Church Pays Off $2.2 Million in Medical Debt for 1,600 Families
Before Easter weekend, more than 1,000 people in the state of Kansas received a letter in the mail that read, “We’re Pathway Church. We may never meet you, but as an act of kindness in the name of Jesus Christ, your debt has been forgiven.”
The Wichita-area church reallocated some of its money originally set aside to advertise for its Easter-weekend services to pay off $2.2 million in medical debt for families across the state.
Pathway Church partnered with RIP Medical Debt, a non-profit that buys and forgives medical debt for “pennies on the dollar.” So for every penny donated to RIP, one dollar in medical debt is paid off; for every dollar donated, $100 of medical debt is paid.
Pathway is one of the many churches across the nation pledging to help others by fulfilling tangible needs like medical debt with RIP Medical Debt.
So far RIP has abolished over $676 million dollars in debt for families who need it the most, including veterans.
RIP Medical Debt’s website specifies that they “abolish debt” for families and individuals whose income is less than twice the federal poverty level or whose debts are 5 percent or more of their annual income.
Dr. Todd Carter, Lead Pastor at Pathway, shared on Easter Sunday that the church was able to pay off medical debt for over 1,600 families across the state of Kansas, 500 of those being in the Wichita area.
The church shared the news in a Facebook post following Easter Sunday.
“Jesus did the same thing on the cross when He declared ‘it is finished,'” the church wrote. “The debt of our sins, that we could not pay, had been forgiven!”
Not only are those families freed from the weight of their medical debt, but any damage that the outstanding medical may have caused on their credit history was also wiped clean.
Dr. Carter compared the feeling of being free from medical debt to the feeling of being free from the debt of sin because of Jesus’ death on the cross.
“I want you to imagine for a moment what those 1,600 people felt like when this last week when they got that letter in the mail,” Dr. Carter said. “What was going in those houses when they got that letter in the mail, and all of the sudden they realized that their debt, this debt that had been hanging over their head had been forgiven.”
“That’s exactly what God and the person of Jesus Christ wants you to feel each and every day,” he continued. “Your debt has been forgiven.”
If you would like to learn more about RIP Medical Debt and how they are freeing people from the crippling weight of medical debt, check out their website or Facebook page.
CORRECTION, April 25, 2019: As originally published, this article stated that Dr. John Carter was the lead pastor at Pathway. His name is Dr. Todd Carter.
We apologize to Dr. Carter for the error and to our readers for any confusion we may have caused.
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