From: "Rick Evans" <renlife@gmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com. Learn more
To: "jeremiah holsclaw" <thename_thing@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: ????
Samantha, Your right. Please forgive me.

After being gone from my family on the Costa Rica mission trip for nine days I was physically and mentally exhausted. I got little sleep for those nine days and to tell you the truth my brain was tired and foggy. And to top it off my dear friend died while I was gone and that also broke my heart and affected my thinking. Richard Connellee was the guy who was camping on my lot. For what appears to be no good reason he just sat down and died right there by the fruit stand. Nobody understands what happened. But none of this excuses me of my wrong assumptions and unfair statements. The only thing I can do is deeply appogize and correct what I have said to the three individuals I responded to by email.

When I got home it was late at night and when I checked my mail I had all these emails with accusations about how we must be a terrible church not caring enough to help the hurting people among us. Each email voice the same accusation of what kind of church won't even help it's own people. One even said that your husband was a staff Pastor at Renaissance and asked me to explain how a church won't even care for it's own staff. After reading that one I got frustrated and responded. No matter how tired and foggy I was, I was wrong. I should have called you to see how we could help you and get some clarification on why someone thought your husband was a pastor at Renaissance. I have written emails to the three people I responded to correcting what I said. I am telling them that my assumptions were wrong and that I am deeply sorry for misrepresenting you and Jeremiah.

Samantha I care for you and your family. If Jeremiah is still willing, I would like to meet with him and share our spiritual journeys. I don't blame you if you decide to never attend Renaissance again. But I sure pray that you'll forgive me and give me a chance to make it right.

Below is a letter I will be sending out to the three individuals at Robinhood fund.

Hello. I am Rick Evans, the pastor at the church that Samantha attends. I owe her and her husband a huge apology. I made assumptions that were inaccurate and unfair. The truth is that only one other church in our community has helped Samantha and that was with diapers. The help we gave them was only a small amount of cash and I let her use my personal truck (a old Dodge Dakota) and trailer to move her family into a more affordable home. That was all we did for them. I want to do much more but I am just unable to. My family and I have found South Florida to be an incredibly expensive place to live and we have struggled to make ends meet for out four children since we relocated to start our church.

Also it needs to be said that Samantha has always been very kind and thoughtful. Even though she and her family have been facing very difficult times, she has always has a smile on her face and she has on only one occasion asked for help. She only asked once because she knows that we are a new congregation and don't have much left over at the end of the month. I was also wrong to say that Samantha has been in dire straights more than once. To tell you the truth our church is growing very fast and I now realized that I mistakenly mixed her situation up with a similar one that we recently were involved in. In that situation the husband sits home and does nothing all day. He makes no effort to help his family. But that is not Samantha's husband. I was wrong! To my knowledge this is the first time Samantha has been in need of financial assistance. I have been in the ministry for twenty five years and now that I know the facts I believe Samantha is a very deserving young mother. I have apologized to her for my assumptions, mix ups, and miss-statements. I now ask for your understanding and I ask you to please make corrections as to what you have written about Samantha based on what I wrongly said. I can only hope and pray that my wrong statements can be forgiven and that Samantha will not unjustly suffer for my mistakes.

Thank you for taking your time to read this email. May God bless you, Rick Evans