November 08, 2003
Miracle On Cele Road
God is amazing.
Some background:
Back in June we joined forces with a new ad agency and, for reasons that may be attributed to the transition and the economy, we had a terrible amount of ads sold for our Sep/Oct issue. The thought was, "This is gonna kill us." Then, dramatically, over $11,000 in past-due ("oh, we're not likely to see this money in a while...if ever") debt comes in -- all within a few days.
Then the Nov/Dec issue comes up way short in ad sales again. I know God is faithful. He bailed us out of the last issue's jam, but I don't see any past debt floating around out there that is likely to come in. I just didn't see where any large sums of cash could come from.
So yesterday Airborne Express knocks on the door and takes off in their van before I open it, finding an envelope addressed to my wife, who is our accountant. I ask her later what it was. "A bunch of invoices."
"That's weird. I look at them, kinda puzzled. 'Why would our printer send us more copies of old invoices?' Then I pick them up again and look closely. The first is a Jul/Aug invoice that has the original balance on it, but at the top it says, "To reverse invoice...new rates in effect..." Then there's a second copy of the same issue's invoice, marked "Retro Invoice." It's $3,000 less than the original. I look at the Sep/Oct invoices. A $1,000 difference!
I don't know if the #'s are too boring, but that was $4,000 dropped in our laps in one day completely out of the blue! I had signed a 3-year contract with my printer this summer, which had lower rates as an incentive to sign (For 12 years I've printed with this company without a contract, just a month to month agreement and I kept coming back)...and the printer actually went back and retroactively adjusted prices on the Jul/Aug and Sep/Oct issues. What a nice break.
This may not have been the parting of the Red Sea, but I'm thankful to our God Who takes care of us.
