Stewarding What Belongs to God
Close Family. L to R: Matthew, Carolyn, Catherine, Joe, and Callie.
When Catherine (Bunker ’18) Machen left her home in Delavan, Wisconsin, to attend Moody Bible Institute in Spokane, Washington, her parents, Joe and Carolyn Bunker, sent her grocery money to help cover meals in the home she rented with a few other students.
Soon Catherine asked for more grocery money, which her parents sent. After she requested more money, her dad asked, “Catherine, are groceries really this expensive?”
Catherine sheepishly replied, “Dad, some of my friends can barely afford to stay here, and they really, really want to be here. Dad, they’re not eating.”
Joe, a retired Air Force and commercial airline pilot, and his wife agreed to help. “Sweetie, you keep feeding your friends,” Joe told her, “and we will pay your grocery bill.”
In April of Catherine’s freshman year, Joe and Carolyn traveled to Moody to see Catherine perform in a musical. They also met with a school leader. “Do you have students here that you really love and admire who can’t afford to be here?”
The leader said yes.
“If we gave money to Moody, can we designate it to pay for those students?”
The answer again was yes, so Joe and Carolyn made contributions to students’ tuition scholarships until Catherine’s graduation in 2018, the last graduating class from the Spokane campus. (Moody Aviation in Spokane remains open.)
A brother is born for adversity
During Catherine’s time at Moody, her brother, Matthew, a West Point graduate, was serving in the Army about five hours away in Fort Lewis McChord near Tacoma, Washington, and would look for places to mountain climb on weekends. He loved the outdoors, but every couple of months, when weather conditions did not cooperate, he would show up on Catherine’s doorstep and spend the weekend in Spokane.
“He greatly admired what [Moody students] were doing by studying God’s Word and studying to go into some sort of ministry,” Joe says.
One day Matthew called his father. “Dad, Dad, Dad, I’ve got this idea!” he said. He went on to describe one of Catherine’s friends and explained that she had come to the end of her scholarship money. Catherine’s friend had no idea how she was going to pay for her last semester at Moody.
Matthew wanted to anonymously provide tuition for Catherine’s friend, and Joe was thrilled. “I was praising the Lord that my son wanted to do this.” He reminded Matthew that paying directly for somebody’s tuition couldn’t be considered a charitable donation and tax write-off.
“I’m not worried about that, Dad,” Matthew said. “I just want to see her graduate.”
She did graduate, got married, and is working for a ministry, Joe says. But bad news soon arrived about Matthew.
Skiing accident
On June 26, 2020, Matthew, 28, was skiing down a challenging back country ski descent on Mount Rainier when he fell. He was missing for three days when his body was spotted in an unreachable glacial crevasse, where it remains today.
Matthew Bunker skiing from a summit in British Columbia.
At the memorial service, Catherine shared the story of her brother’s generosity in paying for the Moody tuition of a friend. The friend happened to be at the service and told Catherine afterwards how thoughtful it was that Matthew helped a struggling student with money.
Catherine looked at her and smiled. “That was you.”
It warmed Joe and Carolyn’s heart to see such generosity and faith in their children and gave them peace about Matthew’s passing.
“You surely don’t expect to lose a child or a sibling until much later in life,” Joe says. “But God had other plans, and for me the stewardship story has been very, very powerful and very integral in helping me continue to move forward through this.
“Matthew was never ours. We were only appointed by God to steward him,” says Joe, who taught their three kids the stewardship principles of tithing/giving, saving, and spending.
Spreading more Jesus
Joe and Carolyn continue to give to Moody Bible Institute. “My wife and I just really like what they’re doing,” says Joe, who enjoys going with his wife to Candlelight Carols every year and occasionally visiting with Moody representatives.
Meanwhile, Catherine met her husband, Ben, at Moody while he was studying at Moody Aviation. After they married, he served as a youth pastor in Alabama for three years, then worked as a flight instructor out of Atlanta. He and Catherine have two young children and are on the cusp of becoming missionaries in Africa.
“The answer to all of the problems of our culture today is more Jesus,” Joe says, “and that’s the mission of Moody. They’re trying to spread more Jesus. And they’re not sugarcoating it. It’s just the unvarnished Word of God. And that’s what we so admire about Moody.”
