Hurricane Hanna, a Category 1 hurricane swept through south Texas on Saturday evening leaving tens of thousands of residents without power. Salvation Army staff and volunteers have been deployed to provide help.
COVID-19 has been devastating and will continue to be so for some time, but there are many lessons we can learn because of this experience. Lessons about living in community and turning a terrible situation into new opportunities. Lessons that teach us we truly are one Army with one mission.
In a time where #cancelled is trending daily, Salvationist Alex Stoney says Christians are called to live out forgiveness culture, not cancel culture. He quotes James 1:19-20: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires."
I’ve heard people say that this crisis makes us all equal. It does not. We are not. Yes, the virus is indiscriminate and yes, we are all facing the same storms, but this does not equate to a newfound global equality. We are not all in the same boat.
When Salvation Army officer Major Gary Venables posted a video playing the pocket cornet he received as a Christmas gift, little did he know that it would become his Monday morning ministry.