We are in critical danger (July 8 sale date) of losing our home & home office & research library to foreclosure. We believe that God wants us to stay in this home/office, continuing to devote the stamina & energy he provides us to Christian ministry as I have for the past 40 years, 17 years in this home. We have exhausted all other options.
We need $20,000 within the next 2 weeks to save our home from forced foreclosure sale & reinstate mortgages & update property taxes. We need $20,000 over the year to meet our expenses until our Answers In Action has new non-profit status, my early retirement SS begins, & Pat’s hardship VA benefit kicks in. God has called us to ministry focus, me with 40 years of full-time Christian ministry in apologetics & discipleship, Pat with his trauma, combat, & critical medical crisis experience sharing the grace & sufficiency of Christ with others in crisis & trauma. Please pray about helping us to stay in our home & serve the Lord.
We are raising support through direct gifts & gifts through Go Fund Me. Go Fund Me is the easiest way to give on-line, or you can message me for other options (gretchen.passantino@answersinaction.org) or check my FaceBook page (Gretchen Passantino Coburn). Through June 30 ONLY, a generous benefactor has promised to MATCH ANY GIFT OF ANY AMOUNT DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR up to $10,000. Anything you give through June 30 will be doubled by this kind offer.
We are in this precarious position because of the devastating medical crisis my husband experienced 18 months ago, when literally in a heartbeat, he went from our major provider as a painting contractor to a survivor of sudden death cardiac arrest & accompanying anoxic brain injury, unable to work. December 18, 2012 the ER cardiologist was prepared to officially declare him dead, but God gave him new life. At first I was told his probability of survival was 0.01%, he spent more than a week in a coma, had to learn to talk, swallow, lift his head, move, etc., & was hospitalized for nearly 6 weeks. The road to recovery has been long & difficult, but God’s blessings in the midst of it have been overwhelming. This picture is from Pat’s first anniversary of new life, when we returned to the hospital to thank those God used to heal him.
The journey has contained many opportunities for serving God. Six months after Pat’s collapse & new life, he was proud to stand with others at the hospital, Hoag Memorial Presbyterian in Newport Beach, & testify for life when they announced they were no longer going to perform elective abortions.
The Lord called me back to active apologetics ministry, & has brought me many opportunities to share & defend the gospel, including this class at our local St. James Anglican Church. This is my 40th year in full-time Christian ministry as a teacher, apologist, writer, & speaker.
“Apologetics in the Book of Acts,” a summer in-depth Sunday evening class begins in our home/ministry base on July 6. With the wealth of apologetics explicit & implicit in the Book of Acts, students will be inspired to defend the faith on a daily basis. Our home is not just a home. It is our ministry base, given us by the Lord in 1997, before my first husband, Bob, died. It contains my specialized 8,000 volume research library & has been the location for countless Bible studies, graduate classes, prayer & church services, fellowship & meal sharing.
Since Pat’s collapse & new life, God has very specifically called & equipped him to support veterans, especially combat veterans, with God’s grace & gospel. Pat is a 2 time combat Vietnam Marine veteran. This latest medical crisis opened up the consequences of his previous trauma stress & gave him the opportunity not only to grow & heal through the stress, but to be used by God to help other survivors of trauma.
Pat & I call our home “Our Little Hobbit Hole.” It is a sanctuary of the Garden, a reminder & promise of God’s coming renewed kingdom. It not only shelters us from the ravages of the world, but is a refuge for countless others who find the peace, forgiveness, & assurance of the gospel here.
Our Hobbit Door Pat built for a Middle Earth party a couple of years ago.
The raised herb garden Pat built for me to spare my permanently injured back. The mural he painted is from The Lay of Luthien, a Middle Earth song about the love between an immortal elf maiden (Luthien) & a mortal man (Beren). She gave up her immortality for him, & he sacrificed his life for her. A metaphor of God’s Great Redemption Story in Christ.
We call this our “Sam’s Kitchen Garden,” after Middle Earth’s Samwise Gamgee, the gardener of Hobbiton. His love of growing things & his hopeful tender care of the gardens symbolizes God’s creative intention for us humans, created in His image.
Our fig tree bursts with 100s of sweet, ripe figs every August. It is a continual reminder that God prunes us, nourishes us, & empowers us to bring forth much fruit for the kingdom!
So you see, this is not just a roof over our heads, it is the geographical heart of our family & ministry. Please prayerfully consider praying for us, encouraging us, &/or gifting us either through Go Fund Me or directly (gretchen.passantino@answersinaction.org). And remember, through June 30 only an anonymous & generous benefactor has promised to match every gift of any size, dollar for dollar, up to $10,000. Anything you give will be doubled!
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