YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Maria and Tim Wesley

By Jenny Monahan

Tim and Maria Wesley aren’t really “half-way” kind of people. When they’re in, they’re all in.

To wit: the couple met in August of 1989. They were married that December.

The same recipe that worked in making a marriage that has lasted more than 30 years—i.e., figure out who or what you love and then give everything you have—is one they’ve applied to the rest of their lives as well.

Professionally, that approach served them well. Maria graduated from Penn State University and taught fifth through eighth grade math and science in Catholic schools in Pittsburgh. During that time, she met and married Tim. When the couple’s first daughter arrived, Maria chose to stay home and raise kids.

“I was fortunate that I was able to stay home, especially because for a good stretch of time, Tim traveled a lot, so it made everyone’s life easier,” explained Maria. Easier didn’t always mean easy, though. Parenting three daughters meant lots of activity, lots of carpooling, lots of feeding people.

“It didn’t always feel rewarding in the moment. Sometimes I just felt like I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” Maria said.  “Looking back, I sometimes wish I would’ve enjoyed the chaos more.”

Maria cared for her aging parents during those years, and that’s also around the time she first got involved at Dutilh Church. More on that later.

Tim, meanwhile, was on his own professional journey. A journalism major at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Tim graduated in 1983 and spent five years as a news and sportswriter. In 1988 he moved into public relations at Westinghouse Credit, and then in 1992 to PR and investor relations at Michael Baker International. In 1995, Tim joined Wabtec, where he worked in corporate communications and investor relations until retiring in 2019.

“I worked with great teams of people for most of my career,” Tim said. “I was able to travel to New York, Chicago, Boston; walk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange; interact with CEOs; and see the inner workings of corporations. I was interested in the stock market from a young age, and I was doing what I loved to do – writing and public speaking.”

In the mid-90s, as they were busy raising a family of three daughters and building a career, the Wesleys also found a home at Dutilh Church. Neither of them expected to be there.

Maria, raised Catholic, attended Catholic schools and eventually taught in them. She left when the diocese refused to let her continue teaching because she and Tim—who was raised Protestant and divorced—were married in a Presbyterian church.

Neighbors Bob and Terry Pearce first introduced the Wesleys to Dutilh Church. The couples’ oldest daughters were friends, and the girls attended Dutilh’s VBS together. The next year, Terry invited Maria to volunteer at VBS and she accepted.

“My experience before then was that church was dark and gloomy and much more ritualistic,” Maria said. “Dutilh was very welcoming. It was like a breath of fresh air.”

Tim, for his part, didn’t really see himself as a “church” kind of person.

“I knew I had way too much baggage to fit in,” Tim explained, “but the more I attended, the more I found everyone has their own baggage—it was OK not to be perfect.”

Both Tim and Maria credit Rev. Don Scandrol, then Dutilh’s pastor, for helping to create that ethos of welcome, and Pastor Don along with the larger Dutilh family for helping them grow in their faith.

“Bob Pearce invited me to be part of the men’s group,” Tim said. “Bob, Jay Myers, Tom Bishop, Don Scandrol, and Ralph Duckworth were my first encounter with anything like that, and they were a great influence on me.”

Tim met weekly on Monday mornings with a men’s small group. “It was my first experience of really reading the Bible and trying to understand,” Tim said. “Sometimes we read the Bible and sometimes we just talked about problems we were having.” True to form, Tim invested wholeheartedly in that small group; the experience was transformational.

“Eventually I started a Bible study at work, and I led the men’s group here at Dutilh for about ten years.” In addition to—and often through—the men’s group, Tim got involved with The Nyadire Connection (TNC), led men’s Sunday school, helped start Dutilh’s annual father-daughter dance, brought groups to Promise Keepers gatherings, and got involved with racial and social justice issues.

Maria, likewise, was all in.

“Don Scandrol was instrumental in our spiritual growth,” Maria explained. “Although I grew up going to church, I didn’t feel like it was personal until I started listening to Don’s sermons and attending adult Sunday school classes. That’s where my spiritual life began.”

In addition to volunteering at VBS and participating in adult Sunday school, Maria taught children’s Sunday school lessons and children’s classes on Wednesday evenings. She was part of a small mission team that included Sherry Digruttolo and also credits her with setting a strong example of service. From that team’s brainstorming effort grew many of Dutilh’s mission, ministry, and outreach efforts—Manchester School Reading Team, Center for Hope outreach in Ambridge, and Pumpkins for People—many of which Maria has led or volunteered for. She was also a board member for the United Methodist Church Union and volunteered with the youth group. She continues to assist with Dutilh’s flea market and kitchen ministry and has attended the Thursday morning Bible study for about a decade.

Most recently, Maria and Tim have led a small group at Dutilh focused on racial justice. Both are passionate about racial justice, and their commitment is personal.

“Our oldest daughter’s husband is African-American,” Tim explained. Their grandson, Mason, will be seven in July and is biracial.

“The idea that people would look at or treat him differently is horrific,” Maria said. “It’s ironic because he and his dad are the gentlest souls. We have an obligation to Mason and all little boys who look like him. Learning more about our country’s culture and history has been eye-opening and heartbreaking.”

“That’s our mission, moving forward, to learn, to help in some small way to increase understanding,” said Tim. “It’s clear from everything we read in Scripture, we’re supposed to help those who are marginalized.”

Tim and Maria’s “all in” approach extends to their financial resources as well, and they cite the mentors and examples they’ve encountered at Dutilh for teaching that lesson.

“We are blessed so far beyond what we deserve,” Tim said. “Don Scandrol used to say that people are ‘blessed to be a blessing,’ meaning that God doesn’t love one of us more than any other, and we are supposed to bless others with what we’ve been given. That concept was totally foreign to me the first time I heard it.”

Maria agreed, “We give in the ways that we’re blessed. I’ve been able to give my time, because I had time to give. You use the resources you have. But I didn’t come to Dutilh knowing that; I credit our pastors and the people here at Dutilh with teaching us that.”

Though financial giving is often an uncomfortable topic, Tim said faith is a big influence on how he and Maria choose to support the church financially.

“Ralph Duckworth and I led a seminar maybe 20 years ago called Good Sense, which was a study on how to live out Christian principles through financial choices,” Tim said. “Maria and I had to believe that and live it ourselves for me to be able to teach it.”

He continued, “I’m a planner and a list maker. One of our family goals was to live our lives in a spiritually sound, Biblical way, including finances. With all of our blessings, we have an obligation to respond.”

To hear Maria and Tim tell it, they are only giving back what they’ve been given.

“Through all of our learning and experiences at Dutilh, we’ve learned,” Tim explained. “Volunteering was not in my DNA. Going to Zimbabwe on a mission trip was not me. But we learned from all the examples of others.”

“I didn’t grow up doing volunteer work,” Maria said. “But when I had a baby or when Tim was sick, people were there for us. They prayed for us. They brought dinners. They offered to watch our kids. And I thought, I need to do that. My neighbor, Terry [the woman who first invited Maria to Dutilh], was a very faithful person and member of the church and a wonderful Christian witness.”

For anyone who might be hesitant to volunteer or get involved at church, Maria has two words: “Call me.” She means it. Her advice? “Start small. It’ll grow on you, and lead to bigger and better things.”

Both Maria and Tim encouraged people to opt in where they might already have an interest.

“When my kids were younger, I loved helping out with VBS,” Maria explained. “Now I like helping out in the kitchen – different seasons of life, different interests.”

Tim has lately been using his writing talents to craft “Your Story Matters Here” profiles. “If you volunteer once, the church will ask again,” Tim laughed, “but you can always say no.”

As much as the Wesleys have helped to shape Dutilh Church, they believe that the church has formed them.

“People step up to help, and they take care of each other,” Maria explained. “You learn how to take care of people. The church showed me how to do that.”

Tim agreed, “The church equips you to help, tells you why it’s important to help, and gives you innumerable opportunities to put your faith into action.”

Ultimately, that’s what Tim and Maria do. They put their faith into action. All in.

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If you or someone you know in the Dutilh family has an interesting story or profession, send us your ideas! We would love to help tell the story. Email: communications@dutilhumc.org.