(Note: This is a RANT. I am in a ranting mood today, so I'm going to rant away).

There is a couple in town, a pentecostal "preacher" and his wife, who travel in and out of town. In the several years they have been here, they have not once had to purchase a vehicle, they have acquired 7 properties, only three of which they have actually had to purchase, and they have filled many buildings with the various items that have been given them by people from the area and from where they come from back east. In the home where they currently reside, their windows were replaced with donated materials and with labor from one of the people in one of the local churches that they regularly badmouth, they've had complete sewer lines replaced in both of their residential locations, and now have the promise of having a roof built by the same individual that did their windows. People complain about this couple, but they line up around the block to give them everything and anything they beg for.

I have long said that I don't have a problem understanding why bad things happen to good people. I have a hard time, however, understanding why good things happen to bad people. In the case of this "preacher" and his wife, they aren't so much bad people as they are professional beggars. He has no church, does not preach anywhere regularly, and solicits these donations on the understanding that he will give them to the people in the local community. These donations end up at their house, where they pick through the choice items and occasionally give a few items away that they can't use to be able to show they're giving SOMETHING.

I mentioned earlier that they haven't purchased a single vehicle since they've been here. Yet they sold two of the vehicles that they had been given, and not to families in need, but instead, for the highest price they could get for them. Much of their income is derived from selling things that were donated for them to give away.

Meanwhile, I've been working six days a week at remunerative employment (usually seven days a week when you count other obligations) for the past two years. I'm working hard at finishing my online college courses and beginning working on "real" college courses in less than a month. And we're facing the impending death of our fourth vehicle in the past two years, all of them purchased out of our own pocket, and all of them at significant cost. We're praying that our car holds together until Friday, when we can pay off the repairs on another car and hope it, too, holds together. The alternative will be calling this "preacher" for a ride, and paying more in gas then he actually uses. Because I have to do what I have to do to take care of my family. And some of the same people in the church that have labored to remodel his house despite his disparaging of the church have turned a seemingly cold shoulder to us...because we committed the unforgivable sin of attending the church for sometime and then leaving it for another church. (note to pastors of such churches: that's NOT a way to encourage people to return).

During this same time, I have offered help to every motorist I have seen stranded, I have given groceries to every family I know of that is in need. I admittedly stopped tithing to the church, but I did so precisely because, no matter how faithful we've been in our tithes, not one church has EVER helped me a) land a decent job; keep my transportation running. We decided, rightly or wrongly, that our income needed to be reserved for our needs first, not the church's.