Mark Chatman was born Christopher Johnson Powell on July 24 1990. He was born into an unstable home in the Pontiac area, headed by a mother who struggled with drug addictions for several years. He was the first born of his biological mother, with younger siblings to follow in time.
When Mark was seven years old, his mother’s negligence had become so egregious that the state stepped in to remove Mark and his siblings from the home. As mentioned in the preceding article, when a child is brought into the foster care system, the ultimate goal of the state is to get biological parents to the point where they can adequately care for their children. Unfortunately, this was not the case for Mark’s mother. For three years, she went through extended periods of rehabilitation and stability, only to relapse or fail to procure permanent work and housing: necessities to reclaiming her children. During this time, the foster care system tried to to keep Mark and his younger siblings together.
Mark would see the inside of numerous foster homes while he awaited a mother who would never come back for him. He had a difficult time transitioning to new families, which led to behavioral issues. At almost nine years old, he went to the Ennis Center for Children, and Deloris Barnes of Flint became a foster mother to him. Enter Martha Chatman, a good friend of Deloris. Martha had already raised her biological children. She visited her friend Deloris often, which is how she met Mark, and after spending time with him at Deloris’ house, she decided to adopt him through the Ennis Center. Mark recalls the funny story that Martha Chatman told him to explain why she adopted him. “The story goes that every time my mom (Martha) came over to see Deloris, I was in the corner because I was on punishment, so she says that she always saw my back. She told me that she adopted me in order to see my face.”
Up to this time, Mark was still known to everyone as Christopher Johnson Powell. He explained that when a child is adopted, they have the option to change their name. Martha Chatman is a devout Christian, and one day while reading the Bible, Mark thought it best to change his name to something he considered less cumbersome to say and write. “I thought Christopher Johnson Powell was too long, at least too long to write as a kid, so one day I was looking in the Bible and I saw the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I thought, Mark sounds like a good name, so I went with that.” Thus Mark Chatman was born, which was a shock to his friends at Gundry Elementary, since he had ended the previous school year as Christopher and returned the following year as Mark. He remembers how Mrs. DeLoach, an educator at Gundry at the time, helped him and other students adjust to the name change.
Mark attended Flint Northwestern High School and in his senior year he underwent training through Job Corps of Flint where he later graduated. He now works as an educator with the Flint Cultural Center, which he says he finds rewarding since it allows him to support youth who sometimes come from homes as unstable as his first one. Thanks to the influence of his mom, Martha, Mark is also very involved with ministry. He has assisted the Revive Flint church outreach program, and has also ministered in several other states. He believes that God will place him in “Marketplace Ministry,” and he is always observing and musing on new business ideas and inventions. A faithful young man, he continues to have hope, although he has seen the worst. Mark says that if he could say anything to a young Christopher Johnson Powell, it would be “Seek God, and if you pray, wait for a response. Prayer is a two-way street. When praying, you need to also listen, because God always has something to say.”
