The Lord's Hands

How things Are:

As I wrote in an earlier post, John's company has not been paying him or any of the other employees. Late last week we found out that not only have we not been being paid, but all of the time that we thought we had health insurance we did not. The company had taken the premiums for health insurance out of the paychecks (until they stopped paying) but then never paid the insurance company. The company also had told us that we did have health insurance. But apparently they have not paid it since July or so. So now we have no income coming in and about $700 worth of unexpected medical bills that we would not have had if we knew that we did not have health insurance. (If I knew that we had to pay cash for the kids vaccinations I would have postponed the vaccinations until we had the money to pay for them.) We do not have any bad pre-existing conditions, so we, unlike other employees with chronic conditions, are okay that way. John has been applying for jobs since the first paycheck in October had not come through. (We are still without any job offers.) John is planning on asking to be laid off and we are going to apply for unemployment. This morning I applied for free lunch for the kids for school. Once John is officially laid off we will consider applying for health aid and food aid, but I think we will wait a couple more weeks and keep living on loans before we go that far. We really feel like God is watching over us and that John will have a job soon.

The Lord's Help:

Besides having a fairly consistent feeling of peace and assurance, many people have been praying for us and helping us in amazing ways. John's parents who are in the same situation that we are in have been sharing their food storage and food from their yard that they worked hard to produce. They have also been allowing us to borrow from their low interest home equity loan to cover our rent and bills. My parents gave us $100 for food last month, bought Ruth and Kate winter coats, and most recently they have bought some warm pajamas and sweaters for the kids. John's sister Emily and her husband Ben have given us $300 for Christmas presents for our children. Our next door neighbor has given us left overs and last night brought over dinner. We are very grateful and very blessed to have so many people help us and take care of us when we have not been able to do that for ourselves. I know that these people have been the Lord's hands in taking care of us during this difficult time for our family. I only ask that we too can be His hands and pass on His blessings.