“God chose The Salvation Army for me,” says Lieutenant Wilder Jean-Charles. “He had his own reasons, but he knew my heart. I am here to serve, and I know my purpose here is to transform lives.”

“God Moves”

Lieutenant Jean-Charles was born in Haiti, to a family with eight children.

After graduating from high school, he and his wife, Lieutenant Josette Joseph, immigrated to Montreal via the United States.

“We had to start from zero,” he says. “All we had were two suitcases. Coming from Florida, we didn’t even have winter coats!”

A friend of theirs referred them to Captains Ricaurte Velasquez and Vilma Ramos, then corps officers at The Salvation Army’s Light of Hope Family Church in Montreal.

“What do you need to start?” was all the captains asked the new couple, and then they were given vouchers to use at the local Salvation Army thrift store. 

The captains invited the couple to their church and they started attending regularly.

Grateful and wanting to be of help, they soon started to assist with the worship team.

“Where there is worship, true worship, God moves,” Lieutenant Jean-Charles smiles. 

“Let God Tell Me”

Soon, the couple started taking on more of a leadership role in the church and even preached on occasion.

“Everything that moved at the church, we were there,” he says.

Captains Velasquez and Ramos realized that there was untapped potential in the couple.

“I think you have a call on your life,” Captain Velasquez told Lieutenant Jean-Charles.

"We never wanted to be pastors,” he says. “Our whole desire was to serve in every aspect in the church—this is why we became soldiers—but not leading from the front.”

Captain Velasquez knew God disagreed, but Lieutenant Jean-Charles was adamant.

“I said, ‘Wait, let God tell me,’ but that was just another excuse not to accept,” he says. 

A Stranger Calls

“Work was good, I loved my job and we were making money,” Lieutenant Jean-Charles explains. ”I know ministry is not easy, so why would I look for trouble? Let life go on.”

He needed a sign.

“I’m sorry, God,” he prayed. “Could you please give me proof? I want you to use someone from where I work to give me a sign that you have called me.”

The next day, he was quietly sitting apart from his friends having lunch when a co-worker he did not know went right up to him, looked him in the eyes and said, “You look like a pastor.”

But Lieutenant Jean-Charles resisted. 

House for Sale?

In his struggle with God, he’d always ask him for the truth.

“If you are calling me, God,” Lieutenant Jean-Charles prayed, “prove to me that you are.”

So, he made a “deal” with God.

“We owned a house at the time,” Lieutenant Jean-Charles says. “I prayed that if God could send someone to offer me $300,000 for the house, without me advertising it on the market, I will know he called.”

He kept this to himself, without even telling his wife.

“It was between me and God.”

About two weeks later, he returned home from work to be greeted by Lieutenant Joseph, who excitedly told him that someone had appeared and offered them $300,000. 

Voice of a Boy

Still, Lieutenant Jean-Charles kept asking for proof.

One weekend when he was at the church, a young boy came up to him but he couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Did you hear what the boy called you?” the boy’s father asked. “He just called you ‘pastor.’ ”

Lieutenant Jean-Charles stood frozen in place. It was another sign. 

Wrong Plans

And so matters stood for a few years when the couple was invited by Captain Indira Albert, area candidates secretary, to Explore Your Call, a weekend gathering for individuals who are exploring or discerning God’s call on their lives.

“We attended, but we were not interested in taking that next step,” says Lieutenant Jean-Charles.

However, Commissioner Floyd Tidd, then territorial commander, happened to be in attendance and gave a sermon at the event.

“He said, ‘God always called busy people,’ ” says Lieutenant Jean-Charles. “It was like he was pointing at me.”

In that moment, his wife told him, “Let’s go forward.”

Lieutenant Jean-Charles replied, “Not yet.”

He’d realized that their plans were not God’s plans. 

“A Privilege”

They returned to their hotel room and read the Bible, looking for an answer.

“I could clearly hear the voice of God telling me, ‘What would happen if I take everything from you?’ ”

Lieutenant Jean-Charles realized the time had come.

“I was putting everything on my own strength to not answer the call of the one who have given me all those things I had asked for.

“But in that moment, I felt God speak into my heart. I closed my eyes and said, ‘You win. I surrender.’ ”

Lieutenant Jean-Charles and his wife made the decision to become cadets.

Through field placement, the couple trained in Montreal and attended class online, with monthly visits to the College for Officer Training in Toronto.

They were commissioned last year in June and appointed as the corps officers at Église Communautaire Nouveaux départs de l’Armée du Salut in Montreal.

“How could I resist the one who would give me everything, to not answer the call?” says Lieutenant Jean-Charles. “That caused me more trouble than freedom.

“And now we are serving. It’s a privilege!”