After more than a decade of service to The Salvation Army’s Evanston office, Major Felicia Rapley and Major Alberto Rapley have announced their retirement. An event honoring their service will be held Saturday at the The Citadel in Norridge.
After more than a decade of service to The Salvation Army’s Evanston office, Major Felicia Rapley and Major Alberto Rapley have announced their retirement. An event honoring their service will be held Saturday at the The Citadel in Norridge.
The Rapleys have spent much of their lives in The Salvation Army. Alberto Rapley started with the organization as a young boy and graduated from the College for Officer Training in Jamaica in 1964 from his homeland in Panama.
Felicia Rapley attended Salvation Army Sunday schools as a child. She felt the call to officership at 15, first serving as a volunteer from her homeland of Panama. In 1976 she, too, entered the College for Officer Training in Kingston, Jamaica.
The Rapleys say their greatest accomplishment has been to see the congregation grow and develop spiritually. “We have been blessed with the opportunity of serving all of Evanston, children and adults,” the couple remarked.
Programs include summer camp, Christmas toys and food baskets provided for close to 2000 families in 2010, social services which help clients with assistance for rent, utility bills and food, as well as nursing home visits, after school programs including music lessons and a Thanksgiving celebration that is open to the entire community.
“We want to thank the Evanston community and its leadership for the support and always being there when volunteers are needed. And it is because of God and the caring/giving hearts and minds of this community that we have been able to do God’s work…we have been blessed,” stated the Rapleys.
As for retirement, the couple indicated that they are open to any new opportunity of service to the Lord. “We hope to spend time with our grandchildren, traveling and supporting the ministry of The Salvation Army, both here and in Panama,” said Mrs. Rapley. The Rapleys recently visited Israel for the first time.
The Rapleys devotion to The Salvation Army can be observed in the careers of their four children.
Their eldest daughter, Judith is a minister serving in New York, and son, Alberto Jr., is a member of the Salvation Army Band and Information Technology Director for the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Command. Daughter Johanna and her husband are Corps Officers of the Salvation Army Oakbrook Terrace Corps and their youngest, Janelle, and her husband, are Corps officers in Aurora.