Testimony Time...

[Jennifer Smith]

I was just wondering if any had an exciting, touching, or heartwarming testimony of what God has done in your life of late?
God is good and He has a good plan for each one of us, and He provides and takes care of us, He gives good gifts and uses even what Satan means for evil for our good. How has He provided for your needs even in the midst of a recession... or given you direction, peace and encouragement, or used you to minister to heal or bring others closer to Him?
Don't worry if it sounds like a "small" testimony, they are all very great... because they speak to us of God's care and love for each one of us. He sees the sparrows when they fall, He cares for us much more and cares about what is happening to us. So, if you have anything to share to give glory to the Lord, please do!

[Jennifer Smith]

I will share...

I was able to lead worship at the clark county jail today. That was a blessing, I hadn't led worship since September, I had to get my keyboard out and "dust it off"!

God touched many of the ladies' hearts in the service and we were able to do some one on one ministry time at the end. Our church is full of joy and we are known as the "loud" church.. we had a lot of fun.

[biblemanryan]

In June, our house was flooded. My wife and little girl as well as another little girl were in the house when it flooded. They were finally able to get out safely through the help of the firefighters. Much of our neighborhood was decimated. Our car was flooded as well.

Thankfully, we had been forced to purchase flood insurance 5 months earlier through a redrawing of the flood plain in our area.

Thankfully, we had family in our town that had room for us to stay, so we did not have to pay our mortgage and rent for a place to stay at the same time. For five months +/- my brother slept on the couch so we had a room.

Our house had hardwood floors that were covered up with carpet, but the insurance refused to pay for carpet, but payed for hardwood floors, thus our settlement was higher. We had paneling on the walls that had been painted over before we moved there and we were planning on ripping off and restoring the house to the slats and plaster. Insurance gave us money for paneling that we wanted to through away anyway. One of our foundation walls was in need of thousands of $$$ of repair within the next 5-10 years, but the flood moved the wall even farther causing it to be covered by the insurance. All in all our insurance covered almost our entire mortgage.

What we lost in the flood was mainly items that could be easily replaced and none of significant value. Everything of sentimental value was 1 foot above where the water came in our higher.

Due to the disaster we were able to get a loan for a new house at 2.687%! We found a foreclosed house in excellent condition and were able to get an excellent deal on it.

To summarize we have a house that is roughly 90 years newer(with many fewer maintenance needs), considerably larger(which is great since our family is growing), and have a lower payment. Our new house also has a very large space in it that we don't need that our church is able to utilize allowing the church to save money on rent, and use the money in other ways to be a blessing and reach people. We are blessed in so many ways that it is hard to number them all. We give God all the praise because the house is newer, bigger, and nicer than what we were considering and He laid it right in our lap and opened the doors. Praise be to Him for blessing us beyond what we could think.

[Jennifer Smith]

In June, our house was flooded. My wife and little girl as well as another little girl were in the house when it flooded. They were finally able to get out safely through the help of the firefighters. Much of our neighborhood was decimated. Our car was flooded as well.

Thankfully, we had been forced to purchase flood insurance 5 months earlier through a redrawing of the flood plain in our area.

Thankfully, we had family in our town that had room for us to stay, so we did not have to pay our mortgage and rent for a place to stay at the same time. For five months +/- my brother slept on the couch so we had a room.

Our house had hardwood floors that were covered up with carpet, but the insurance refused to pay for carpet, but payed for hardwood floors, thus our settlement was higher. We had paneling on the walls that had been painted over before we moved there and we were planning on ripping off and restoring the house to the slats and plaster. Insurance gave us money for paneling that we wanted to through away anyway. One of our foundation walls was in need of thousands of $$$ of repair within the next 5-10 years, but the flood moved the wall even farther causing it to be covered by the insurance. All in all our insurance covered almost our entire mortgage.

What we lost in the flood was mainly items that could be easily replaced and none of significant value. Everything of sentimental value was 1 foot above where the water came in our higher.

Due to the disaster we were able to get a loan for a new house at 2.687%! We found a foreclosed house in excellent condition and were able to get an excellent deal on it.

To summarize we have a house that is roughly 90 years newer(with many fewer maintenance needs), considerably larger(which is great since our family is growing), and have a lower payment. Our new house also has a very large space in it that we don't need that our church is able to utilize allowing the church to save money on rent, and use the money in other ways to be a blessing and reach people. We are blessed in so many ways that it is hard to number them all. We give God all the praise because the house is newer, bigger, and nicer than what we were considering and He laid it right in our lap and opened the doors. Praise be to Him for blessing us beyond what we could think.

That is a wonderful testimony... I thank God for those natural disasters when the insurance $ comes through! Thank-you for sharing that.

[biblemanryan]

I forgot to mention that we didn't have any trouble with our insurance the way that many others did. At a meeting we went to for those affected, one woman said that their insurance gave them a check for $175,000 LESS than what their estimates were for!!!! Around here that is enough to buy a pretty nice house. We gave the insurance our estimates and they basically wrote the checks for those amounts. In addition, the city is supposed to buy our old property which should more than cover the little that was left to pay on it.