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An Investment of the Heart Dog collars, and more dog collars. Some days Bill Pantin didn't think he could stand the sight of one more dog collar. On days like today he felt as though life had collared him! For three years he'd spent every working day in this factory making dog collars. He had worked his way up all the way to rivet-man. Three long years...and his greatest achievement was putting the right number of rivets in a dog collar! Big deal. Bill shook his head and stamped another rivet. Something was stirring inside of him. Something in him wanted out. He wanted more out of life. He knew he wasn't particularly bright. He'd figured that out for himself back in high school and during his first venture into college. Those experiences proved what his dad had told him all along, "You'll never do anything in life." Still, he had worked his way up to rivet-man. Thud. Another rivet slammed into place. And another. Rhythmically, hypnotically, Bill moved the collars through. He thought about the family who had recently befriended him. They knew about struggling through life too, yet they had given Bill something he'd never known - affirmation. He especially received love from the mother, a born-again woman who knew what wonders Jesus could do with a life like his. She talked to him about college. You can do it! Her words tantalized him. Make something of your life! Could he? On a sunny day in late 1979, as he stamped out his final few rivets, Bill dared to answer that question. Walking away from the assembly line, he looked his foreman in the eye and said two words that would change the entire course of his life. "I quit." "I grew up behind an eight ball," Bill says. "I was raised in a middle-class family in a not-so-nice part of Long Island. I had a real attitude. I didn't know much, but I did know I didn't want to rivet dog collars for the rest of my life." With the tedium of his job behind him, Bill wasted no time. He immediately arranged for a student loan and enrolled in a state university. Driven by the fear of failure, he pushed himself by taking 21 hours per semester. Although Bill had accepted his born-again friend's advice to go to college...he hadn't accepted her Jesus. So at school, he found himself very much alone. "I didn't know the Lord," Bill explains. "I'd been raised Catholic, but I had never returned to church after my confirmation at age 12. During those first months at college, a Christian lived across the hall from me. I read his tracts and attended a church service once or twice. It just didn't take." But a seed was planted. By December 1980, Bill was physically and emotionally exhausted. Not knowing where to turn, he prayed. "I said, 'Lord, I need some help.' Suddenly, total love washed over me. I lost the sense of where I was. I didn't know who I was.
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