Winning $80K Lottery Ticket Donated To Burglarized Georgia Church (VIDEO)

Three weeks after a Georgia church was burglarized, an anonymous donor stepped in to help with a winning $80,000 lottery ticket the Associated Press reports.

The Cathedral of Prayer in Columbus, Georgia had been without air conditioning for nearly a month after an intruder stripped the wires. The house of worship can now afford to repair the damage since an unnamed benefactor dropped off a winning lottery ticket in the collection plate.

“God said ‘a blessing is a blessing’,” Alonzo Riggins, the church’s security director told the newswire. “No one at the church plays the lottery, so it had to be from someone from the outside.”

The church said it has gotten lottery tickets before, but this is the biggest single donation it’s ever received.

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Comments

[Gay Iberian]

02:36 PM on 09/09/2011

Why don't they send the money to Somalia and Kenya to feed the starving children????????

[Fonsini]

02:16 PM on 09/07/2011

So someone breaks into a church and steals the wiring - that's the fault of man committing a sin.

But when another man contributes $80k to make things right - that's the benevolent nature of God at work.

Seriously, how do you get to be that delusional?

[Mrsbean54]

07:14 AM on 09/07/2011

Normally, I would think it was a little silly to assume the ticket didn't come from the congregation because "noone plays the lottery", but in this case it's pefectly possible since the church had been publicized after the burglary. People get so hostile about religion and gambling and sinning and righteousness! None of that was clear in the story...relax! As for the suggestion that it could have been from the burglar, though, I think I have a better chance of winning the lottery than that being true. Most people who steal do it routinely, and with no sense of hesitation or remorse. That burglar is probably out stealing someone else's AC right now. It's good to hear about anonymous good deeds. There are good people out there, but they're always the quiet ones.

[Dunkleberger Karl]

11:48 PM on 09/05/2011

If You have a lottery ticket , that you cant cash cause you are a criminL on the run, you break into a church you attended and saw had a good collection plate! "God would understand , the church should forgive!"80G is a good reason!

[thegodlessgeneration]

11:34 PM on 09/05/2011

I don't think it's fair to say that "nobody" in the church plays the lottery; people might play the lottery but just not broadcast it to the rest of the church. This donation could have come from the inside.

But what if this donation was from the burglar? What if he/she had a change of heart and decided to donate the winning $80k ticket because he/she felt sorry for burglarizing the church? I don't think that should be so impossible to believe. If it is, what does that say about our capacity to believe that people can really change?

[llstudent]

05:03 PM on 09/05/2011

The power of intention.

[llstudent]

05:02 PM on 09/05/2011

Really no one at the church gambles well then don't accept the donation it is money from a sinner.

[Divine thought]

04:23 PM on 09/05/2011

That is a wonderful gift! I have a question: How does he know that nobody in the church plays the lotto? If they do what is he going to say? They shouldn't. Would he judge them? His comment is telling. So what if they play the lotto. It's for God to judge. He really wants that ticket to be from an outside source. But c'mon man!!

[unique]

03:06 PM on 09/05/2011

What a wonderful donation.
Christmas in August.

[Anonisan]

08:35 AM on 09/05/2011

Some really really sad human beings on this board .

[llstudent]

05:02 PM on 09/05/2011

Yes and there are some really sad human beings in this world also.

[intrusion]

01:39 AM on 09/05/2011

Okay they didn't try to beg it out of the congregation like some preachers do and they didn't ask anybody else for the money nor did they go to public funding for it yet someone gave their OWN lottery ticket up to help them. No matter what any body does there will always be somebody who has something to say about how it's done. Nothing anyone does will make everybody happy because some people will always have time to mind other people business. If you don't go to that church then what they do does not affect you.I'm pretty sure because it's a lottery ticket YES they will have to pay taxes on it. People cant even be people without evil, judgmental, always staying in somebody business people having something to say.This is a sad world with a bunch of sad miserable people misery sure does love misery.

[NormdePlume]

06:04 PM on 09/04/2011

Oh, I see. Now they're down with gambling because they're the beneficiary of someone ELSE scratching off the winning numbers?

I'm betting the can't see the irony of their actions (pun intended).

[Mile End]

05:03 PM on 09/04/2011

Very cool, anonymous donor, whoever you are!

[Intelligenti Pauca]

04:52 PM on 09/04/2011

"If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God." - Thomas Jefferson

[Rangers 30]

10:06 PM on 09/04/2011

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson wrote this extraordinary condolence letter upon hearing of the death of John Adams' wife, Abigail.

MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818.
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medi cine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

[johnjhenry1]

02:25 PM on 09/04/2011

Maybe the money can be used to start another crusade or an inquisition. Or for legal fees for one of their pedafile priests. Or they could spend it on condoms and date rape drugs. Just as long as none of them play the evil lottery they will be ok.