The beauty of directly sharing one another’s needs

Rob and Brenda Holler say that direct sharing with Samaritan members was a beautiful expression of God’s gracious love for them and the entire Body of Christ.

The Holler family—including their three adult daughters and two sons-in-law—was stunned in August when doctors discovered a tumor wrapped around nerves deep in Brenda’s brain. Three weeks later, a delicate, four-hour surgery removed the tumor. Her three-month follow up MRI confirmed that the tumor was benign and no further treatment was necessary.

Not only that, but Brenda healed so quickly that she was able to drive again a week and a half after surgery. She never used a walker or cane; a friend who had similar surgery used a walker for a year.

“If you met Brenda today,” Rob says, “you wouldn’t even know that she had that kind of surgery a couple months ago.”

Unexpected Need

The Oklahoma couple had just joined Samaritan Ministries two years earlier, after watching the results of a Need shared by their daughter, Jesse, and son-in-law, Kale, for their grandson, Fitzgerald.

“Little did we know that a short time later we’d be receiving checks in the mail from our brothers and sisters in Christ to help carry our burden from Brenda’s brain tumor and surgery,” Rob says.

They received those checks directly from other members—not from a corporate office.

Direct sharing is unique to Samaritan Ministries. Members send their monthly share straight to a fellow member with a medical need. Samaritan only tells members who to send their check to, and then the members do the rest. Samaritan members trust God to provide for all their needs, and help each other pay their medical bills in the spirit of Galatians 6:2.

“I’m still overwhelmed at the graciousness of God,” says Rob, “through our brothers and sisters in Christ who partner with us, covenant with us, through Samaritan Ministries.

“We thought, ‘This is a great emergency plan B,’” he says. “Plan A was to live a healthy life. We didn’t think we’d be ‘those people’ who have a big tragedy.”

Overwhelmed by love

As God brought Rob and Brenda through brain tumor surgery and recovery, and as they trusted Him for peace and direction, they were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and spiritual encouragement they received from Samaritan members.

The Hollers also were amazed by how direct sharing connected them to Christians from far away, believers they may otherwise have never met. For example, one of their shares came from a couple in New Zealand.

They also realized that fellow believers were there for them in their time of difficulty, even when those members were going through their own trial.

“This card came from a couple in Houston,” Rob says, holding up one of the many cards they received with their shares. “I remembered thinking, ‘I wonder if they’re sending me a share in the midst of trying to dry their home out after a hurricane.’”

Brenda says that she felt “it built a wonderful bond between the people that invested in our lives.”

“I feel connected to them,” she says. “When we send out letters with our shares, I hope that people know that we’re praying for them as well, and that they feel connected from Oklahoma.”

This was the Hollers’ first Need, and they were pleasantly surprised by how quickly they were able to pay the surgery bills while remaining financially stable.

“I was actually giving thanks to God right off the bat,” Rob says. He added that, if he was still on his insurance plan, he “would’ve paid well over $55,000” for all the costs associated with diagnosing and removing Brenda’s brain tumor.

“With Samaritan it’s nothing, virtually nothing. The first $300,” he continues. “So when these bills first started coming due, I had great confidence.”

Unexpected blessings

Rob and Brenda were also unexpectedly blessed just by being cash-pay patients.

When Brenda first received her brain tumor diagnosis, the doctor gave her the name of a neurosurgeon in Oklahoma City. However, the Hollers have no relatives or church family in that area, so they would have been physically disconnected from their support system. Thankfully, with Samaritan they weren’t restricted to a provider network or surgeon. A church friend who is a doctor connected Rob with a neurosurgeon in Tulsa, close to their home.

“I didn’t have to make a ‘settle for’ decision,” says Rob, “I went and found the best.” God opened a door for Brenda to get on that neurosurgeon’s schedule and have the surgery in September.

On top of that, Rob and Brenda were happy to find that being cash pay was actually a blessing to the medical facility.

Brenda spoke with a woman in the billing department of the hospital who was overjoyed to hear they were cash-pay.

“Oh! That’s so much better! That’s so much easier!” the woman in billing said. “We don’t have to fight with people billing you, or wait for a year or two to get the money in.”

They were amazed as the billing department took 70 percent off their bills. “What was going to be $175,000-$185,000,” Rob says, “was down in the $70,000-$80,000 range.”

“It’s a tremendous benefit to health care professionals to receive payment for their services, instead of headaches for their services,” he says.

Rob and Brenda enjoy sharing their testimony of God’s faithfulness to them through this experience.

“Ever since then,” Brenda says, “how do you not talk about the wonderful gift of all the shares coming in, and paying for [all the bills]? These bills could devastate a family. But the shares are coming in. The bills are being paid. It’s very easy to talk about on this side of it. We’re very thankful.”

In fact, the Hollers hope to pass along the story of God caring for them through fellow Samaritan members by saving the notes and cards in a keepsake box as a family heirloom.

“This is a testimony of the Lord’s hand in our lives, and I don’t want to ever forget this,” Brenda says.