St Matt’s is Outrageously Generous

From Father Rob Merola:

This story is the gospel at work.

There is a family with four young children. The two youngest children, both under seven years old, have autism. The younger of these two is also nonverbal, and another child struggles with an eating problem caused by food allergies. A friend knows that they have fallen on hard times, and she starts to think of who might help. The name that comes to mind?  “St. Matthew’s.”

Nothing pleases me more than being known as the church that will help—the very first place people think of when they think of helping someone in need. That’s been our vision from the very start: to become a community wherein people’s hearts are so changed by knowing God’s love that we share love whenever and wherever and however we can. To be a community that is relentlessly and outrageously generous.

The friend called St. Matthew’s, and without hesitation St. Matthew’s jumped right in. We helped with food and gave them a Thanksgiving meal. One of our small groups “adopted” them and bought the kids Christmas toys. “Is there something special we could do for the parents?” we asked. “No,” they said, “you’ve done so much already.” We pushed a little harder. “Maybe a gift card to our local pharmacy to help us with our children’s meds?” The pharmacy did not take gift cards, but they did allow our Office Manager to set up a cash account in the family’s name, and we promptly began to fund that as well.  Just yesterday  (Thursday, Dec 18th) we paid $500 into that fund–one month’s prescription expenses.