The Grocer on Magnolia Street

For thirty-one years, Raymond Ochoa ran a small grocery store on Magnolia Street in San Antonio. He extended credit to families who came up short at the register, keeping a simple spiral notebook behind the counter. When customers paid him back, he thanked them. When they could not, he never mentioned it again.

In 2008, when the recession gutted the neighborhood and three other shops on his block shuttered overnight, Raymond kept his doors open. A friend asked how he stayed so calm while everything crumbled around him. Raymond said, "I don't run this store for the economy. I run it for the people El Shaddai put on this street."

He sponsored Little League teams. He hired teenagers others would not touch — kids with records, kids aging out of foster care — and taught them to stock shelves, count registers, and shake a customer's hand. When Raymond died in 2019, over eight hundred people attended his funeral. His four children, all college graduates, now run a nonprofit providing microloans to small business owners in underserved neighborhoods.

Psalm 112 says the one who fears the Lord and delights in His commandments will see their descendants become mighty in the land. Generosity and righteousness are not buried with the righteous. They compound. Raymond Ochoa never chased a legacy. He simply feared God, dealt graciously, and lent freely — and the light he kindled on Magnolia Street still has not gone out.