Today as I was walking into my second job and about ready to clock in, my phone rang. It was Amy. She wants to read me a letter she has just opened from KADI, one of the 25 people we still owe money.
The letter reads like this:
Dear Joel Maxwell:
I would like to commend you on your effort to honor your advertising agreement with Vision Communications, Inc. However, as of the date of this letter, your entire balance of $2,137.81 has been forgiven. I wish you success in your future?endeavors and pray that God will richly bless you and your family. Thank you for faithfully?serving?our country.
Sincerely,
R. C. Amer, Jr.
President, Vision Communications, Inc.
On top of being the station in Springfield that carries the Dave Ramsey show; the people at KADI have been awesome to us from the beginning. Anyone who has ever opened a business knows the onslaught of salesmen that continually knock on your door. They all kiss up and tell you how great you are, they buy your lunch, give you tickets, and then try to guilt you into buying.
Bev Smith, our account representative, has never tried the hard sale and has always been nothing but encouraging to us. Our only truly successful advertising venture was with KADI with their program where they sold our gift cards. That program brought us more customers than any other advertising we did. They also were the ones that turned us onto Guerrilla Marketing, a must read for any business owner.
Bigger than what Bev and Mr. Amer and the others at KADI did for us while we were open was what they did for us when we closed. Bev was continually encouraging to us, telling us she was praying for us. Before we even were close to beginning to repay any of our debts, Mr. Amer was offering us 50% off the balance if we paid in full by the end of the year. Each month as I send out my budget I will usually include some big ticket items that we are selling that month. Although we never quite had anything that worked, Bev would almost always send me people looking to buy or barter for the items I was selling.
They are truly some great people and people I would want to do business with again. They are people you should do business with!
Wow, what wonderful news! They sound like a great company.
Comment by MG65 — September 14, 2006 @ 12:34 am
Very true, I think that is an understatement!
Comment by Joel — September 14, 2006 @ 1:07 am
I read your post every day and am always encourage by your perserverance and it keeps me on my DR journey…it is so much smaller than yours and at times I struggle.
What a wonderful thing that KADI did! The forgiveness of the debt is nice but even better-the acknowledgement of the hard journey you are choosing to make to honor your commitments must be even nicer..
Comment by a lurker — September 14, 2006 @ 10:34 am
Wow! That’s wonderful! What a blessing!
You know what I’ve discovered since I’ve started this process? Once you truly commit your energies in a direction, forces outside of you somehow seem to come together to help your efforts. Like this! It’s great!
Comment by steffie — September 14, 2006 @ 7:37 pm
Joel…when I read the letter from KADI on your post, tears filled my eyes. Certainly I was excited about the debt being forgiven, but that wasn’t what triggered my emotions.
R.C. truly demonstrated God’s love and forgiveness, responding to your passion about following God’s Word and His Will. That is the amazing thing about blessing, it always happens with exponential effect.
Congrats Joel, and May God continue to bless you and your family. Together we Praise Him for all that he does!!
Comment by Mark Hunsaker — September 15, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
That’s fantastic news.
Comment by Marie — September 15, 2006 @ 7:12 pm
I think that’s just awesome news and it’s encouraging to hear about amazing breakthroughs like this. You must have had quite a blessed day!
Comment by JuryDuty — September 15, 2006 @ 9:15 pm
Joel,
Several years ago, my girlfriend and her husband had a bad business experience as well and they were considering filing bankruptcy. I believe they were (only) about $200K in debt. SBA and various loans.
One day they recieved a similar letter as you did from the SBA forgiving their debt of $140K.
With God all things are possible.
Patty
Comment by Patty — September 16, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
Thanks Patty! That is awesome. Maybe I can get a letter like that from the SBA as well. They are the last one on my snowball, I still owe them $84,000. They also have a second on our house that is for sale. They should get about $25,000 from that.
Comment by Joel — September 16, 2006 @ 11:12 pm
God is good ALL the time isnt He Joel?? That’s awesome news - couldn’t have happened to a more determined family. I’ll still be looking for a letter like that for my school loans HAHAHHAHA
Comment by Andre — September 18, 2006 @ 9:28 pm