August 13. William “Bill” Melone. Bill was a high-school teacher in a tough neighborhood in Philadelphia. He is now Pastor for Mercy and Outreach at a church plant in NE Philadelphia. Today’s story shows a time Bill needed and received mercy and how it changed him.
Wherever you find yourself, be all in.
“Hey, Andre, can I see your homework assignment?” Bill asked the tall boy stretched out at his desk.
Andre reached into a folder and grabbed a piece of paper. He crumbled it up and threw it across the room. “There, Mr. Melone.” Andre scowled defiantly.
Bill fought his own anger and breathed deeply.
But Andre straightened up in the chair. “Hey, remember those ‘therapy days’ you said we could have if we needed them? Can I take one?”
“Of course,” Bill said, surprised. “You can just lay your head down here on the desk and rest, or you can go see a counselor for the class period. Whatever you think you need.”
“Yeah, I’m just going to rest. Things are bad again at my house. And hey—I’m sorry, Mr. Melone. I’ll pick up that paper,” Andre said.
While other teachers came and went after only a year or two, Bill taught for more than eight years at one of the roughest high schools in Philadelphia. He used the challenges to intentionally develop strategies to model the gospel for his students. He learned to rely on God—not himself, for creative strategies to show Jesus to his students.
Some of them had seen a parent shot. Others lived with the threat of deportation, some had imprisoned family members, and most subsisted under a cloud of poverty.
The traumas his students endured directly influenced how they reacted to their teachers and schoolwork. He saw small, but growing transformations in himself and the kids in his classroom.
But then Bill walked through his own trauma when his twin baby boys passed away.
A few weeks after their deaths, Bill returned to his teaching schedule. He felt unfocused and on edge, and he struggled with fatigue. He knew he was experiencing what some of his students felt on a daily basis. The difference was: he had faith in God’s promises and grace to meet him in hard times.
One night, while Bill was unable to sleep, God gave him an idea. He would offer the students two days out of every month to take as “therapy days.” Students could use the time to calm themselves or to talk with someone. It was an opportunity to demonstrate God’s grace towards children who too often had experienced judgment and condemnation from himself and the world.
But implementing a creative way of showing God’s grace changed his attitude—and the students noticed and thrived. Several even opened up to him about problems they were experiencing.
Bill has received numerous emails from grateful students thanking him for how he built trust and hope into their lives—not just with therapy days, but in how he daily encouraged them.
“‘Find your own Calcutta’ is something Mother Teresa had said, and it always stuck with me,” said Bill. “I think everyone needs to find a place to serve God and sacrifice themselves. This is where God has led me to serve, and I’m all in.”
“So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me” (Colossians 1:28-29 NLT).
That challenge you’re facing—how might God turn that challenge into an opportunity to serve someone? Wherever you find yourself, be all in.
Based on an interview with Bill Melone, 2019.
Story read by: Stephen Holcomb
Introduction read by: Daniel Carpenter
Audio production: Joel Carpenter
Story written by: Krista Crumpton
Editor: Teresa Crumpton, https://authorspark.org/
Project Manager: Blake Mattocks
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