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| Tell your Salvation Army friends about this website. Chapter Ten about our Seattle Temple Corps Experience is going to be very interesting, but you have to read every chapter in order to understand Chapter 10. You won't be disappointed. |
When I reflect on my life and think about different situations I often wonder what God intended from whatever event I am remembering. We never know how we will affect other people or what the outcome of our actions will be. Most of the time, we never find out. However, one day when I was in high school, I got on a bus near the Pacific Science Center. I notice 4 boys towards the back of the bus. I sat fairly close to them. It wasn't long before I realized that one of the guys was alone and the others were harrassing him. One of the guys took out a compass for drawing circles, spread it open and stuck the guy in the kneecap. That was too much for me so I stood up and said, "Knock it off" or words to that effect. Suddenly, the guy wasn't alone any more and at the next stop, the other guys got off the bus. I got to talking to the kid and asked him if his knee was OK. He said it was alright and in the conversation I told him I was on my way to The Salvation Army. We had talked long enough that he told me he was going to go to a tech school somewhere around Chicago. I told him he ought to look up the Salvation Army when he got there because it was a pretty good church. We said goodbye and I got off the bus.
A year or two later, I saw a familiar face in the War Cry. It was the boy on the bus and he was wearing a Salvation Army uniform with insgnia from the Central Territroy. He had gone to the Chicago area and joined the Salvation Army.
When I was being transferred from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fort Hood, Texas, I spent about 45 days in the Seattle area. I was single and available so I was getting quite a bit of attention from girls and men who wanted me to marry their daughters. I met a gal named Patty. One day Patty called me up and asked me if I would like to come over to her place for dinner on Saturday evening. She would do all of the cooking. I agreed. Then, like the dummy I tend to be, I went up to the mountains with Deleen on Saturday. My brother was along with another girl. We were driving my VW bus up some logging roads. I decided it would be a good idea to take a picture of the four of us so I set up my tripod and put the timer on. I went back down the mountain a little ways and looked back at the camera. At that instant, I saw that the sun was going down behind the mountains and that was in the direction of Seattle. All of a sudden, I remembered Patty. I looked at my watch and got this sick feeling in my stomach. I told the rest of the group I had to get to a phone. Well, I didn't have Patty's phone number with me. I had to wait until I got back to Seattle to call her and apologize.
I got back to Seattle, called Patty and apologized profusely. She said, "That's OK. When I realized you weren't going to be here, I called Wayne. We had a great time. Wayne was the boy on the bus who I had talked to about the Salvation Army in Chicago. He had gone to the tech school, joined the Salvatioin Army and had moved back to Seattle. Apparently Wayne and Patty got along so well that they got married. They went to the Salvation Army School For Officer's Training and are now Majors in the Salvation Army's Western Territory.
What if I had never stepped in when Wayne was being harrassed by the guys on the bus and I had never invited him to the Salvation Army? Hmmmm? Divine Appointment?
What if I had made it on time to Patty's place? Hmmmmm?
When Bonna and I moved back to Seattle from Texas for the last time we had been involved in Church Growth. We had studied everything that Elmer Towns wrote about church growth. We had attended several seminars where he had spoken and we purchased every single program he had developed on church growth and several programs from other church growth experts. We even had boxes of a program he had written with a money back guarantee. If your church didn't grow with his program, he would buy it back at full price. While moving to Seattle, we attended one of his seminars in San Francisco. After moving from Texas to Seattle, we even attended a seminar he held in Seattle.
In addition to Elmer Towns material and lectures, Bonna had trained in Evangelism Explosion in Houston. She was so excited about it that she told me if I ever got the chance, I should go for the training. In Houston, Bonna had been in charge of church growth at Spring Branch Church of the Nazarene. The economy had collapsed in Houston and people were leaving town in droves. Every month, two or three families would leave our church to return to their home states. The summer we left Houston to return to Seattle, 35 families, including ours, left the church to return from whence they came. However, church growth had been such a priority at Spring Branch, you could never tell the losses by looking at the church statistics and attendance records. Even with those horrible losses, the church attendance was still increasing because of the strong church growth program directed by Bonna.
Before we left Houston to return to Seattle, we had decided to see if any of this stuff could work at The Salvation Army. If you've been in The Salvation Army for any length of time, you won't believe what happened to us at The Seattle Temple Corps. The first thing we did when we got to Seattle was to explain to the Corps Officers what Evangelism Explosion was all about. He agreed to pay the $100 fee for training for me in Portland, Oregon, at the Portland Four Square Gospel Church.
At the same time we were explaining Evangelism Explosion to the officers, we were compiling a list of everybody who had quit The Seattle Temple Corps. On the list were a bus driver and his wife who worked at a Christian school. We then started to find out who in the corps were friends of these people. We discovered that my brother and sister in law were close friends of the bus driver and his wife and still had contact with them. They were attending the Aurora Church of the Nazarene. Luckily, some of our Nazarene friends from Houston had moved home to Seattle some time before us and were also members of Aurora Church of the Nazarene. We asked Tim, my brother, and Marcia, his wife, if there was anything that would get the bus driver and his wife back into the Army. They said, "No." Well, through our Nazarene friends, we kind of kept an eye on what was going on at Aurora Nazarene and we would occasionally bring up the bus driver and his wife to Tim and Marcia.
One day, Bonna and I were having dinner with our Nazarene friend and our friend was upset about something their pastor had said in a Sunday morning service. The upshot of it was that he was going to start looking for more professional people with good jobs to become members of the Nazarene Church or something similar to that.
Bingo!
Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know what their pastor had said, but I know if our friend was upset, the bus driver and his wife would not be happy. Anybody raised in The Salvation Army would not be able to stomach this kind of talk. I called my brother, Tim, and I told him that if he called the bus driver or his wife, and asked them to come back to The Salvation Army, they would be there within a month. My brother called them and everythiing I had heard from our Nazarene friend was confirmed. In fact, the bus driver and his weife had already changed churches. We had missed the boat. However, it just so happened that my brother was moving from Ballard to Shoreline and he asked me to help and he asked the bus driver and his wife to help.
Again, Bingo!
I told Tim we should all go out for pizza when we were all finished moving and the next thing I knew, Bonna and I were sitting directly across the table from the bus driver and his wife at the pizza parlor. We talked and became better acquainted. Then I sort of began talking about The Salvation Army and finally I came right out and said, "You should come back." At that point, Bob got a tear in his eye and said, "Well, my uniform is still hanging in my closet." I said, "Put it on and come back." Within a very short time, they were back at The Seattle Temple Corps. They went into training and are now Majors serving in the Western Territory.
I am the middle child of five siblings. Some people will say this has a great deal of significance. All it means to me was that I had an older brother and sister that were mean to me and a younger brother and sister that were just as mean. One day when I was about six years old, something happened that triggered a terrible event in my life. Whatever it was, all four of my evil siblings threw me out of the house and locked the door. They then ran around in the house locking the windows and doors so there was no way for me to get in. Don't bother asking them about this. They've fabricated some weird cover story that makes no sense to me. However, I was convinced that I was an "outcast," an "outsider" who just didn't belong in the family. I was locked out by my own brothers and sisters. Later I had managed to get back into the house, but I was still all alone because everybody else had found a sudden desire to leave the house.
I was laying on the couch crying. The radio was on and while I was there all alone crying I heard a men's choir siniging:
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I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus, No one ever cared for me like Jesus, All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me, No one ever cared for me like Jesus, Ev'ry day He comes to me with new assurance, No one ever cared for me like Jesus, |
Being "locked out of the house" by your "brothers and sisters in Christ" is what happens to so many Salvation Army officers who decide on a career change for whatever reason they have. When Bonna resigned her Salvation Army officership to marry me, she did not experience this. The Divisional Commander officiated at our wedding and the Divisional Secretary sang a solo at our wedding. However, my sister experienced this when she and her husband resigned from officerschip. This "being locked out" can happen to anybody in any church, not just the Salvation Army. When I see it, I can't stand idly by. Someone needs to be there representing Chrust, putting "his loving arms" around them. I would prefer to be Christ's representative to the outcast than to be on the inside with the "in crowd." There was one officer who did this for my sister and brother in law. He was Col. Eugene Rice. Col. Rice made a point to call my sister and brother in law, to write to them and to encourage them for years after they resigned.
At the Seattle Temple Corps we had a single female Lieutenant as our Corps Assistant Officer. One day, Bonna and I parked our car at the corps and headed into the building. Coming out of the building was our Lieutenant. Bonna stopped to talk to her. We were stunned. She had a very serious problem. She was resigning. We had a lengthy conversation with her and she told us that she had been promised that she could go to college as part of her appointment to the Seattle Temple Corps. Someone had reneged on the promise. In fact, when she had discussed it with the person who had stopped her from going to college, the conversation had ended with her offer of her resignation. Further she was told not to come back to the corps any more. She was being locked out of her "home Church" by her "brothers and sisters in Christ." Our Lieutenant stood with us crushed, hurt and beaten down. Finally she said, "What am I going to do?" Then it hit me.
We had the identical "problem" that had ended with the Lieutenant's offer to resign. When Bonna and I left Texas with all of our church growth training and experience, we looked around the Salvation Army to see if any growth was taking place. We discovered that there was only one division in the Salvation Army in the USA that was showing any significant growth. It was Northern California. My brother was stationed in Northern Cal. In fact, when he heard about OUR "problem," he offered us a job at his corps doing evangelism and church growth work. He told us he would ask the Divisional Commander if he could hire us. In the proposal to the Divisional Commander, my brother went through all of the details and ended with, "There is one thing. They have a problem." When Col. Harvey asked him what the problem was my brother told him about our "problem." My brother told me that when Col. Harvey heard what our "problem" was, the Col. laughed and said, "That's the highest recommendation they could possibly have. You can hire them. Just work out the details and let me know when they are coming. We would love to have them in this Division." We never went to Northern Cal, but I remembered Col. Harvey's reaction to our "problem" which was identical to the Lieutenant's. Our problem was so bad that our daughter was beginning to have nightmares. At one point she said, "Dad. I had a bad dream last night." I asked her to tell me about it. She said, "I dreamed there was a big snake in my room. I stomped on it's head, but no matter how hard I stomped it, it wouldn't die and it wouldn't go away."
I said to our Lieutenant, "DO NOT RESIGN! Call Colonel Harvey in Northern California and tell him everything you told us. I'll bet you'll have an appointment there right away and I'll bet you'll be in college before you know it." We finally said good-bye to the Lieutenant. A few months later we heard she had been transferred to Northern California and was in college as part of her appointment there. That was fourteen years ago. We never saw the Lieutenant again after that "chance" meeting in the parking lot.
However, for thirteen years we have been asking ourselves (and God) if anything we ever did in Seattle was worth our time. Every time Bonna has said "What if ... " I have replied, "All we can do is trust that God had something in mind." Then we ask, "All of the work we've done with the kids. What's become of it?" So, when I finished the story about our Lieutenant (above) and how we met her by "chance" in the parking lot of the Seattle Temple Corps and encouraged her not to resign her commission and told her abut Colonel Harvey and how he felt about our mutual "problem," I said to myself, "Self, I wonder what happened to our Lieutenant."
Last night, I went to http://www.google.com and typed our Lieutenant's name into the search box.
Wow!
Way to go Carla!
Way to go God!
I recognized her immediately. With that one search on Google, I found that everything we went though with our "problem" was worth it. If God had brought us to Seattle just to be standing in Carla's way as she came out of the Seattle Temple Corps to resign her commission and we were there to point her to Northern Cal., it was worth the whole trip and everything else that happened to us. We have no idea what happened to Carla after she left the parking lot, but we know what she's doing now. She did resign her commission, but it was after 15 years of solid officership working mostly with teens and youth and she left on very good terms. If you want to see what our Lieutenant is doing,
Go to: http://www.google.com
In the search box type in her name enclosed in quotes and the number 35,000 like this:
"carla lafayette" 35,000
You will probably get one link to one webpage. Click on it to find out what Carla is doing today.
Here's a quote from that website:
| "Carla Lafayette is Director of Training for DCLA Ministries. A highly skilled presenter, Carla has become well-known for her ability to design and produce quality events for students. At DCLA she oversees the development of evangelism training for the 35,000 people who will attend DCLA 2003" |
That's our Lieutenant who we met in the parking lot of the Seattle Temple Corps, crushed, hurt and beaten down. I would bet anything I have that Carla has no memory of that day in the parking lot. My wife forgot abut it, but I never have. If we worked in Evangelism Explosion all of our lives, we would not have reached as many people as Carla will reach in one event. What a life!
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You may buy Carla's book on friendship for children by going to Pulse 3: Friends Pulse 3: Friends The youth worker article by Kara Eckmann Powell encourages leaders by highlighting the importance of friendships in junior highers' lives and the necessity for a biblical understanding of what true friendship is. The student article deals with how to say you're sorry to God and to your friends. Reproducible manual. Number of Pages: 96
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When I finally discovered what happened to our Lieutenant, I almost broke out singing. If I had sung anything it would have gone something like this:
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My life flows on in endless song; What though my joys and comfort die I lift mine eyes, the cloud grows thin, |
One day, it was announced that there would be a competition between children's Singing Company's in the Northwest Division. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Seattle Temple Corps would win hands down. The winner of the competition would represent the Northwest Division at a Territorial Congress in Southern California.
One night we were sitting talking with some friends and we were asking how things were going at the Laotian Corps. We were told that their Singing Company was sounding great and they thought they were doing better than the Seattle Temple Singing Company, but they had one problem. They didn't think they had a chance of winning because they didn't have enough uniforms for the Singing Company. . I asked them why that was a problem and they said, "Those people don't have two nickels to rub together." I asked if they had approached Divisional Headquarters for uniforms and they said DHQ wouldn't help because that would be showing favoritism and swing the competition. Also, their kids went to the Seattle Temple Corps. Duh. The Laotians tried to get blue pants and skirts and white shirts, but no one kid had an outfit that even came close to another kid. Part of the competition would be the uniforms. They didn't have a prayer.
The next day, Bonna and I went down to the Seattle Temple Corps and went into a storage room. We took out a bunch of boxes. Some how these boxes ended up at the Laotian Corps. We gave them everything they needed for 50 brand new absolutely perfectly matched Junior Soldiers uniforms that had been purchased from the Salvation Army Western Territory Trade Department.
These uniform parts had never been worn. The night of the contest we were out at Camp Arnold and watched those Laotian kids march up onto the platform. They looked picture perfect in the Seattle Temple Corps Junior Solder uniforms. Until today, nobody ever found out how the Laotian Corps got those uniforms or where they came from. They walked away with first place and represented the Northwest Division at the Territorial Congress wearing the uniforms donated by the Seattle Temple Corps That night, it was the Seattle Temple Corps Singing Company that was rag tag. The Laotian Corps had perfect uniforms with perfectly matching neckties on the boys, perfectly matching neckties on the girls, perfectly matching shirts and blouses. They were sharp looking in perfect, totally regulation Junior Soldiers' uniforms. It was the Seattle Temple Corps Singing Company that didn't have a prayer. The Laotian Corps's prayers had been answered. God's little Laotian Corps Singing Company was lookin' good.
Coming in the very near future to this page
The following areas will be filled in on a daily basis. Then photos will be added. When you read what happened to us at Seattle Temple, your whole concept of The Salvation Army may change.
Bonna and I spent a month in Salinas California where we taught about 35 children how to play the cornet.
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| In the Salvation Army Salinas
Corps, in California, we found that a play was being produced,
but rehearsals had been going on for several months with no end
in sight. With a little nudge from Bonna, the play rehearsals
ended and the play was put on. |
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The girls were taught to play tambourines. Lizzie is such a great teacher |
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We rented about 35 cornets. This was the first day the first group held their cornets. I still cringe seeing this. I was just hoping we could get through this without someone dropping a cornet. We got a good deal on the rental because the owner of the music store in Salinas was the son of Salvation Army officers. |
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We sat the kids down with their cornets and taught them how to hold them, pick them up on cure to play and blow a note, then put them back down properly on their laps. I was still worried about somebody dropping a cornet. |
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"In the open air we play our happy song...." And that song would be ....... "Hot Cross Buns" of course. Finally, the kids could all play a couple of tunes. We actually put on the play, the girls played tambourines accompanied by a recorded band and everybody played a few tunes on the cornet. Voila!! A band is born! Notice that the danger of dropping a cornet is dissipating rapidly. |
When we returned from Texas, we found that the Young People's band had become defunct. No problem. We had returned loaded for bear. We began putting together a Young People's Band program in Seattle. With our personal 15 passenger van we were ready to go hunting for kids. We started with the children of the members of the Seattle Temple Corps. Some of these kids were children of Divisional Headquarters Officers and some were children of local officers in the corps or the children of soldier's in the corps.
On the right is my daughter, Jordana, at the age of eight. She played this Alto Horn in the Young People's Band and later took up the French Horn in her school band. She not only played in the Einstein Jr Hi band, but in the Shorewood High School Band and Orchestra. She also played in the Seattle Youth Symphony Debut Orchestra. The young man is Mileen's son. Mileen was part of our Evangelism Explosion team. Mileen was a natural born evangelist. I've never seen anybody with such empathy for the people we went to visit. Because of her own life experience, she could talk to somebody for two or three minutes and understand and sympathize in a way I could never comprehend.
Crissy's father was the Divisional Secretary. Her mother would stand at the door to their house every morning as she and her brother headed out for school. Her mother would hand them their lunches and then pray with them. Then out the door they would go. Eric's father was the Seattle Temple Corps Sergeant Major.
My daughter, Jordana Ross, with J.D. Hopps. In all of my life, I've never understood why kids like J.D. Hopps so much. He's a crotchety old fellow, but he loves kids and has taught hundreds how to play brass instruments and how to conduct music. Bonna and I visited every soldier of the Seattle Temple Corps that went into the hospital. J.D. had a problem which nearly caused his death. Frequently, Bonna and I would visit him in the hospital and Jordana, who was nine years old, made a lot of those visits with us. One day, we were sitting in J.D.'s hospital room talking to him after he had been moved out of intensive care. As we talked, a nurse came in with a huge needle. We asked if we should leave and she said, "On no. That won't be necessary, I'm just going to put him to sleep." Jordana got a shocked look on her face. Her eyes were wide open and her face lost all of its color. We decided to leave and were walking down the hallway. I turned to Jordana and asked her what the problem was. Her eyes teared up and she said, "Are they really going to put J.D. to sleep?" I said, "Sure. He hasn't been able to sleep very well. " She started to cry and I asked her why she was crying. She said, "Tim and Marcia put their dog to sleep because he was too old and now we'll never see J.D. again." I had to explain the difference between my brother "putting his dog to sleep" and J.D. getting a good nap. We have breakfast every Saturday morning with J.D. and two other friends.
You will find the answer here. You will be surprised at what happened to us. In the first year of our use of Evangelism Explosion, our team visited approximately 200 homes on behalf of our God and the Seattle Temple Corps of the Salvation Army.
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Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 01, Growing Up - Sheridan Corps, Wyoming
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 02, Growing Up - Seattle Temple Corps, Washington
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 03, In the US Army, Baltimore Hampden Corps, Maryland
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 05, In the US Army, Fayetteville Corps, North Carolina
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 06, In the US Army, Waco Corps, Texas
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 07, Back Home - Seattle Temple Corps, Washington
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 08, In Grad School, Houston Temple Corps, Texas
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 09, The Gulf Coast Area Band, "Festival Brass"
Dr Dan and the Salvation Army 10, Back Home AGAIN, The Seattle Temple Corps, Washington
Dan Ross Bonna Ross Jordana Ross Dan
& Bonna Ross Dan and Bonna Ross drdan71, drdan71@aol.com cornucopiagenealogica
09/30/03
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