she went into the hospital.  It was late and we had to wait until the next morning to take home, but I was OK with that. 

    A month later when we took her to the neurologist, he said that her EEG was normal and the she was doing so good  developmentally that he released her from his care. Those are the exact words that I prayed.  So I cried tears of joy all the way home from the doctor.  She has reach all of her developmental milestones, and I look forward to seeing what God has planned for her life.  The Lord honors His Word above His name, and the Word will not return void.  I thank God His mercy and His goodness.  I also thank God for our pastors and church family that ministered to our needs and believed with us.  One other thing: God healed her head form the hematoma in two days, and they said it would take months for it to go away.                     

James & Dana R.