My son is the Pastor of a faith-based recovery and restoration, IRS approved non-profit ministry, to help ex addicts with a 9-month program to help them have a better life after they graduate and be a productive member of normal societal living. The ministry, which started in January 2021, also accepts homeless individuals or any individual experiencing some life crisis situation.
My wife and I helped with the initial finances needed to purchase the first property. That is now our women’s home. We added another home for men in July 2022. My wife passed away in October 2021. I continued to help the ministry with expenses when donations were very limited. This came from utilizing all the profit I made from selling my house. I continued to help over time by using my credit cards, which have now accumulated over $65,000 in debt. The ministry has paid back some of the original debt and has made payments to me when finances were available, but that has been sporadic.
I was forced to retire from the company I worked for after 30 years (their long term policy.) I am 66 years old and now I just have my social security income to live on. I volunteer as the business administrator for the ministry ever since we opened. The ministry simply can’t afford to pay me a wage. But that doesn’t make sense anyway when they owe me for all the income I have put into the ministry and the expenses I have paid through my own income and credit card debt since the ministry opened. I do not regret any expense I have helped to pay and really I don’t care whether or not all I have spent is paid back. I just would like to see my credit card debt eliminated. The rest doesn’t matter to me.
My total minimum payments on credit card debt now exceed my social security income by several hundred dollars. I don’t know how to get out of debt at this rate. My credit score and rating (that was once very high) is now shattered, so I can’t get any loans to consolidate my debt. I just feel at a loss how to reduce the debt. I can’t even afford bankruptcy. Every social security payment gets ate away trying to pay the credit cards. The majority of charges on my credit cards were for the ministry. And a little spent on my own personal expenses just trying to survive.
The ministry can house 22 women and 32 men. The ongoing expenses of the ministry make it very difficult at times to meet all the ministry expenses, so paying me back just cannot be the highest priority. But I don’t need a lot to live on anyway. I live in a tiny home on the property and I am quite happy and content in this kind of setting the rest of my life. But I do not want to pass from this life with all this debt and add another burden to my son or the ministry.
Anything you are able to help me with to reduce and eventually eliminate the $65,000 debt would be greatly appreciated. This is very stressful and tearing me apart inside. I have always lived very responsible and always paid any debt in a timely manner and had very good credit. It seems that will never be the case again. Helping me with any amount is also helping the ministry and all those we are able to help that benefit from our program… past, current, and future residents in the program. We have had many success stories.
Thank you in advance and no matter what you can do, please know I will be extremely grateful and will also keep you in my prayers.
Link for donations: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/psbelcher?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US