[il-talk] oct. 13,part2

[JOSEPH MONTI]

amy had been hospitalized 35 times up to this time and she was 4 and a half.many bioopsies were performed and she was seen by many doctors at childrens and they could not find out what was wrong with her. so here we finallly had a diagnosis.
3 days later amy was moved from ICU toa regular room. and on saturday i took her home.mary was still in the hospital(18days in all). so Sunday morning i got up got my 3 kids ready to go to church and sat down to write my weekly pledge. i stopped.   i could not put down the old weekly amount. i finally wrote a check for double the amount. i felt a ittle better. when mary came home she was upset when i told her what i did. we had a pretty strict budget. but decided to try it. mary dropped out of school, stayed home to care for amy, and got a job as anurse's aide in the evenings. i got my Master's degree and surprisinglyl big raise. we never looked back.we seemed to have enough money to do what we wanted. as you know amy did die 33 years later. but we thanked God for those 3 years. she was such a special,funny kid.
stewardship involves more then money. it heralds the use of tallents, and work. my pledge grew each year and surprisingly was one of the highest in our oak park church. i have been retired for 10 years and our pledge has gone down a small amount at our medical bills went up.i know the bible is correct when it says your gift will come back many fold. amen.
joe monti