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Church surprises pizza delivery woman struggling to make ends meet with shocking tip

Pastor Wilfredo De Jesús encourages church members to honor delivery woman Monique Hall with a generous tip. (Photo: Facebook)
Pastor Wilfredo De Jesús encourages church members to honor delivery woman Monique Hall with a generous tip. (Photo: Facebook)

A pastor at a local church in Chicago is encouraging its members to embrace the process of honoring others — and they’re off to a good start with a deserving pizza delivery person.

After being called to deliver pies to New Life Covenant Church, Monique Hall arrived to a full service where Pastor Wilfredo De Jesús was standing on stage. Hall went up to give him the pizza and was given a $100 tip. But little did she know, that wasn’t all she’d be receiving.

Pastor Wilfredo continued to ask just ten other churchgoers to stand up and contribute to the tip. A few moments later, a flood of members were handing Hall generous sums of money.

“I was nervous,” Hall told WGN. “I did not understand why so many people had stood up for a pizza delivery person. I definitely wasn’t expecting it, but I knew that I had been struggling for a long time.”

Hall shared her story on air with WGN, where she explained that she is a single parent to two children, whose father is not present in their lives.

The pizza delivery woman shared her story on WGN, alongside Paster Wilfredo. (Photo: WGN)
The pizza delivery woman shared her story on WGN, alongside Paster Wilfredo. (Photo: WGN)

“It takes a real damper on you, especially trying to make ends meet,” she continued. “So when they did that, I was overwhelmed and I was shocked. I felt so loved by them — all I could do was cry.”

The emotion and gratitude expressed by Hall is exactly what Pastor Wilfredo intended, as he told WGN that the idea of honor has been lost.

“We at New Life Covenant realized that this element of honor has been missing in our culture,” he said, “and a lot of the problems that we’re facing in our culture, if you really get to the root of it, is because of this lack of honor.”

In turn, the pastor has been incorporating honor of other people and both small and large accomplishments into church services. From an 8th grader who had perfect attendance, to a local high school basketball coach, the members of New Life Covenant are realizing that “honoring is contagious.”

“All I asked for was ten people,” Pastor Wilfredo said. “And you saw the response.”

The pastor’s message certainly seems to be working, as Hall then split up the tip she received to share it with others at her workplace.

“I felt like some of my coworkers were just the same as me, in the same place,” Hall said. “So it was only right that I give to them, since I was given to.”

The video of Hall receiving the tip, which was posted to Facebook, has gone viral with nearly 6 million views.

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