Eligible for Medicare, Camenisches stay with Samaritan

Robert and Kay Camenisch joined Samaritan Ministries for a practical reason: less expensive health care. But they soon experienced the best reason to be a part of the ministry: bearing one another’s burdens.

The Camenisches would have had to pay $900 a month for just themselves in health insurance premiums through the denomination in which Robert was a pastor. And that was in 2001.

“With Samaritan it was less,” Robert says. Plus, he said, there was “the blessing of fulfilling the Christian mandate to bear one another’s burdens.”

“That was a huge deal,” he says.

Now eligible for Medicare, Robert and Kay are trying to budget so they can stay with Samaritan, “even though we can get by with less through other means.”

In the Camenisches’ time as Samaritan members, Robert has had two heart attacks, bypass surgery, and a hernia surgery, while Kay has had numerous tests, surgery on a finger, and also suffers from fibromyalgia.

Samaritan members have come through every time.

“We’ve had several needs,” Kay says. “Some of them not small. It’s a joy to get letters and cards and notes and family pictures and prayers from other people. And it’s a joy to be able to send that to an individual instead of an impersonal letter to a moneymaking organization.”