Ignore No More

I met a woman at a Chamber of Commerce event last week who, once she heard that I work for The Salvation Army, told me point-blank, "The Salvation Army saved my life." She told me how she "practically lived" at the Salvation Army facility on West 7th St. (St. Paul Citadel Worship and Community Center) when she was growing up. "I had a very dysfunctional home life, and The Salvation Army was absolutely a safe haven for me and my sisters." She even spent her summers at Silver Lake Salvation Army Camp, where I worked for several summers of my own. Of course this revelation caused us to simultaneously break out into singing all of our favorite Salvation Army camp songs! She was so thrilled to hear that we still offer programs to give kids a chance to escape "the tragedies of their own lives," and I assured her that The Salvation Army definitely recognizes the importance of those programs, and there is no plan to stop offering them! This woman is now a successful owner of her own company, and she attributes much of her success to finding some source of stability in life, through the services The Salvation Army provided.

Meeting her was an extraordinary experience for me, because it was like flash-forwarding in time a few decades to see where all of those kids I met working at camp all those summers--whose stories broke my heart--will hopefully end up some day. I always dreaded the last day of a camp week because it meant sending the kids off to the same (sometimes toxic) environment that they came from, hoping that they'd gained some insight into their own worth as a child of God, as a person deserving respect and love, and with knowledge of the nearest Salvation Army facility to their home where they can find help and comfort. To see the long-term effects of simply offering a child a "safe haven," personified in this woman before me was the greatest blessing to me, and I hope it brightens your day as well.