Military Couple Fights Debt

US Marine Arial has served his country for seven years. His wife Christiana is thrilled he enlisted after they got married.

“I don't regret him joining. It helped our family a lot. It benefitted us. So, I think he made a good decision,” Christiana said.

Arial was away training when Christiana was expecting their first child. They didn’t have money for Arial to fly home for the birth.

“Okay, I'm gonna figure something out." Arial said. "I was brand new in the military. I was talking to several other marines, they say, 'Hey, they have this opportunity where you – they pay for your flight, and you just pay them later.'"

Arial made it home for the birth but the couple couldn’t pay back the loan right away. Soon, the growing interest exceeded their minimum payment.

“And I told them, 'I will pay you back eventually, but for now my family comes first, and that's priority,'" Arial recalled. "They pretty much just said, 'Well, it's gonna continue to build up.'”

Adding to their financial strain was the purchase of a used vehicle that they discovered had multiple mechanical problems.

“There’s been times where we had to sacrifice other bills to pay for the car, whatever repair it needed," Arial said.

“This car, oh, my goodness. It's literally our biggest headache," Christiana said.

To deal with the stress they rely on their faith and turn to prayer.

“I ask God to help us through it. I know God will not give us what we can not handle,” Christiana said.

Newsong Church and CBN’s Helping the Home Front partnered together to help this family. Pastor Wes shared the news that CBN was paying off the loan they took out to fly Arial home for their daughter’s birth.

Pastor Wes asked, “What do you think of that?”

“Perfect," they replied. "Thank God. We really appreciate that.”

“That is going to take stress out of your like, right?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

Pastor Wes continued, “Because you said the car is really the biggest stress in your life, Helping the Home Front wants to take care of that. We are going to get you working with our friends at North County Ford. We are going to find a way to get you into a reliable vehicle. We've seen the struggle, I have seen your faith. We get to be a conduit through Helping the Home Front.”

North County Ford was ready to help. When they determined the vehicle wasn’t worth fixing, CBN paid off the car which enabled the couple to purchase a reliable vehicle.

“To have CBN just bless us with this great opportunity. I’m just, I'm speechless,” Christiana said.

“It just brings me excitement on how happy I am that we did keep the faith. This is helping dramatically, and I really appreciate it,” Arial concluded.