Living in another country has helped me evaluate what’s truly important. As I ride in the back of the pickup truck, I watch the sun set over the Zimbabwean landscape and reflect on how fortunate I am to be here. Thirty minutes later, I try counting the millions of stars that have emerged in the sky, unadulterated by city lights or smog. Two hours later I am shivering from the cold wind and my back is sore from the bumpy ride. Blinded by the headlights of an approaching vehicle, I lean toward the territorial youth secretary sitting beside me and ask how much farther we have to go. Another two hours. I can’t imagine my father-in-law, the territorial youth secretary for Canada and Bermuda, hitchhiking like this to speak at a Salvation Army youth event. But I’m not in Canada anymore.
My wife, Rochelle, and I have been serving as Salvation Army reinforcement personnel in Zimbabwe for nearly a year. We will be here for at least two more. On most days I’m pleased with this prospect. But I do have occasional moments when I wonder how I can escape to Canada, where people travel in relative comfort.

Highly Respected Army
Zimbabwe is the second-largest Salvation Army territory in the world and boasts hundreds of thousands of Salvationists. When Rochelle and I walk along the street, complete strangers give us the Army salute. The first few times it caught me off guard, so I waved back at them. Zimbabwean Salvationists proudly wear their uniforms (grey in winter and beige in summer), so it’s not uncommon to see people throughout the week in full Army regalia. Even the vice-president of the country wears her uniform to religious functions.

Officers are highly respected here. At special meetings and events, they receive priority seating and eat separately from soldiers. I find this segregation uncomfortable and unbiblical, but try to understand the importance of showing respect, especially given the hardships that most officers face. In Canada, we sometimes treat our officers as inferior or irrelevant, so it’s nice to see them valued.

As the third-largest denomination following the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, The Salvation Army is primarily recognized as a church here. This is quite different than in Canada, where most people view us more as a charitable organization.

Growing up as an officers’ child, I used to cringe at the thought of my school friends seeing my parents pick me up in a Salvation Army vehicle. I still remember the day my father came to collect food donations from my public school and my friends asking me if I was poor. “The Salvation Army is a church,” I used to say. “We’re just like every other church, we just have special outfits. But we’re not poor. We help the poor, but they’re not part of our church. There are doctors and lawyers and business people at my church.”

I spent years trying to justify the respectability of my church to my society. Those were wasted and misguided years.

Corps Activities
When I arrived in Zimbabwe, I felt like I had come to the mecca of The Salvation Army. In my official role in territorial communications, I frequently travel around the country to attend special events and visit corps. Let me tell you, Zimbabwean Salvationists know how to worship hard and long. I’ve been to many six-hour services that, for the first five hours at least, were full of passion and excitement. It’s not a sin to dance in church here, but it sometimes feels like a sin not to.

Most corps have two lengthy Sunday services (a holiness meeting and a salvation meeting) and Salvationists attend multiple corps activities throughout the week. It’s not unusual for young people to spend most evenings at their corps. Brass bands, timbrels, songsters, home leagues and other relics from the Western Army’s past are still found in their glory here.

In my first couple of months, I got caught up in the excitement. I even played in the corps band, after promising myself six years ago that I would never pick up a cornet again. This was the Army I dreamed of when I was a child-the biggest church on the block that everyone wants to belong to and where it’s cool to wear the uniform.

Incongruities
The Salvation Army is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but as I experience more of Zimbabwe and see the ever-increasing numbers of people suffering under incredible economic and political hardships, I just don’t get as excited about celebrating the opening of a new corps building or the establishment of more divisional administrative structures. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world-nearly 2,000 percent (estimated to hit 5,000 next year). We watch the prices of goods and services increase on a daily basis. The economy is in shambles. We experience frequent power outages, water cuts and shortages of goods. I’ve just spent my lunch hour roaming the city to find milk-fresh, sterilized or powdered-but without success. I did the same thing yesterday. A few weeks ago we couldn’t find bread or flour.

As prices continue to soar, people fall into greater poverty as salaries and incomes fail to keep up. Worst hit are those on pensions. We live beside some pensioners who receive $2,000 a month. A loaf of bread costs over $300, so I wonder how they survive. Parents struggle to afford the escalating school fees and many children wear their mandatory school uniforms until they are completely tattered.

Rochelle and I give away more than half of what meagre resources we have. It’s hard not to help parents send their kids to school with proper shoes or to purchase prescription medication for our elderly neighbours. But it becomes very draining to see so many people suffer.

We have struggled to adjust to living in a Salvation Army ghetto. We work with Salvationists, we live on a Salvation Army compound, our friends are Salvationists and it seems that we are always involved in Salvation Army activities. When are we or other Salvationists expected to find the time to interact with our neighbours, people in the market or street kids begging in the street?

A Balanced Life
What I’m learning is the need for balance, both in my Christian life and the Movement I belong to. James 1:27 tells us that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” The challenge for Salvationists, whether they live in Canada, Zimbabwe or Timbuktu, is to pursue both aspects of this challenge. When we focus on one priority over the other, we lose sight of the abundant life to which God has called us. It’s a fine balance.

In The Violence of Love, the late Archbishop Oscar Romero says, “Let us not measure the Church by the number of its members or by its material buildings … That doesn’t matter. The material walls here will be left behind in history. What matters is you, the people, your hearts. God’s grace giving you God’s truth and life. Don’t measure yourselves by your numbers. Measure yourselves by the sincerity of heart with which you follow the truth and light of our divine Redeemer.”

We are privileged to serve in Zimbabwe with The Salvation Army. We have been warmly welcomed into the family here, and have learned much about living with hope and trust in God. While we may never get used to six-hour meetings, we are truly blessed by the unbridled enthusiasm of our Salvationist comrades. My dream is that more Salvationists around the world will be able to say, “Yes, we are a big, exciting church. But let me tell you how we are reaching out to the hurting people in our community.”

by John McAlister
Literary Secretary, Harare, Zimbabwe

Reprinted from Salvationist June 2007