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By Jackie Bussert
December 2009
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| Matt Ponsolle shares comfort and Christmas cheer at a convalescent center in the district office neighborhood. | Though most of your Northern Illinois District LCMS staff working out of the main office in Hillside, Illinois, live in other communities, a special effort was made this year to take the Christmas message into the local community around the office.
Mission Advocate Matt Ponsolle put a team together that included members of his family, who live in South Elgin, along with several of the Lutheran Church Charities staff from Addison and their comfort dogs, Tilly and Billy. The group went to a neighborhood convalescent center to deliver holiday cheer as well as home crafted Christmas cards made by district staffers Patricia Contraveos of Oak Brook, Dianne Hoffmann of North Aurora, and Judy Wolf of Downers Grove. Everyone else in the district office got in on helping sign them. Each greeting included a prayer request card that could be returned to the district staff for action.
"The residents were so happy to have visitors and were really excited to be able to pet the dogs," Matt said. He told about one family visiting a relative who was unresponsive and no longer able to make sounds or facial expressions. "When the dogs came in, she smiled," Matt recalled with a smile of his own. He related how the family was overjoyed to see this happen and remarked how they had not seen their loved one smile in quite some time.
One of the convalescent home staff members promised to gather the prayer cards and deliver them back to the NID office. Members of the district staff regularly pray for congregations and individuals within the district and get prayer requests via the NID website from across the country. (You can make your prayer request here to get on the prayer list.)
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