Freed from a poverty mindset
We constantly received harassing letters and phone calls from creditors to the point where we were afraid to answer the phone or check the mail.
Growing up, I was not educated to make paying bills a priority. If there was a financial need within my extended family, I was told that we had to help pay it. If afterward there happened to be enough left over to pay bills, we would. When Charlie and I got together, of course I taught him my great habit!
On top of that, we wanted to live a certain kind of life, regardless of whether or not we could afford it. Our mindset was, "Let's have fun now; we can pay our bills later." On the outside, we made sure that our family looked great in every way, but in reality everything was falling apart.
We constantly received harassing letters and phone calls from creditors to the point where we were afraid to answer the phone or check the mail. In fact, I would often answer the phone and when a creditor would ask whether I was available, I would say "no, she's not at home right now." We even received court orders - why do they have to turn up in a Sherrif car? The shame was incredible!
We had heard about CAP through our church, but always thought that it was for "other people." Even though we knew we were in serious trouble, it took us awhile to approach CAP. We were ashamed and wanted to keep up the image that we "had it all together." Even after we finally approached CAP, we kept our old mentality of not paying bills. We made it very difficult for CAP to help us.
Our debt affected all of our relationships. Our marriage suffered to the point where we separated for a time. I became so depressed that even the smiles of my children no longer moved my heart. We were looked upon by our extended family as "black sheep" who could not afford anything. We isolated ourselves from anyone who could say anything positive to us, especially Christians, and we turned away from God. It was an ugly, ugly period of our lives.
Finally we came to a point where our house was in arrears, our car was about to be repossessed and all of our utilities were about to be disconnected. Henry, in a very nice and Godly way, told us that things had to change. It was very humbling and we realised that we could no longer hide. We started doing all that CAP was asking us to do. About 6 months later, I woke up one day and realised that we needed to start going to church again. From then on, things began to turn around. Our family is back together and stronger than ever and our relationship with God is back on track. We've gone from a poverty mindset to a prosperous one. We are in control of our finances and we live within our budget!
Now, when people look at our family they see who we really are. We are no longer lying to ourselves about our finances and we will have all our secondary debt paid off by the end of the year! We're now wiser with our money and are extremely proud of ourselves and the work that God has done with us. We are so thankful for people at CAP like Henry, Jodie and Cathy who have been so patient and have done so much for us.
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