I’m sitting here trying to decide if I should risk this. I’m trying to decide if it is wise to tell you about my father-in-law, Ray Chapman. Since it is his birthday this weekend, and since he has always been a rather forgiving soul, I’ll go ahead.
Ray grew up in north central Indiana. After working at Studebaker he went into the grocery business with his best friend. They had a two-aisle grocery store (with a wood floor?) in a St. Joseph County town of 2,500. Over the years they worked hard, provided great service, and ended up with four stores. He and my mother-in-law (an RN), Marian, raised three girls.
None of the business stuff is important for you to know. What you need to know is that Ray has always been a giver. I’ve never seen him more happy than when he could help out someone else. Life was never just about him and his business and his family, but he always saw a larger picture.
He volunteered on the fire department. He worked with others to bring new businesses to the local industrial park. He helped his local UMC buy land and build a new church. He helped the local high school band buy uniforms, and when some young guys didn’t have a champion he gave them a break and offered them a job. He taught them how to work, how to be men, how to be fathers, and when one betrayed him Ray gave him a second chance.
When the local lake was being overwhelmed by phosphates he worked with others to get a grant to help clean things up. In retirement he and Marian helped start a new UMC that met in a BBQ restaurant in Ft Myers. He gave money so that church could buy land and build a sanctuary. Marian would lead Bible studies and work camps while Ray wrote checks and worked in the kitchen for the spaghetti suppers that raised money for missions. She taught Sunday School, but he would slip out, after worship, and go to the drugstore where he would read the Chicago Tribune and have coffee. (He never was much for talking about faith…he has been more of a doer). When Habit for Humanity would do work in a nearby neighborhood, Ray would be there delivering meals to the workers. Some mornings his UM pastor would need to talk and he would stop by the store. Ray was always there to listen. To encourage.
Ray isn’t a poet. He isn’t a smooth talker. But I’ve seen checkbook poetry in the way he has given his money away.
I used to razz Ray about paying me .50 cents an hour in high school as one of the stock boys. I stopped bringing that up after he heard my comment and said, “You were overpaid.”
Long ago, when I was in high school, I would show up at the Chapman’s and they always had cold pop stacked up in their downstairs fridge. A month ago he watched me pull a can of “pop” out of the refrigerator at his Koontz Lake home home and he smiled. “You’re still eating my pizza and drinking my pop,” he said.
He is a giver. What he and Marian have done with their checkbook is poetry. It is a great story, and I believe Jesus is smiling.
What story are you telling with your life and money?
Telling the Story,
Mark
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