1993 Tithing Testimony On Valentine's Day, 1993, I was crossing the parking lot on my way to a Sunday Service at the North Glastonbury Teaching Center in Montana when my foot slipped on some hidden ice. My body twisted to the side as I fell heavily onto my left hip. I knew I was in trouble when I heard a loud pop as I hit the ground. I wasn't able to move my injured leg and was grateful when a friend appeared a few minutes later and assisted me to stand up and help me hop over to my car so I could go home. As I had no medical insurance I resisted being taken to the hospital until that evening when the pain had become intolerable. I was taken to the local hospital in Livingston 25 miles away, had x-rays taken and then put to bed overnight with my leg in traction. The following day I was transferred to the Bozeman Deaconess Hospital in another city where I was operated on at 5:30 PM that evening, thirty hours after the initial accident The ball of the left femur had split wide open. It was removed and replaced with a steel ball (which unfortunately turned out to be a major nuisance as it sets off all the bells whenever I go through airport security and then have to be pulled over for further inspection). Two days later the surgeon paid me a bedside visit. After the initial preliminaries he then told me that he had some bad news. According to the x-rays taken at the first hospital my right thigh was riddled with cancer to the point where I would need to have my right leg amputated. I found that hard to believe because I had no symptoms of any problems with my right thigh and suggested that he take a new set of x-rays. Much to his chagrin the new x-rays showed a perfectly healthy leg. Evidently a shadow was cast on my right thigh on the first x-rays causing a misdiagnosis. Though the doctor was embarrassed and quitre red faced by his mistake, I was extremely relieved. Before I was released from the hospital I was paid a visit by personnel from the accounting office. Because I had no insurance to cover expenses incurred I was given the option to pay fifty dollars a month minimum towards the balance owed to the hospital. I had a fixed income of $1,200 per month from which I was tithing 10% that amounted to $120 – 9% to the church and 1% to the Teaching Center. I had a home and a car to maintain so there wasn't very much left over each month for extras but I felt I could manage $50 a month towards the hospital bill. I had entered the hospital on a Monday afternoon and was released Thursday morning to return to my home. I had been there for 3 full days. Fortunately I had a friend in the community who volunteered to stay with me until I was able to function once more on my own. Three weeks later I was able to release her services with my utmost gratitude and a modest gratuity. In the meantime the bills began to filter in and I was in a state of shock. The hospital bill alone came to over twelve thousand dollars and another $6-8,000 for the doctors, the two ambulances and other medical fees A letter from the hospital came a few weeks later to notify me that after a period of three months I would be charged 10% interest on the balance. The interest on the balance of over twelve thousand dollars was two times greater than the agreed upon monthly payment of $50. At that rate my debt, without additional resources, would be increasing instead of decreasing. All I could do at this point was to put the whole mess in God's hands and let him work it out. Some people would have considered the most practical solution would be to use the tithe money of $120 a month towards paying off the hospital bill. But I considered the tithe money to be an investment that would pay for itself. To me it is a sacred commitment that comes before all other debts and I believe in God's promises. It has worked for me in the past and I was sure it would also work for me in the present. In I was contacted by Church Headquarters to see if I could accommodate a lady from England who needed a place to stay for two months. I was delighted to rent the lady a room as it would give me almost $500 to apply towards my medical debt. She was a very interesting person who had studied astrology and the Kabbalah extensively. She did a horary reading on the possibilities of receiving insurance money to cover my medical costs as well as the possibility of selling a 50% interest in a house in California shared with my former husband. According to her readings I might get a small amount of insurance the following year but I wouldn't be selling the California home at all. It wasn't a very reassuring prognosis. Nor was it very accurate. The insurance reading she gave seemed to be confirmed when I was contacted by a freelance insurance agent representing the company that had sold the Teaching Center its insurance policy. The man was quite abrasive in his attitude. He informed me that the policy did not have medical coverage so I would not be getting any money from the insurance company. And further more he could tell just by looking at me that I was faking it and if I tried to sue the company I would lose my shirt. I could hardly wait to get this agent out the door fast enough. Needless to say, the Teaching Center no longer does business with this particular insurance company. After the English lady left I was asked by Church Headquarters to house two professors from the State of Michigan who were doing a study on the church and who later published a book on their research. They were interesting gentlemen and I enjoyed their company very much. I also appreciated the additional $600 I received as compensation for their accommodations which I applied to my slowly shrinking medical debt. I was then asked to take on the job of assigning rental spaces with Glastonbury residents for out of state conferees attending the quarterly conferences. I received a waiver of conference fees for this service which was another assistance towards my financial situation. I also rented out rooms to Summit University students and to conferees that brought additional monies in to help pay off my debts. A real bonanza occurred when in late summer I was notified that there had been three insurance companies, unknown to myself, involved in the location where I had sustained my injury and that two of them had medical coverage. I would be receiving in the mail checks for $5,000 each, a total of $10,000. This was a mighty miracle and made a huge dent in my overall debt. I had a few set backs in the fall when the transmission went out on my automobile and had to be rebuilt and I also had to replace all my tires which amounted overall to around $1,000. Then in October I had to scrape up the money to travel to California when my 93 year old father passed on. In November I got the best news of all when I was informed that the California house was finally sold after being on the market for four years. I received a check on January 10, 1994, the date of the much heralded Capricorn mega-conjunction, for my half share amounting to $119,000. After taxes and a 10% tithe was subtracted from the total I was left free of all debt and with a capital gain of $75,000 in the bank. It took only eleven months to accomplish this great victory. Who would have thought when it all began that it would end on such a high note. I didn't! All praise to God!
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