Why Officership?

Why Officership?


Commissioner Brian Peddle 
Territorial Commander
Canada and Bermuda Territory. 

We need to develop a culture of growth in Army leadership, says the territorial commander.


November 16, 2012

Commissioner Brian Peddle, territorial commander, speaks with John McAlister, web editor, about the importance of officers, the challenges of recruitment and retention and why he remains hopeful for the future.


Why do we still need Salvation Army officers?

The Salvation Army is first and foremost a spiritual movement. We need ordained individuals who are available to be appointed to ministry units across the territory. If we can’t access a reasonable number of officers through our appointment system, then we will have all kinds of inequities as to how we serve our communities and lead the Army. When people offer themselves for ordination and become covenanted individuals, and in turn make themselves available for appointments, they become a great gift to the Army in the territory as kingdom workers.
We also carry a responsibility to support the international Salvation Army by making officers available for overseas service.

How do we ensure that we have enough officers for the future?

We need to pray and ask God to give us more. One of the evidences of God’s blessing on the Army in this territory is that we continue to welcome cadets to our College for Officer Training. This year, 16 cadets have started training as part of the Disciples of the Cross Session. These are excellent people whom God has called to ministry. In each of their stories there is a divine dimension that they have responded to with obedient faith.

The question I sometimes ask is, Why not a few more to meet our needs? In that context, we need to continue unpacking this divine partnership we have with God. We need to take our understanding of God’s prerogative to specifically lay his hand on individuals in calling them to officership and balance that with our responsibility to keep the leadership needs of the Army in front of our people. We need to recruit and directly ask people to consider serving God through the Army as a Salvation Army officer. We need every Salvationist to offer themselves as recruiters. Strategies will be helpful but engaging in a holy conversation is also appropriate and necessary.

What characteristics do you think an ideal candidate for officership should have?

Let me start by noting the need for obedient faith in God which leads to listening to his voice and following through with what he commands. You need to be delivered from being judgmental so that you can love people without condition. You need humility and the ability to express yourself well. These are some characteristics but beyond these come a set of competencies that we try to unpack in each officer’s journey. How are they doing with their personal relationship with Christ? How do they manage their servant role with people? How are they developing spiritually with disciplines? How do they relate to being a minister of the gospel? How are they progressing at being a leader of God’s people? Do they invest in others? In the lifelong journey of an officer, it is important that the Army nurtures and develops these competencies.

Why do you think it’s so hard to recruit officer candidates?

I’m not sure that it is harder than in the past. I think that many things, such as demographics, have changed significantly. In many families, there were several children, so it wasn’t unusual for one or more in a family to offer themselves to officership. I don’t think there are as many young people coming into families, or into the Army, who are available for future leadership.

When people are deciding what to do with their lives or going through a life transition and trying to figure out the next chapter, we need to encourage them to be open to the reality that God loves them and has a plan for their lives. We need to be willing to talk about this openly in the Army and in our congregations. This doesn’t have to be a conversation left for a specific weekend when we bring people together to talk about vocation. We need to refresh our initiatives as far as our willingness to have the hard conversations about how God is unfolding his plan for all of us.

There is a huge need for new officers. At present, we have 830 officers as a resource. If all of the trends continue—taking our retirements and other losses and put them alongside those new recruits who are entering training college—in another decade we will only have 630 officers. Unless things change dramatically, then the availability of officers in the territory will be limited. This should be a concern, not just for territorial leadership, but for all Salvationists. I ask for all Salvationists to do their part and pray earnestly for this critical issue of candidate recruitment. We all need to play a role as recruiters.

While some officers are retiring, others have quit or been terminated. Why are we losing officers?
The retirement numbers are an important part of honouring those who have served. We can project those down to the day. We’re trying to foster a culture in which officers who are well in body and spirit can extend their years of service. I want to honour those who engage in ministry post-retirement and stress our renewed efforts to make this continuation of covenanted service worth pursuing.

Officers are called and covenanted to serve God through The Salvation Army. In some ways, we’ve set them apart. It should be noted, however, that they face the same challenges and stresses as everyone else living in the world today. So, there are outcomes when difficulties arise with family or marriage or when there are serious issues in regard to ministry. I wish I could point to a specific cause or pattern that leads to officers quitting or being terminated so that we could respond to it, but the situations of each individual or couple are unique so it’s difficult to establish a response mechanism that could turn this around. That’s why the Bible calls us to pray for those in spiritual authority over us. I call upon Salvationists to pray for the protection and well-being of their officers and to support them where possible. The Army has a huge responsibility to nurture our officers and ensure that their spiritual lives are strong.

With our leadership needs, what are some strategies that we should be looking at?

First of all, our leadership needs exist at every level of the Army and require almost every capacity that you can imagine. In just a second appointment, an officer can receive a significant responsibility with a congregation that is modest but yet a program with 20-25 employees and perhaps a budget of $2 million. Our leadership needs will continue to challenge us and we will have to keep responding to build the capacity of the people we already have—and add to their numbers.

I look to our leadership development team for the creation of personal development plans for our officers and employees. This isn’t simply an officers’ Army, but a partnership shared between our officers, employees and volunteers.

I commend Booth University College for developing programs that are helping us with our capacity issue, such as their chaplaincy and management programs. At present, we’re exploring a program designed to enhance the corps officer role. I would like to see Booth become our corporate learning centre, so that as we face emerging leadership needs and capacity issues, then Booth—with its resources and the Army’s commitment to it—becomes one of the means by which we respond as a territory.

We need to find ways to enable more Salvationists to serve as auxiliary-captains or in another service category and bring their life experiences to the Army. We also need to recognize the value of our 10,000 employees and find opportunities to maximize our investment in them.

As the numbers of officers decrease, does this open up new opportunities for lay leadership? If so, how is the Army moving to empower its lay leaders?

Those strategies are being considered. I don’t think we have enough in place to counterbalance the reality of our leadership needs. These are priorities for the territory. We need to be more open to providing ministry opportunities for people. When we look at our employee component, we are trying to develop and invest in them.

I do have some concern for what we call our local officers. I think there’s significant responsibility for the Army to continue to ask, appoint and train local officers who are able to support existing officer models and also step into the gap in situations when an officer is not available. I am personally grateful for our local officers who take on various leadership roles in the territory, particularly at the corps level. A great deal of work needs to go into the strategies to support them and in turn help the Army to respond to any diminishment of officer numbers.

Are you hopeful for the future?
I’m more than hopeful. I don’t have any sense at all that God has taken his hand off the Army in this territory. There is too much visible evidence of his blessing upon us. As I travel the territory, it creates hope within me and I am inspired to believe for greater things. As the territorial commander, I can’t just manage what we have. I have a responsibility as a leader to create a culture of growth that challenges the status quo and says that we can be greater than what we are because God needs us to be greater. We need to grasp the opportunities that come to us both as a social service agency and a credible denomination. We need to be a clear voice in culture and society.

Poverty-stricken Indian women forced into prostitution in Middle East

Unscrupulous agents promise well-paid work abroad, but victims then sold as sex workers

First person: the woman sold to a sheikh

• Email

• Jason Burke in Delhi
• The Guardian, Thursday 7 February 2013 18.38 GMT

Impoverished women in India are increasingly falling victim to unscrupulous agents who force them into harsh domestic labour or sex work in the Middle East. Photograph: Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

The two women sit in a grimy flat in west Delhi. The sound of traffic filters through the curtained windows. It is dark and they are talking about their rescue a few hours before and how – if – they might get back to their homes almost 1,000 miles away.

Malti, 22, and Sita, 35, were promised well-paid jobs in the Middle East. Neither reached the Gulf. Instead they were stripped of their valuables, travel documents and phones and held with 18 others in one room in a rundown apartment in the Indian capital for four months. Denied any outside contact, they were freed only when police, acting on a tip-off, raided the "human warehouse" where the women were being kept.

The pair are victims of a new wave of abuse as more and more women from India are recruited by unscrupulous agents for jobs in the Middle East.

There were 3,517 incidents relating to human trafficking in India in 2011, says the country's National Crime Records Bureau, compared to 3,422 the previous year. Most involve women, often from very poor backgrounds, being seized forcibly or misled into lives of harsh domestic labour or sex work within India. But increasingly police and campaigners are uncovering illegal operations which channel women to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates.

Many work without problems, sending much-needed cash back to their families. But others fall prey to unscrupulous and often violent intermediaries. An increasing number are forced into prostitution.

Anis Begum, 27, an almost destitute mother-of-four from Hyderabad, southern India, said she had paid 10,000 rupees (£120) to an agent to go to Saudi Arabia after being promised well-paid work as a maid. Instead, she was locked in a storeroom and then sold as a sex worker at an auction for the equivalent of £300, beaten, imprisoned and abused. "I was scared I might get pregnant. If I did, I thought they might kill me," she said. She was freed by her captor's wife after months of confinement in one room at their home in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Such stories are increasingly familiar to police. The problem of human trafficking is huge, said Neeraj Kumar, Delhi's police chief. One case last year, was an eye-opener, he said. Nearly 40 women were intercepted by police at Delhi airport in an operation launched in co-operation with authorities in Mumbai and the United Arab Emirates. They were destined for brothels, investigators believe.

In another police operation last April, a trafficking ring in Bangalorewhich had sent more than 200 women to the Gulf was broken up. The gang received around £2,500 for every woman they delivered to brothels in Muscat and Dubai.

Most of the women recruited by the agents come from severely deprived backgrounds and are often illiterate. Unable to verify inflated or misleading claims, they travel willingly. In the Bangalore case, the women were told they were to be maids and then forced into sex work. Those freed in the Delhi operation were told they would be dancers. Anis Begum was told she could earn £125 a month, four times her wage as a hospital cleaner.

The two women released from the Delhi flat-cum-prison were typical of many victims. No one had forced them to leave their homes and Malti, from northern West Bengal, had already spent two years in Saudi Arabia, where she was neither abused nor denied pay, as a domestic servant. She was trying to return to the Gulf for more work when she got involved with the agent who imprisoned her.

Sita, an illiterate mother of five whose husband earns around 130 rupees a day (£1.60) as a labourer when he can find work, had little idea where she was going or what awaited her when she left her village, also in India's poverty-stricken north-east, late last summer.

"I was told I was going to earn a good salary by a woman who came to my home. I need to feed my children so I went with her. I had high hopes. She brought me to Delhi in a train but then I was locked up," Sita said.

One reason for the women's imprisonment in Delhi could have been a problem with paperwork, perhaps an official who had not been paid off. Mandha Bheem Reddy, a campaigner with the Indian Migrants' Rights Council, said corruption was endemic among border control officers.

"They often give clearance for poorly educated or even illiterate women who are particularly vulnerable. Many of these women can be stopped at the airport when questioning shows they have probably not met the requirements for emigration to the Gulf countries but they are allowed to leave," he said.

Anis Begum said her travel documents had been falsified to get round Indian laws designed to restrict abuse. "[The agent] told me to tell the emigration desk at Hyderabad airport that I was going to Dubai to visit my aunt. When they asked me too many questions, I called him and handed over the phone. Once he spoke to the official, they let me through," she said.

Last month an Air India employee was arrested at Delhi airport for falsifying boarding passes to allow workers to travel overseas illegally. A police officer was also involved in the scam.

Even substantial bribes to officials do not dent profits. "There is a lot of money at stake," said one Bahrain-based activist who works with Indian domestic workers in the Gulf state. "Employers over here are willing to pay up to 800 Bahraini dinar (£1,350) to an agent to bring a [maid] from India. Agents are taking money from both the employers and workers and in the process cheating both parties."

Once in the Gulf, workers have little protection. A recent Human RightsWatch report described migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabiaworking 15 to 20 hours a day with no holidays and few breaks, minimal access to healthcare and poor accommodation. Many reported sexual abuse by employers.

According to the US state department, the kingdom is a "destination country" for men and women being trafficked for labour and, "to a lesser extent, forced prostitution".

Some are forced to work in brothels or simply abused. There are frequent reports of such incidents in the Indian press. In May last year a 21-year-old told recounted how she was forced to dance in a bar in Bahrain with 20 other women from the northwestern province of the Punjab by a violent trafficker before she drank chemicals to force him to bring her back home.

In August last year, authorities in Dubai arrested four people accused of running a prostitution ring after members allegedly beat up a Bangladeshi woman and held her in a cell where she was raped and pimped to paying customers. In Sharjah, another of the United Arab Emirates, a decades-old business which took impoverished Indian women who had been promised jobs in supermarkets or as housemaids and forced them into prostitution was uncovered by police in November.

Campaigners admit that as abuses occur overseas they are difficult for Indian authorities to deal with. But the agents are "here, not there", said Subhash Bhatnagar, the Delhi-based activist who received the tip-off which led to the raid on the "human warehouse" and freed Malti and Sati.

"There were maybe 40 or 50 girls who spent time in the flat while we were there," said Malti. "All were supposed to be going to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or somewhere else in the Gulf. Every week one or two of them would disappear, probably flown off to the Middle East. But most of us stayed put. No one had any money or contacts. We were helpless."

Conditions were harsh. Food, brought in from outside, was bad and there was no privacy.

"It was cramped, everyone was ill, there was no work and no one gave us any money. We were not allowed phone calls or any contact with relatives or friends. Our mobiles were confiscated and we were physically stopped from leaving. We kept asking when we would be going to Saudi Arabia. They just said soon," Malti said.

As their imprisonment entered a fifth month, Malti managed to contact a distant acquaintance through a sympathetic intermediary. Eventually word reached Bhatnagar, the activist, who informed the police. An hour or so later, the "warehouse" had been raided, emptied and three men detained.

"I am very happy," said Sita. "I'll be more careful in future.I'd still try again though. I need the work to feed my family."

But for Anis Begum in Hyderabad, indebted, traumatised and ostracised as a result of her ordeal as a forced sex worker in Riyadh, the struggle to rebuild her life has only just begun. She has attempted to bring charges against the agent who sent her to Saudi Arabia but has been told by police that he cannot be found.

Could this be your role ?

It has been said that The Salvation Army is always one generation away from extinction. New soldiers both young and old are always needed to fill the ranks, carry the flag and continue the hope-giving mission and helping work of The Salvation Army. Thankfully, the Columbia, S.C. Corps has been blessed to recently enroll and re-enroll a rather large group of Junior and Senior Soldiers on Sunday, January 20, 2013 at the Salvation Army Center for Worship and Service in Columbia.

Junior Soldiers enrolled were Brandon Harris, Jarvis Harris, Joshua Harris, and McKenna Hayes. Hannah Smalley, Rachel Smalley, and Alex Smalley transferred from another Salvation Army corps.

Senior Soldiers enrolled were Earl Brown, Elaine Hair, Wendell VanKallen, and Donna Watts. Elizabeth Morgan and Richard Watts had been enrolled at an earlier date but re-instated or transferred at the Sunday service.

Commissioners William and Marilyn Francis, honorably retired Salvation Army officers currently residing in Orlando, Florida, were invited to lead the Sunday service and enroll the new soldiers.

“This is very exciting. It’s not often we have the privilege of enrolling Junior Soldiers and Senior Soldiers together,” said Commissioner William Francis. “This is the present and the future of this corps and of the kingdom of God.”

Commissioner Francis went on to tell the Junior Solders that he has a little book at home that he has had since commissioning. “In that book is the name of every Junior Soldier I’ve had the privilege to enroll,” he said. “You’re names are going in it. You’re in the hundreds but you’re there.”

1 John 4:4 was one of the morning’s key verses, which states, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”

Wendell VanKallen, one of the newly enrolled Senior Soldiers, can holdfast to this passage. The Salvation Army helped VanKallen with clothing, housing, and furniture. The former veteran who experienced homelessness is now energized to be a member of an army whose mission is to help people in desperate need.

“This is a blessing, a new season,” he explained. “I want to give back to the community and help people who have been in situations like me.”

FSAOF LATVIA MISSION

Latvia's Abandoned Villages - Part One

Two miles short of the turn off to the abandoned village of Seda , where TSA opened a small corps in 2008, lies the Regional Psychiatric Hospital, and which has become the region’s drunk tank (US term for holding cell) on weekends and long term alcoholic residential treatment facility for the ‘A Team’ alcoholics. The hospital was the FSAOF team’s temporary home during our 2011 mission visit. And many friendly jokes were born.



In speaking with the hospital’s director I enquired as to how many alcoholics return to a life of sobriety, or at the very least one where alcohol no longer controls every waking moment. The Matron shook her head sadly and said, “ Our success rate is extremely low. The problem is, once they’ve gone through detox and examined the cause of their disease they are released and return to the cause! It’s the dismal life of rural Latvia, a life without hope.”

Yesterday we met one of those former patients; in and out of care for more than 15 years. In fact we saw passed out in a snow bank on our first visit to Sarkani in 2008. And we met her again today at the Riga I Corps looking very different.  She was smartly dressed in a Salvation Army uniform and helping to receive the morning offering. What no psychiatric hospital could do for her Jesus Christ did in giving her hope and the foundation for a new life.

We are back in Latvia, this being our 12th visit in four years representing the FSAOF as we seek to bring Christmas cheer to adults and the Fellowship's 'adopted' children in Sarkani and Seda. 

It was on our 2nd visit that we learned the plight of the children living in two abandoned villages. The majority are the children of full-fledged alcoholics, mostly ethnic Russians and consequently, shunned by the native Latvians living in the same region.

Immediately following Peretroika and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Latvia, the government decreed that the ethnic Russian alcoholic population (non Latvian passport holders) be banished to 'live' far from any key city and designated two abandoned villages, Sarkani and Seda as their forcibly adopted homes.

The government's only commitment to the 'outcast' citizens is a measly monthly living stipend that quickly ends up in the pockets of visiting bootleggers. In addition, anything not securely attached in the buildings and flats is ripped out and bartered for booze. This has resulted in flats without water, toilets, stoves and heating facilities. Even unsecured firewood is pilfered and traded for cheap vodka and cognac.

We are back in Latvia, this being our 12th visit in four years representing the FSAOF as we bring Christmas cheer to adults and the Fellowship's 'adopted' children in Sarkani and Seda.

  

A British newspaper reported that:  ‘A half of the children in the UK have seen their parents drunk, with 30% living in fear when they see adults drink too much.  

Tomorrow we will again be visiting the two villages in Latvia where all the children have seen their parents drunk and this on a daily basis.  And, to avoid living in fear the children avoid their homes and spend the majority of their waking hours outdoors in summer as well as winter. 

Often on their return home from school their parents were found passed out on the village streets and were helped home to their meager living quarters by their children. The majority of the children’s parents are alcoholics and drink 24/7 and can be found in stupors along the roadside in the villages.

We first visited the children in January, 2008 when we had the pleasure of meeting them on a wintry day with temperatures dipping into -30s.  The children, well dressed and warm, the recipients of a partial donation of several hundred winter coats given as a result of a ‘FSAOF’ initiative, came streaming out of the woods at the sound of our car entering their village.

Our second initiative, prompted by a request from the SA Regional Commander, Peter Baronowsky, was to provide finance in order to give each child at least one healthy meal daily. Prior to the FSAOF’s commitment to these children they had no daily meals provided during their school hours and were assigned seats in the corner of the dining room where they watched the other children enjoy a lunch.  The FSAOF donated several thousand dollars to ensure that the Sarkani children would also be provided a wholesome meal and therefore have the physical nourishment to complete their studies and withstand the rigours of outdoor life in wintery Latvia. The FSAOF contribution covered the cost of all school meals for these children through the end of the school year in May, 2010.

PART ONE - Latvia's Abandoned Villages 

Dr . Sven Ljungholm on behalf of the FSAOF
Former SA officer USA East

LATVIA - WE DEPART IN 48 HOURS ON OUR NEXT MISSION TRIP

A bit late, but I just received it...

Immediately following the commercial and the announcer on this video you'll hear a fundraiser for the Salvation Army in Sweden -  (CLICK HERE) We wish You a Silent Night, Mary and Child, and All Seeking Shelter Tonight

blessings Glad

Who knows where Jesus lingers?

A poster in a window:

‘Alone on Christmas Day?’

Speaks of Christ and Brussels sprouts;

Cristes Maesse the Army way.

Oh, I love the High Church carols,

Chanted liturgies and all,

But if Doctrine Number Four holds fast,

Jesus loves the Army hall

Where spuds are mashed or roasted

(Our Salvationist Eucharist?)

And lonely folk are wanted –

Those ‘society’ has missed.

Who knows where Jesus lingers?

Matthew’s Gospel seems to say

(Matthew 25, Verse 40)

He’s alone on Christmas Day.

So, Captain Ralph, your posters

And the invitations shared,

Are a type of Holy Scripture

Telling someone someone cared.

© Stephen Poxon 2012

NOT CALLED?!

‎" 'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' 

I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. 

Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. 

And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world." 

General William Booth