Offering a Transgenerational Blessing

“It all starts back when my parents bought their house—a small home with a five-year mortgage where they lived for the rest of their lives.” As Garrett Seminary trustee Dan Van Haften reflects on the $1 million gift he made to Garrett to reduce the seminary’s outstanding debts, his mind is drawn to values instilled by his family—the love they offered him and his sister, the wisdom they modeled by living within one’s means, and the conviction that we’re called to invest in something larger than ourselves.

“Midland, Michigan was a community where people often tried to impress each other, but my parents weren’t into that,” Van Haften remembers. “While other folks were paying off big houses, we were taking wonderful driving vacations to the Grand Canyon and other destinations from coast to coast. We weren’t traveling fancy, but by the time I graduated from high school I had been in 35 states and learned what it means to be responsible with money.”

Van Haften’s father was an engineer for the Dow Chemical Company, and his mother taught special needs children. “When my parents came to Midland they had fifty dollars in their pocket,” he recalls with an affectionate smile. “But they were frugal and bought a lot of Dow stock through the employee purchase plan.” After his father died in 2003 and his mother passed in 2007, they left that stock to Van Haften and his sister, a nest egg to help sustain them. The market had other plans: Within a few years, Dow stock prices quadrupled, and Van Haften found himself blessed with an abundance he did not expect. While some folks would have taken lavish vacations, the sudden change in fortune prompted Van Haften to think about what it means to honor the people and communities who shaped him. “It was really my parent’s money, so I decided to establish the Van Haften Endowed Professorship in Deductive Literacy at Michigan State University in their memory,” he explains. While his alma mater had already bestowed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics, this experience taught him something else. “It’s more fun to give when you’re alive than when you’re dead,” he notes with a chuckle.

As a career engineer and manager at Bell Laboratories and its successors, a professorship for deductive reasoning spoke to Van Haften’s life’s work and a connection to his father, who likewise graduated from Michigan State. But he also wanted to make a gift to honor the Methodist faith that guided his parents’ lives, one steeped in their deepest principles. He first became aware of Garrett when his beloved childhood pastor, Dr. Orville H. McKay, left First United Methodist Church in Midland, Michigan, to become Garrett’s president in 1965. “I said, ‘What is this Garrett place? I don’t like that they took my pastor away!” Van Haften says with a laugh. But over the years, he grew to appreciate how the seminary invests in parish leadership and participate more deeply in Garrett’s mission.

“With my gift to Michigan State University I wanted to increase the prevalence of logical thinking. But with my gift to Garrett, I wanted to improve theological training, helping students grow closer to God and lead in a Christ-like manner,” Van Haften says. “They’re different callings, but they’re interrelated—and both reflect the values I inherited.”

When it came to discerning what he wanted to fund at the seminary, however, Van Haften made an unorthodox choice. “If you endow a new program, you’re also creating a new, long-term budget line item. By giving to reduce Garrett’s debt, I’m not picking out any one program, I’m supporting all the seminary’s existing ministries,” he says with a smile. “They told me, ‘What do you mean? No one gives to debt reduction—there’s nothing to name.’ I told them, ‘I’m funding the seminary, because I appreciate the challenges that pastors face and want to help them in that work.’”

It’s also a way to promote deeper values that Van Haften wishes would shape our cultural relationship to money. “Some people are in debt because circumstances have been hard—perhaps they have medical issues or have suffered other setbacks; I’m sensitive to that,” he explains. “But there are also governments, businesses, and individuals who choose to spend beyond their means—and that’s where I think God is calling us to be mindful and responsible as we steward our resources.” By donating to significantly reduce Garrett’s outstanding debts, he hopes to inspire other folks to give deeply from themselves, knowing that the seminary is an institution which carefully considers how we build a sustainable future. “Their passion may not be debt reduction,” he concedes. “But none of us get where we are by ourselves. I want people to think about how we can give out of gratitude for all that has been important to us.” And while not everyone has the good fortune to be able to make a million-dollar gift, he believes what’s more important than the size of the gift is the intention with which it is given.

In his gift, Van Haften sees his parents’ hands extending from the past, continuing to shape the world through his own. “My parents were such good parents, and our small home was a cocoon of love,” he says with reverence. “Then you go out into the world and realize all the painful things that surround us—people aren’t always fair, they’re not always logical or kind. But my parents instilled in me Christian values and the importance of being in relationship with people who share them. They invested in me, and now I can invest in others.” When asked what his parents would say to him—if they could see the abundant fruits their faithful seeds have yielded—Van Haften’s hazel eyes grow a little misty. “I think they’d be proud,” he says. “They’re the ones who taught me: If you are blessed you should figure out ways to bless others.”