“Natasha Boyer, a single mom, woke up on Oct. 4 to an eviction notice taped to her door. She’d missed a week of work while hospitalized with pneumonia, and with that a week of pay. One lost paycheck meant she couldn’t afford her month’s rent.
The 21-year-old, an assistant manager at a local Domino’s, went to work under a cloud of uncertainty. Her almost three-year-old son spent most of his time two hours away with her grandparents. Would she need to move there and be forced to find another job?
Then Sycamore Creek Church in Pickerington, Ohio called to order a large pepperoni pizza.
Boyer’s friend and the shop’s normal pizza driver, Paula, didn’t want to make the delivery. They’d been forewarned that whoever came would hand off the pizza in front of the congregation as part of some kind of presentation. Boyer offered to go instead.
When she arrived, pizza sleeve in hand, the church pastor, Steve Markle, asked her to come on stage in front of hundreds of congregants. He asked for the price of the pizza. “$5.99,” she said. He asked what was the biggest tip she’d ever received. “$10,” she said.
“We’ve been teaching our church this last month about being generous, and so we did something special for you today,” he said. “We took up a special offering for a tip for you.”
Then he handed her a large wad of cash, totaling $1,046. She immediately fell into his arms and began sobbing. The whole exchange was caught on video.
“I was trying to come up with a way to get almost $1,000 to try and figure out how to keep my home so I didn’t lose my job,” Boyer told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “My prayers were literally answered in a matter of hours.”
Markle told NBC 4 in Columbus, Ohio that he hoped the church’s random act of kindness inspires others. It meant so much, he said, that she had a “true need” for the money.
When she got back to Domino’s, she showed the money to Paula, who didn’t express any regret that she didn’t take the delivery. Instead, Boyer said, her friend said, “You can stay now, can’t you?”
Boyer used her miracle money to pay her rent and put a little toward next month’s payment.
“It definitely opened my eyes up that there are still good people in the world,” she said. “I’ve been bitter about humanity in general … maybe I need to start going to church. Maybe this is something, God was trying to open my eyes.” ~Washington Post