Monica grew up as an only child in Fall River, Massachusetts. Her parents divorced when she was two, and growing up, she lived in modest housing and relished the connections with her Portuguese relatives. When she was 12, her father came back into her life for several years, asking her mother to move to Florida and to try to reconcile.
It was while in Florida that Monica’s Christian faith story really unfolded in a transforming way. Thanks to a persistent invitation from a friend to go to the “Ranch,” a Christian youth gathering, Monica learned that you didn’t have to work your way to heaven. She accepted the Lord’s gift of salvation and was supported in significant ways by the youth leaders Mike and Kaye Otto. This immersion in Christian community gave Monica a new frame of reference for how people should treat one another. As an emboldened teen, she announced to her mother that she was no longer willing to live in the house where her dad was regularly verbally and emotionally abusive. She declared, “I’m leaving with or without you!” Shortly after this declaration, adults from the youth ministry moved Monica and her mom out of the house while her dad was at work.
Because of the accumulated memories of hurt and destructive behavior, Monica did not want any contact with her dad. She worked intentionally to not be connected for many years.
In contrast, the connection with the Ottos positively impacted her life and direction. She attended Florida Bible College and met her first husband Don there. They felt called to church planting and served as church planters throughout their marriage, first planting Crossings Community Church in Bucks County when they were in their 20s, then a church in Nova Scotia, and finally the Heritage Bible Fellowship Church in the Poconos in the early 90s. With each call came some challenges. The first involved her dad.
As they headed to Nova Scotia with their two young children, her husband asked her, “Do you think if we’re going to share the love of Jesus with people, you might want to forgive your dad?” Monica had held on to anger and pain for many years and this question was a powerful one—one that she didn’t really want to face. Eventually, that question led to a lunch and then, shortly before his death, a meaningful phone conversation during which Monica was able to say to her dad, “I love you.” Monica shares that this kind of transformation was only possible by God’s strength and His ministry of grace.
Another challenge involved a very difficult realization around one of their church plants. The team Don and Monica were assigned to was just not a good match for them. Rather than seeing the diversity and energy that they brought to the ministry, the others worked deliberately to squash, quiet, and squeeze them into a mold that God had not designed for them. Monica remembers asking, “What are you going to do if we’re really ourselves?” Those real selves, thankfully, were asked to come back home to Pennsylvania to re-evaluate and find a better place to serve.
Shortly after they began their ministry in the Poconos, both Monica and Don were diagnosed with serious health problems. Don’s brain tumor would ultimately take his life 11 years after the diagnosis. Monica would undergo many, many surgeries. Layered on top of the physical challenges were bouts of anxiety and depression. It took a pointed conversation between her physician and her husband (who was not comfortable with taking medicines for mental health symptoms) to get Monica a treatment plan that allowed her to function. While worry was a common companion for Monica, God has taught her to trust the truth in Matthew 6:25-33, especially “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? ... Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
God has continually tended to Monica—her anxieties, her questions, her needs. She reflects that she had always struggled to trust God about money issues and those concerns became heightened when her husband became ill, but God was faithful. With example after example of supportive co-workers and friends from other churches, and even in the timing of a new job, God showed His tending provision for her and her family.
What Monica didn’t know at the time of these trials, but was part of God’s plan for her future, was that a fellow teacher, Mark Tramontina, was walking a similar journey. His wife had been battling cancer with long hospital stays and difficult declines. Mark’s wife died 5 days after Monica’s husband. Monica and Mark would first grieve together and later fall in love. They married in 2005.
Monica and her husband, Mark.
Monica recognizes how her life experiences have enabled her to be specially attuned to others who may be asking, “How can I do this?” Monica currently finds joy and purpose in stepping in to help families with young children. She knows how difficult it is to ask for help, and she has been the recipient of unsolicited, life-sustaining gifts of assistance, so she finds herself regularly stepping in to provide relief to Riverbend families, neighbors, and to her own children and grandchildren.
She is able to remind a worried friend that while something might happen in the future, “It’s not today,” and today is what we need to focus on for now. She also reminds exhausted parents, “This isn’t forever. It’s for right now.” One group of caregivers that she has a special heart for are the parents of children with special needs. You may know Monica as the local coordinator of Riverbend’s Night to Shine Prom. Her efforts with this national event are inspired by her unique love for Levi, one of her grandchildren. Levi, who is now six, was born early, weighing 1 lb, 10 oz. at 23 weeks gestation. He has cerebral palsy. Monica describes him as “the happiest boy you’ll ever meet.”
Monica with her grandson, Levi.
For her entire life, God has planted her in specific places for specific purposes and has tended her. And all those experiences have prepared her to both plant and tend the people who are now a part of her life. It’s a role she is stepping into more fully in retirement, and it’s likely that you will be a recipient of that tending if you spend any time at Riverbend! I know I have.