Rags to True Riches
He lost it all, then clawed his way back. But financial wizard Danny Fontana soon learned that there are some things in life that money can't fix.

There was a time when Danny Fontana—stockbroker, radio personality and author of A Christian's Guide to Investing (Revell)—led a seemingly bulletproof life. His business went belly-up in the mid-1980s (his retail shoe store chain that tallied $4 million annually failed), leaving him $400,000 in debt.

But Fontana, who was not a Christian at the time, somehow clawed his way back. It took holding down three jobs and living hand-to-mouth for six years, but he repaid every cent.

But in the fall of 1999-riding high on the hog through a long, successful run with investment banking-Fontana finally came face-to-face with problems that he had no power to solve.

“In the space of six weeks, my granddaughter was born blind with a [terminal] disease,” Fontana recalls. “My wife said, 'Fix it.' But I knew I couldn't. Then my oldest stepdaughter was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. My wife said, 'Fix it.' Again, I knew I couldn't—not even if I wrote a big enough check.

“Then my wife got sick. She had been in remission from cancer of the esophagus for 10 years, but she knew there was something wrong this time.”

Doctors took a biopsy, but the ultrasound was the clincher-it was a match for cancer. So while Fontana and his wife, Mary, waited for 10 days for the biopsy results to come back, they were really preparing for her death. “She sat me down and said she wanted me to get married again,” he remembers.

On a Friday morning, Fontana headed to the radio station to do a show when he ran into fellow on-air personality Pastor David Chadwick of Forest Hill Church in Charlotte, N.C.-whom he usually never saw because their show times never coincided.

“I asked to see him,” Fontana recalls. “I hadn't been to church in 35 years, but all I knew is that he must have some kind of pipeline to God. I was desperate.” When Fontana arrived at his brokerage firm later that day, his wife called with news from the hospital.

“My legs were jelly,” he admits. “And then Mary said, 'It was a clean test. There's nothing there.' I made her say that to me five times. The reason was because every time she told me there was no cancer, something happened to me. I knew it had something to do with God. It was like being zapped by the Lord.”

Fontana immediately contacted Chadwick with the news and what he experienced in his heart. Surrendering his life to Christ, Fontana joined Chadwick for Bible studies. Mary also became a believer two weeks later.

“The Lord's changed our lives incredibly,” Fontana explains. “Our marriage is blessed. I'm now at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte pursuing a master's in theology. I was used to making a lot of money very easily, but the Lord said he had other plans for me.”

Moved completely by faith, a year ago Fontana and his wife sold everything they had-even 401Ks and IRAs-to start their own company. Triune Capital Advisors focuses on the poor and transforming inner-city neighborhoods. Through his radio ministry (the Danny Fontana Show airs on the Charis Radio Network weeknights at 8:30 p.m.) and his insurance company, Fontana wants more than anything to be a blessing to others.

“It's a joy,” he says.

By Dave Urbanski, author of The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Relevant Books). Learn more about Danny Fontana at dannyfontanashow.com.