Samaritan members come to aid of couple as medical bills pile up

Following is a letter received recently from Rev. Ron and Sharon Potter, Samaritan Ministries members who live in Pennsylvania. They have given us permission to run the following excerpts. We have removed personal medical information, but it can be safely said that Ron has suffered through several surgeries and treatments in the past few years. He appears, however, to be on the mend now, thank God!

Dear Brethren:

Greetings in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ.

This letter is long overdue. But before another year gets away on us we want to write and sincerely thank all the folks at Samaritan, together with all the faithful members of the Ministry, for the counsel, prayers, cards and financial support that we received during Ron’s extended bout with a number of medical problems over a year long period. …

Through this year of medical emergencies we have seen the hand of our LORD at work in countless ways. The prayers of our local church family, our denominational family and the folks at Samaritan and Samaritan members were clearly answered by our gracious God. From the get-go the Samaritan staff was on the case, giving counsel to Ron while he was still in the hospital, juggling several needs, keeping in touch, offering additional counsel when sought, guiding us through the paper work and praying with us over the phone. We feel like we have long standing family members and brothers and sisters in Christ we have never met!

Given the nature of the needs, needless to say the medical expenses were horrific. We labored faithfully to secure discounts before submitting the bills to Samaritan and in most every case obtained at least a 30% discount and in some cases as high as 66%. Needless to say the hospitals and medical folks knew nothing about Samaritan. They do now. They have seen firsthand how the ministry works. In one case a hospital was so skeptical about being paid that they urged us to get welfare assistance which we refused. That initially agitated their front end personnel (to the point of rudeness). Business Administration then called us in to talk. The administrator we spoke to turned out to be a Christian (the LORD has his people strategically placed). She was good to go when hearing of Samaritan and how it worked but had to convince her boss. With some fear and trepidation he trusted us and Samaritan. After the initial bills were paid they were convinced and hopefully the way was paved for others. Administration called us back to ask detailed questions about Samaritan. Then well before the last surgery was done we had in hand a letter, from the hospital, promising an upfront 30% discount together with a statement indicating the hospital’s willingness to wait once again for the Samaritan funds to come in.

Now it’s one thing to convince the medical folks they will get paid and another to actually pay them. But right on target, the checks started to come in and they stayed coming in. … We have had more than one Doctor, who was never before acquainted with the kind of ministry Samaritan does, tell us, “this is the way it should be.”

In our household (and in fact in our local Heritage Reformed Church where most folks are Samaritan members) we are grateful to our LORD for raising up and using Samaritan Ministries and its members to deal with health care needs in a biblical manner. We consider ourselves privileged not only to receive but also to give.

Thank you Samaritan Ministries (who to us now has a personal face) and to all the members who have been a part of meeting our needs. We thank the LORD for you and wish you all a God blessed Happy and healthy New Year.

In Christ,