To the people of Helping Hands Ministry, and to the donor who gave for this blessing.

First of all, I truly do not know how to say thank you enough for the tremendous blessing you have given to my bride and me.  We do not feel worthy of this, but I am taking the advice of Bryan Green and recognizing this as a blessing to me, as well as a blessing to the donor. My prayer is that whoever gave this financial gift will feel as blessed as I do because of their faithfulness in giving. Thank you.

I want to share with you how I have seen this play out. Throughout all of this, I see God’s Hand, and I give Him credit for everything.  On Sunday, May 5, our pastor at Rocky Creek preached from Acts 2:42-27 as he began a series called Membership Matters. In this message he referenced verses 44 & 45, “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

Now, I don’t know if someone heard that sermon and felt convicted or inspired to give, or if the donation had already been made, and that sermon was to prepare me for what was about to happen. However, I see God’s Hand in the timing of this message.

Two days later, I received a phone call from a man I didn’t know.  He said his name was Bryan Green, and that I didn’t know him (that raised my “scam” alert slightly). Then he said he wasn’t trying to sell me anything (there went my scam alert again).  He told me someone had donated money to his ministry for me to buy a new car. I was truly waiting for him to say “just give me your checking account number so I can deposit this money into your account”, and I would have slammed the phone down – but he never went there.

Bryan, I apologize if I seemed rude to you at first, but I truly assumed this was a scam of some kind. And by the way, after I hung up with you, I asked our church secretary about a check we had sent to your ministry several years ago when we helped one of our missionaries. The address on the check matched your information. And when I texted Kip Miller the next day and asked about you, he vouched for you also.

Once I realized he was possibly telling the truth, I started listening a little closer. He told me that the donor wanted me to buy a new car and had supplied $24,000 to do so. Someone from his office would follow up with me and give me further information on what to do.  When I got home that evening and sat down with Christie, saying “we need to talk”, that was about all I could get out for a while. She thought someone had died. We both praised God, and wondered “Why us?”

When Michelle York contacted me, I was beginning to doubt that this had actually happened, in fact, all the way through, I kept assuming something would come along and stop this. But it didn’t. So Christie and I went out car shopping. As I told Michelle, I don’t do change very much, and I tend to keep things for quite a while. I have been at Rocky Creek church for 27 years, we are still in our “starter” home for over 25 years, our “new” car is a 2007, and I am still with my first wife of nearly 34 years (and I NEVER plan to change that one).  But because I don’t change much, I figured it would be better to get a newer car so I was looking at 2018 and 2017 SUV’s. I found the Honda CRV to be very comfortable to me but the price of the brand new 2019 was not that much more than the 2018 model (the 2019 is the base model which is more like what I like, with less bells and whistles). I told Michelle that Christie and I could make up the difference and she took the price to her committee and came back saying they would pay the full price! Again, God, Wow!!

Exactly two weeks after the first phone call (which I didn’t believe at first), I received a phone call from the dealership here in Greenville saying my car was ready for me to pick up.  Just come in and sign some paperwork. I am still wondering, “God, why me?” But I have also been saying “God, Thank You!”. I have been humbled, blessed, and loved through all of this. I don’t know why God laid this on the heart of the donor, but I want to say thank you, and may God return this blessing to you many times over.

As Paul Harvey used to say, the “Rest of the Story”, is that I am currently working to prepare Gladys, my 1989 Ford Ranger, to be able to gift her to one of the Overcomer graduate (men who are going through an amazing addiction recovery program). Gladys has her issues; not really sure exactly how many miles she has, no AC, no power anything, manual transmission; but she has faithfully taken me many miles, including over 90 miles on my last day of driving her as I drove in the 90 degree heat to meet our Senior Adults at Strawberry Hill USA, and then to the Spartanburg Regional Hospital to see one of our members and back to the church. She did just great, and I will truly miss driving her. But I truly believe she will be a great blessing to someone else who may truly need her more than I do at this point.

I am still blown away that God has done this for me, and I truly feel completely unworthy, humble, and blessed. I have never named a car with less than 100K miles, and NEVER have I given a car a male name, but based on the comparable passage to Travis’ sermon in Acts 4:36-37, take a look at me, Christie and our salesman with my new car, Barnabas. What an incredible encouragement, and may I be an encouragement to others as well.

Rev. David A. Williams

Missions and Pastoral Care Pastor

Rocky Creek Baptist Church