Our current Salvation Army Mission Plan is called ‘The Army that Brings Life’. That’s the meaning of ‘The Salvation Army’ when translated into Māori as ‘Te Ope Whakaora’.
In the War Cry office, we sometimes joke that a better phrase would be ‘The Army that Brings Lunch’. That’s because so much of The Salvation Army’s work is focused on putting food on families’ tables (and also because we seem to involve food in most of our gatherings!).
The Salvation Army brings lunch through our food banks, budgeting services and community meals, as well as through the cooking classes run by some of our social service centres. Indirectly, we do it when we help people find affordable housing that means they have enough left over to feed their family.
Similarly, we do it when we help those whose addiction to drugs and alcohol or out-of-control gambling causes turmoil at home that disrupts budgets and family meal times. And we definitely do it when we feed people after civil defence emergencies, such as following the evacuation of residents from flood-affected Edgecumbe.
Our Public Relations Department recently received an email from someone advising they no longer wanted us to take money automatically from their bank account. We couldn’t locate this person in our records, but they were adamant regular payments to The Salvation Army were being made—and could we stop this please? Then came an embarrassed apology saying they’d realised these ‘donations’ were actually the purchase price of café food at their local Booth Café, a training café run by our Education and Employment service.
Yet another case of ‘the Army that brings lunch’—or at least morning and afternoon tea!
Christina Tyson
Editor