Our alternative to health insurance

I only sometimes use my blog as a soap box. Today is one of those days. I'm going to delve into the highly controversial world of talking about health insurance and the American health care system! Will you still be my friend?

Some of you know that we are members of Samaritan Ministries instead of having traditional health insurance. We joined in 2010 and have only grown to love it (and the other members!) the longer we are a part.

The basic premise is that we pay a "share" every month in the form of a check that we write specifically to another member with a health care related financial need. We pay for our own health care needs as self pay, but when the need exceeds what we can manage ourselves, we have a group of 35,000+ families to share our need with. So during those months, we receive checks from folks all over sharing with us. (The ministry coordinates the sharing and sends a newsletter that tell us to whom we send our share).

Here are some of the reasons we love it:

• For most of our marriage one or both of us have been self-.employed. I'm not sure if you've ever looked at purchasing individual health insurance plans, but it's crazy. Even before we had kids and were young and relatively healthy, we were not able to find anything that was a good value for us. I also just HATE dealing with the insurance system. Can I go to this doctor? What about tests? Do I need to get that approved first? Perhaps I'm just lazy, but I don't think anyone likes the phone calls, the letters, and the WORK it takes to get and continue coverage.
• Insurance makes you not care about the actual cost of health care. I know some of you won't agree, but I think most people with insurance don't care that their foot surgery cost $18,000, they only care about the deductible or percentage they actually paid. This is a problem for everyone, as it allow providers to continue to inflate prices to insurance companies which will, of course, make every one's health care more expensive. We have found being self pay gets us huge discounts EVERY time. My $18,000 foot surgery? That was the price they would have billed insurance. We paid just over $3,000 and were able to share that need with the other members.
• I also think doctors/providers are willing to reduce their fees for an individual in a way that they wouldn't cut a deal to an insurance company. I mean, does anyone like insurance companies? I think even people I know with good insurance don't often sing the praises of their company. They seem to just view it as a necessary part of life. Anyway, back to my point about doctors reducing their fees for individuals....most of you know we paid only one small anesthesia bill for James entire back surgery. If we had insurance, that wouldn't have happened because they providers aren't willing to be charitable to an insurance company in the same way they are willing to be charitable to an individual.
• It provides us yet another way to trust God. It deepens our faith and gives us another way to see Him provide for each of our needs. There's no guarantee that the other members will send their share. We hope they will, as they hope we will send ours each month. And when we trust in God and one another, we see Him provide for all that we need. And in regards to insurance, can you really trust that they are going to cover what they say they will? My friend just a few weeks ago shared with me that her insurance company said they would provide speech therapy for her daughter, then changed their mind after the therapy had started and several hundred dollars of treatment had already been received. My mother in law received a bill 14 months AFTER a surgery she had for some charge her insurance company decided not to pay.
• I haven't read the Affordable Care Act in its entirety and am not in any way qualified to speak about it. I do know I think it would be silly for us to be have to pay a "shared responsibility payment" for not having health insurance for the US when we don't live in the US most of the time. Being a part of Samaritan Ministries gives us an exemption from having to participate in the ACA.
• It is truly a JOY to share with others. I'm guessing that most folks with insurance aren't joyous to write the check for their premium each month or to see their payroll deduction come out of their hard-earned pay check. For us, it is truly a JOY to get to write a check directly to someone else who has a medical need.
• It's a joy to receive from others. When we have a need being shared, each check we receive comes with a card, note, or letter from the sender. Sometimes other members go out of their way to be a blessing. We have received books, recipes, pictures colored by kids, bookmarks, and other thoughtful expressions from total strangers. Each one of those cards also represents people who are praying for our health and whatever need it is we are sharing in. Recently we had a medical need associated my miscarriage. In addition to the notes we received from those sharing in our need, we received cards from other members just to express their sympathy for our loss. Not only that, but when James called the office to request the form to share our need, the man who answered the phone asked if he could pray for us over the phone. I'm pretty sure that doesn't often happen when folks call their insurance company.

A collection of the notes/cards we received from James' kidney stone hospitalization

I think that ends my soap box for today. Now, that wasn't so bad, right? If you have questions, we really do love to share about Samaritan Ministries, so ask us anytime. 

laundry mistakes and how I saved them

Of course there is back story for this post. One Sunday James and I visited a church small group where a guy was sharing something he had learned from their church's recent marriage retreat. Apparently, at the retreat they had learned, "If I'm doing it, I'm doing it right." The point was that one partner can't complain about the way the other partner loads the dishwasher, does the laundry, mows the lawn, etc, as long as they are getting it done.
THE VERY NEXT DAY James did a load of laundry. With a pen. Before I could even make a joke, he said, "I guess this is one of those times doing it isn't actually doing it right." Thankfully, there were only two garments ruined: the shirt whose pocket housed the pen and a dress of Ann's that was recently given to us by a friend.

Here were my saves:

I used this tutorial for turning James' shirt into a dress for Catherine. I didn't do the waist and I made the sleeves a bit longer than the tutorial. Cutting away shirt for the dress took out some of the ink stains. For the others, I cut out the stained fabric and placed the birds with a backing over the holes. My model wasn't super cooperative :)

Since my model wasn't very cooperative, here are some closer up.

This dress below was long sleeved. The ink was all over the sleeves and a bit on the pocket. I made it short sleeved first, but I did a very dumb thing and didn't cut off all the ink, it was just folded under the new hem on the shirt. So, the next time I washed it, it got on more of the garment.(grrrrr) So, on round two, I just made it sleeveless. There was a bit of the stain still on the pocket, so I just sewed something right over it. (hearts are easier than birds) In the top picture you can still see remnants of the stain on the pocket flap. If that doesn't come out with another round of stain remover....

 I'll just tuck it in like in this picture below. A girl of not-quite two isn't using her pockets anyway. :)

computer and email woes and thoughts on being thoughtful

I've spent the past few days catching up on replying to all the emails I haven't replied to since June. This post is about some of my excuses and some thoughts I've had in the process. 

For a long time we've had computer issues. We knew it was the fan going out. It's now the third one we've replaced in just over two years. GRRRR.  The loud, obnoxious clicking made me not want to sit and write. Plus, there was the frequent overheating and shutting down. But the added issue of our two-continent life is that we have an encrypted hard drive and secure servers and yadda yadda yadda and all that takes SO LONG to sign in to. So, when it shuts down, I give up. 

Here is my handsome husband taking apart our computer and replacing the fan.

And then we only have one email inbox. James and I have VERY DIFFERENT email filing styles. My style is leave things in the inbox that need replied to. Everything else, once dealt with, gets filed in appropriately named files or deleted. James' style is leave everything in the inbox. He argues finding something you need can be searched for by date or name or whatever. He differentiates "done" stuff with "to do" stuff by leaving the "to do" stuffed marked unread. VERY DIFFERENT STYLES.

I've also had no emotional energy. Not to engage or call or write blogs or respond politely. But, it's getting better so I'm getting back in the swing of things. 

The computer is fixed now. I've cleaned out about 250 of the 2000+ emails in our inbox. We'll keep enduring our shared inbox. And I'm feeling more able to engage. 

But I've been thinking of all I've missed out on engaging in over the past few months. I'm not just  talking about replying to emails. I've also got a list of thank you notes I truly want to write. I've also missed birthdays and anniversaries and other occasions that I want people to know I remembered or that I thought of them. I want to be known as being thoughtful. But that word is weird. The thing is, when one does something like make a call, write a note, or recognize a special occasion, he/she is doing more than being thoughtful. He/she is being actionful. I'm actually quite thoughtful. Even in China, I think of my friends and family in the States and I always think about how I should get a package in the mail, or write an actual hand-written letter. I am thoughtful, but I just don't always muster up the action to put with my thoughts.

I had a goal for 2014 to write one hand-written letter a month. I think I got one, maybe two, done. I bought a card to send to my sister-in-law and intended to send so that it would arrive on the first day she got to being staying home with her twin boys. The card is still unwritten, sitting in a stack with the rest of my stationery. 

I'm not really sure what my point is with all these words. I' don't think I want us all to start using the word actionful instead of thoughtful. I think I just want to be more conscious to carve out the time each day to put action to my thoughts.

Clovis Zoo

Since we've been in Clovis, we've been trying to take in all this little city has to offer. We've also loved hosting our family who have come to visit. When my (Jill's) parents were here, we took the girls to the Hillcrest Park Zoo. For this little city, it's quite impressive. And you can't beat $10 entrance fee for five of us!

We tried to take advantage of having someone here to take a family photo. This is about as cooperative as our girls get. 

This is the face Ann has been making recently. Squinting her eyes, giggling, and tucking her head down. It's becoming her signature look.

The peacocks were roaming free! The girls were not as impressed with them as the grown-ups.

The monkeys (and other monkey-like animals) were the clear favorite.

Ann, if there's one cage you don't want to escape your stroller for, THIS IS IT!

homeowners no longer

I knew today was coming. In fact, I thought "today" would be August 29th. However, some lending issues, then some appraisal underwriting issues, then the need to re-sign all the closing documents we had pre-signed, meant the closing for the selling of our home was today. I knew it was coming. And and I knew I'd be sad. And I was. First, I'll try to console myself with all the great things the selling of our house means.

1. THE JUDDS ARE DEBT FREE! No consumer debt, no student loans, no mortgage. We're 100% in the black. (except the continuing debt to love one another...we still have that one)
2. We don't have to manage (or pay someone to manage) a property while living on another continent. 
3. Not only did our mortgage get paid, we also got a issued a check. 
4. The sale of our house was amazingly easy. The first call James made to a realtor friend to ask about the market resulted in her son-in-law (also a realtor) going to look at the house and making an offer on the house. It never technically even went on the market. We didn't have to endure weeks of showings. They didn't ask us to make any repairs. It was marvelously easy. 
5. The house is going to great buyers who will love it and love the neighborhood. And loving the neighborhood wasn't a given for a potential buyer. 
6. The house has also been a point of contention between James and me. (My undying love and affection for it, and his hating all the messes we got in with the rebuilding, the financing, and the property management). Now there's no house to contend with. We can move on down the list of things we sometimes disagree about. :)

And now, if I may: the lamenting. As I said before, I loved the house and although I mentally understand all the reasons above, I'm emotionally sad to see it out of our possession for many reasons.

1. We got to rebuild;/remodel the house from an exterior shell and subfloor to a 4 bedroom, office, 2 living room, 2 bath home.

A guy we'll call Max bought the property at a sheriff's sale and basically saved it from demolition. He had just returned from a stint in Iraq as a contractor and told us working on the house was his therapy. He gutted the house, fixed the foundation, put in new subfloors, installed downstairs HVAC, installed a fireplace, started the siding, did some electrical work, and completed one bathroom. 

We bought it in the early stages of renovation basically as the exterior shell with subfloors and one bathroom. Here are pictures of how it looked when we bought it:

upstairs living

Stairs (but we had to tear those out and build new ones)

outside front

upstairs bedrooms 

outside side view

outside back view

outside front 

The worst decision we have made thus far in our marriage: We lived in the house while remodeling it. This means things like this happened:

I am doing our dishes in the bath tub. (remember, it was the only finished room!)

Our life basically looked like this. We had a bed, a desk, a few suitcases and our hang up clothes that we moved from room to room as necessary. And we had a piano. We had to move the piano in when we bought the house so that we wouldn't have to move it twice. I mean, we have good friends, but no one has good enough friends to move a piano twice. (thanks Darin Chapin!)We were both working full time professional jobs where we had to look like normal people who weren't covered in sheet rock dust and paint. I am sad about selling the house, but not about that period of our lives being over. 

And here's me cooking in a partially complete kitchen. The room I requested to be finished first was, of course, THE LAST room to be complete. 

laying flooring in homestay bedroom #1. We finished each of those upstairs bedrooms just hours before the student who would be staying there arrived. 

Here's a link to our old real estate listing if you want to see the "after" pictures.

2. We made such great memories with our students. Finishing the house and having three extra bedrooms meant that we were able to host 17 students from 11 countries. (And Joshua. That's definitely another post). Here are some photos of some of our students:

We tried to make it a tradition to take them all to Pops. This group was our first full house. Lucy from Korea, Elana from Taiwan,  and Ebru from Turkey

And most of them got to experience country life at the Judd ranch

and "Live on the Plaza"

Turki aka Rocky. Saudi guys with no restrictions on their haircuts while in the States :)

Kim from Vietnam, Myong Shim from Korea, and Kerry from Taiwan

Yumi from Japan stayed with us even after Catherine was born. And Yumi was Catherine's favorite person. Seriously. 

3. My first child was born there. I don’t mean we lived in that house when she was born and we brought her home from the hospital. I mean we had a homebirth and she was born in that house, within those walls. With two (or three?) students home upstairs. And only one of them knew a birth was taking place downstairs! We watched the first 11 months of her growth happen in that house. We found out we were expecting #2 while living there.

First moments after her birth

Our last trip to the house in August of this year I made Catherine take this cheesy picture with me of where she was born.

4. We loved the neighborhood. Before we lived in this house we lived just a few blocks over on College, also just south of 16th. Before that, I lived on 16th and James lived in Gatewood. We lived near the Plaza well before the Plaza was cool. For a time, our church was there. Right there on 16th in the heart of the Plaza. We walked to our gatherings often. For part of the time I worked at Catholic Charities, which was also in the neighborhood.
We knew our neighbors. We knew some of the homeless in the area and some of the scammers who had a different story each week about why they needed cash only to turn on their electricity or whatever. We knew Miss Angel and her giant eye sore house and the folks who squatted there.
And especially after we met Joshua, we prayed for the neighborhood as we walked in the evening.
We had opportunities to pray with our neighbors about alcohol addiction and sick family members and financial struggles. We still hope that there will be great change in the neighborhood, but not just with walkability and lower crime rates and better schools and people pulling in their big blue trash cans...we hope for spiritual change in the hearts of the people.


5. For me, it's a loss of a dream. The chances are HIGHLY UNLIKELY that we will own a home in China. We plan to be in China a long time. The houses we will live in in China will be much smaller and most likely much less comfortable, less attractive, less functional, and just not as nice. For me this means that the dream of having a nice house to make a home for our family is gone, at least for this season and this time.
A coworker in China recently told me that if she still owned a home in the States, there would have been times she would have left China and returned home. That wasn't true for me, but it sure was comforting to know that if we needed to come home we had somewhere to come home to. However, funnily enough, both times we were home, we had renters we couldn't just kick out so we didn't stay in our house either time. But it was there. On the days that I hated the flooring lack of flooring in our house in China or got frustrated with yet another poor quality something was having to be repaired again or when a newcomer arrived and got to live in a place much nicer than ours and I was envious, I could comfort myself with the fact that I had a nice home in America.
It was also nice to trust in the rental income we received each month. The problem with both of these scenarios is that I'm placing my trust in the wrong place. If we need to come home, God will provide somewhere to stay. And He has always provided for all our needs. Sometimes through rental income and sometimes through His people when there was no rental income. With or without an investment property or a beautiful pile of wood to call home, He provides. He does. Always.

But, I'm still sad to part with it.

learning to make new friends

We are living in Clovis, NM for the time we are in the States. Prior to moving here we knew one couple, James’ mentor and his wife. They are roughly the same age as our parents. We also had one friend who told us of some of his friends who live here and made introduction for us, although we haven’t gotten to officially meet yet.

We’ve met a few other people since then. Gene is a 72 year old farmer we met at a garage sale who sells fresh eggs and offered to let the girls ride a tractor around his farm.  We also met Jay, a young guy who mowed our lawn for us.

We have attended church a few times, we’ve been to countless meetings at Catherine’s soon-to-be school, we’ve gone to the story time at the library, and I’ve tried multiple times to enroll the girls in gymnastics (with the hopes of meeting other moms there).

But I still don’t have a single friend here. As James and I were talking about my loneliness the other day, I realized something. I am 34 years old and I have never had to make new friends. I have, of course, made new friends, but I’ve never been in a place where I wasn’t making new friends by expanding an already existing network of friends.

When I moved to college, my roommate was a friend from high school. There were a few other people from my high school there too, and some other friends I already knew from church events. I made new friends, but it was largely through that initial group of people I already knew or connected with very quickly.

After college I moved to China and I did make new friends, but there were already some relationships in place for me to do that. I joined a team that already existed and those folks became dear friends, but I didn’t have to go out and find those friends. I attended class and my classmates became my friends. I played on the university basketball team and they became my friends too.

Since then, my life has been lived between Oklahoma City and the same city in China. Both cities feel like home and I have large networks of friends in both places. If we return to Oklahoma we reconnect with our church, our family, James’ real estate coworkers, my Catholic Charities coworkers, my college friends, and many more. If we return to our city in China, we reconnect with our many friends there and they often give us introduction to other friends.

Again, I have made new friends along the way, but always alongside existing friends. So this time is different. There aren’t those existing networks to use, and to be honest I’m learning that I really don’t know how to make new friends.

The last time I was required to do so, (maybe like at a summer camp in junior high or high school?) if you clicked nicely with someone you exchanged address and wrote letters to each other. I don’t think letter writing is how it’s done anymore, but I’m not sure what to do.

Social media and modern technology add another realm of “I don’t know how to do this” to the mix. If I meet someone, say, in a Sunday school class and add them on facebook, am I being weird or stalky? If I meet a mom at the park and ask for her phone number is that weird? Can I just directly say, “I’m new here and I don’t have any friends. Would you like to be my friend?” Or does that sound like I need counseling more than I need a friend?

I also realize James and I are in a weird place of not having a “job” or something to do that gives us direct, “normal” everyday contact with people.  However, the man we mentioned above, Gene, did offer James a job mowing lawns with him. J I’m trying to engage in the times and places where we do connect, but no friendships have been established yet.

If you have some advice on how to make friends in a new place, I’ll take it! If you know someone in Clovis you can introduce us to, that’s even better!

And just an update…I posted a comment in a MOPS facebook group I joined and a mom invited us to have dinner with their family on Thursday! Here’s to hoping for my first friend here!

Catherine's Oklahoma party

Catherine's Oklahoma party was just a few days after her birthday. Here are just a few thoughts and observations about Catherine as a three year old now that we've had a month of being three.

• She is a really good big sister. Of course, she gets mad when Ann plays with her stuff, but in general, she is kind and loving toward Ann. She is good at sharing and often chooses something for Ann when we're out. I love to hear her say, "Here you go, Ah" (her way of saying "Ann") She seems to really like her as a playmate. They seem to play games they have invented that I can't figure out. 
• As much as we want her to speak appropriately, her mispronunciation sure is cute sometimes. Dessert sounds like AH-lert. And she has these phrases she uses like, "Don't be scared, little lamb/rabbit/baby/etc. Catherine will take care-a-you." Also, "What a gooooood song/story/etc!" Any request starts with, "I nee-yuh....." (I need a ____). And one that she hopefully won't have to say much longer, "Daddy back-er hurt." (Daddy's back is hurt)
• She is all energy, all the time. 
• I think her favorite song is "God is so Good." It's her first request every single night. Also, most nights when we sing before bed she likes to sing in a voice that sounds like the microphone setting at a Chinese wedding. (Think lots and lots of reverb)
• She still has an aversion to wearing shoes. And pants. The shoes come off every time she enters a new place. Her pants don't, but she sure doesn't like wearing them at home. 
• I asked her what her favorite food was today and she said, "pancakes." 
• She loves TV/videos/screens. I wish she didn't and we definitely limit her watching, but I feel like if we didn't she might actually sit still for an entire day if placed in front of a screen. 
• Her speech may be delayed, but her athletic ability is not. She is fast, strong, and limber. And many adults have commented that she "moves like an athlete." Bring on the scholarships!

The banner. You'll see it at every party. I'm not kidding.

Because she loved the strawberries on her other cake so much, we did strawberry shortcakes for her cake this time around.

She got a laka-bug pack pack to start school :)
And the scab under her nose was from face-planting out of a swing when we stopped at a park along the drive from NM to OK :(

party glasses from Aunt Jana

I forgot to mention in the previous post that I'm such a great mom and birthday party planner that I forgot to bring candles to her NM party. We sang, but no candles. :(   I figured she was too little to know what's supposed to happen at a birthday party anyway. Last year at her party a friend said she had never seen someone enjoy being sung happy birthday to like Catherine did. She seemed to enjoy it again this year, too. 

Cousin Jeremiah helped with the last candle. 

Catherine's New Mexico birthday party

Catherine got to celebrate her birthday in two states this year. Here are a few pictures from her party in New Mexico just days before her birthday. The day of her actual birthday she had to go to her soon-to-be preschool for a number of evaluations. I hope the two parties made up for that fact.

When we asked her about what she liked about her party, she mostly said, "Catherine opened a ball!" Aunt Mettie for the win!

She referred to this as her "laky bug sbirthday cake."

Her wing man (girl).

Dress us clothes from Uncle Lee and Aunt Traci

Again, the ball for the win.

The next three pictures I included because I wish everyone (myself included) could raise big kids who are always nice to little kids. There is actually a very nice pre-teen underneath all those toddlers.

And he played this game of hug with them for as long as they wanted.