Don’t bury the Bentley!

March 06, 2023

Bury­ing a $200K Bent­ley in the ground. Now there’s a bizarre idea! But this is exact­ly what Brazil­ian Busi­ness Tycoon Thane Chiquin­ho Scarpa threat­ened to do in a world­wide pub­lic­i­ty blitz.

Why dig a grave for a car? Scarpa said he want­ed to make sure he had a nice ride in the afterlife! 

Truth is, Scarpa nev­er actu­al­ly intend­ed to low­er the Bent­ley into its mas­sive grave. It was all a pub­lic­i­ty stunt to illus­trate wast­ed opportunities. 

There’s an inter­est­ing back­sto­ry here about the pub­lic back­lash Scarpa received pri­or to his Bentley’s ​“funer­al.” Peo­ple com­plained the car’s val­ue could have been lever­aged and donat­ed to char­i­ty. While their angst was ulti­mate­ly mis­guid­ed, his crit­ics raise a note­wor­thy point. 

With­out a prop­er estate plan in place, we can just as eas­i­ly bury the poten­tial impact of our God-giv­en resources. 

With­out an up-to-date will, we risk our life­time of earth­ly accu­mu­la­tions – our homes, per­son­al pos­ses­sions, busi­ness­es, retire­ment assets and more – will be mis­used, cause fam­i­ly squab­bles, gen­er­ate exces­sive legal fees or estate tax­es, or sim­ply sit around col­lect­ing dust. 

Hav­ing an up-to-date will, on the oth­er hand, ensures our God-giv­en resources are put to good use, long after we’ve gone to be with the Lord. We proac­tive­ly sup­port the needs of our loved ones AND fur­ther the impact of our favorite King­dom caus­es sim­ply by plan­ning ahead. 

Through our will, we have the poten­tial to achieve greater King­dom impact and mod­el gen­eros­i­ty to the next gen­er­a­tion. The val­ue of our life­time of resources is lever­aged to accom­plish their great­est eter­nal good. 

Few peo­ple will be faced with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bury­ing a Bent­ley. But every believ­er must ask them­selves, ​“Will I bury my treasure?”

Need Help Tak­ing the Next Step?

Through Bethany Home Foundation’s part­ner­ship with Barn­abas Foun­da­tion, you have access to trust­ed plan­ning assis­tance, all from a Chris­t­ian perspective. 

At no cost to you, a Barn­abas Foun­da­tion plan­ner will dis­cuss your plans with you, help­ing ensure your will reflects your per­son­al and char­i­ta­ble goals. To learn more, call Rob Wag­n­er at 209−253−5126 or email: rwagner@​bethanyripon.​org.

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