“All soldiers on their feet!”

 Ruth and Peter Baronowsky Photo by Dace Akermane - From the Latvian "War Cry"

Conversation with the Regional Commanders of The Salvation Army in Latvia,

Rut and Peter Baronowsky.

When you knew you were going to be appointed to Latvia, what hopes and dreams did you have?

P. Our dreams were very vague because we did not know much about Latvia, so our first aim was to come here, and to see what is happening here, and to find out what we should do while we are here.

R. We had a very clear calling; we knew that we were supposed to be here.  We wanted to learn about the country be­fore we actually made any plans, but rather early we knew that we were not going to go for big strategies but from the very beginning we had three very clear goals. We wanted to see people saved, to preach discipleship for those already saved, and to stick to the third main goal of The Salvation Army to reach out to suffering humanity. The Salvation Army’s social outreach pro­grams for people in need come as a consequence of discipleship.

P. So, in the first leaders’ gathering we proclaimed that we wanted to see people saved. Lots of activities are not the most important--the most important is to get people saved. And we have seen it happen a lot; we have also seen big growth in the number of soldiers. TSA preaches the Gospel everywhere – among the poorest, in much better established settings like Riga 1. Everywhere our main purpose is to tell the good news about Jesus that lives can be changed.

R. I believe that Christianity sometimes has backed away from the message be­cause we believe it is too tough for peo­ple to receive. I believe in a forward way of Evangelism that is also balanced by holy lives. And if those two go togeth­er – living holy lives and preaching in a straightforward way, we will move for­ward.

P. We as Christians should not sit and wait until people will find us, but we should go to them.

R. We believe that it applies to all Salva­tion Army people, all soldiers not just officers should be meeting people’s needs. We should be a true army. Eve­ryone should be on their feet. Preach­ing, testifying what Jesus has done in our lives balanced by living holy lives, growing in maturity, growing in Christ likeness. If we would do this we would not only change The Salvation Army but people in Latvia. 

P. Our social workers are extremely successful in combining social care with spiritual help and guidance. They pray for many people for salvation. We don’t always see these people in our churches because many of them are handicapped and cannot go out. Some of our work­ers have a real gift of speaking about Jesus with people¸ and they are really using this gift in a very productive way. 

R. Preaching the gospel is always done with great respect for people, but I be­lieve that there is a battle going on.  If we don’t believe that people are in dan­ger because they are not saved, we are mistaken.

P. For most people active church is going to church once a week, and if you do it every Sunday you are an ac­tive church member. We do not con­sider this an active church member. For us the main thing is what happens between one Sunday meeting and the next Sunday meeting. That is when we live our Christian lives – in our families, our work places, with our friends, in the city. Every soldier is supposed to be an active participant in this spiritual war that is going on in Latvia. Our procla­mation is „Latvia for Christ”.

R. The social work must always be a consequence of our Christian faith. There is a risk, and we see it through­out the world for the social work to become the main part, an autonomous work. The social work is what people see and what they like. But we want to stress that our social work is the conse­quence of our relationship with Jesus Christ. In some countries through­out the world the social work has the tendency to separate itself from other work, then we are just a humanitarian organization like everyone else. But in The Salvation Army the social work is always a consequence of our relation­ship with Christ. And it must always stay that way.

P. The reason we do social work is that Jesus said we must do social work. God has said, „I care for the fatherless, for the poor, for orphans, for widows, and you should also do that”. In the New Testament Jesus says, „Whatever you do for one of the smallest ones, you do for me.” Every bowl of soup served is really serving Jesus.

R. We gather our leaders once a month for Leaders’ days, and we talk a lot about our goals: salvation, discipleship and social outreach.  And we encour­age our people to listen to Jesus. If we all listen to Jesus we can all take differ­ent paths to reach those goals. We must never lose sight of Jesus. It is so easy to do that when you get involved in social work. You just see the physical needs of people, and you forget that the physical needs are not the most important. At the same time you can get so involved in church life, and forget that all Chris­tians should reach out. But discipleship is also important. It is not enough that you were saved 35 years ago- you have to grow. Discipleship is a life-time de­velopment. 

Since you have arrived, what has been the greatest encouragement for you? What have you seen God do?

P. TSA has enrolled 28 new soldiers, 18 junior soldiers and we have 8 new cadets starting their three year training to become officers, and these are very encouraging things. 

R. Peter said 28 new soldiers, but we also have as many new adherents.  Sev­eral of them have been saved during this time, and also others have taken the step to become a member of The Salvation Army.

P. We are also quite certain that most of these new members are just recently saved people. Often church growth happens when people migrate from one church to another. We have not seen it happen very much. To us that is the most encouraging thing. People have confidence that The Salvation Army can be a place where they can fulfil their calling as Christians. The Salvation Army is only a platform for people to fulfil their calling, and these 8 cadets, and 28 new soldiers, these 18 junior soldiers are a sign that people be­lieve in the concept of The Salvation Army as a means of winning people for Christ. Otherwise people would not en­ter training for three years. They would not dress themselves in uniform if they would not believe that this is their place to fulfil their calling to follow Christ.

When you look at these people, what kinds of dreams do you have about their lives?

R. We want them to be soul win­ners.  

P. Many of them are front line soldiers winning others for Christ.

R. We have a wonderful group of offic­ers out there. They are the role models for the new ones.

What kinds of qualities do you look for in an officer?

P. We need different qualities. And our officers are the absolute best match for this work. The main thing is that all these three things are present in their lives – that they would never stop growing as Christians, that they would never lose sight of why we are doing this in spite of lots of practical work – that this is for salvation of people, and they must never lose heart for suffering people among them.

R. Right now officers are in training. An officer that has finished training should show certain kinds of qualities – integrity, Biblical knowledge, all sorts of skills, and the training program that we are taking them through includes three fields of training that are of equal value – knowing, being, doing. We em­phasize the knowing part – we want our people to be able to communicate with the world that surrounds them. Know­ing part includes biblical knowledge, theological knowledge, church history, leadership skills, learning about society. The knowing part is very important. The doing part has always been very essential in the Salvation Army. Our of­ficers are working out there and there is lots of practical work, so it is really about learning the principles how we do work in the Salvation Army. And the third is the being part, which is about integrity and implementing good habits and routines. If a person does not learn how to grow they will not stay in the long run spiritually.

What is it that draws people to Sal­vation Army church?

P. I think that there is a hunger in peo­ple, especially younger people, but also older people to have vision that they are willing to give their life for. All people have longing to have something to burn for; burning for something is really liv­ing, and you cannot burn for something if you are half-hearted about it. Some­thing that is attractive about Salvation Army is a fact that it is not a hobby. If the only expectation for church is to listen to latest news from your pastor every Sunday, that could be nice, but that is not the thing that will grasp your life. You have to be burning for a mis­sion. I believe that it is as it should be, and it is attractive when people join the Salvation Army.

R. People also need love. They need care. And they need joy. We recently talked to some young people who came for the first time, and they said that they would definitely come back because they experienced so much warmth here. Also social work. It is available for people regardless of whether they accept the gospel. But when they come for social help they also meet people who love Christ.

P. The reason Salvation Army was started because there were people there who did not belong in ordinary churches – they smelt the wrong way, they looked the wrong way. William Booth took these people to regular churches but they were not welcomed there. When people are saved they leave behind life of alcohol. The second gen­eration lives in a decent way, does not have alcohol problems, they are often higher established middle class people, and the risk is always that the third gen­eration does not have the same respect for people that are coming in from the streets, making noises in a meeting be­cause they are drunk. We are lifting up people, but as generations go by there is a risk to forget who we are. It has not happened in Latvia very much yet, but if we are successful it will happen be­cause we are helping people leave their past.

Are there hopes and plans to estab­lish more churches in Latvia?

P. We have been asked to start Salva­tion Army in new places. Sometimes local Christians ask us, sometimes lo­cal authorities who see what we do in neighbouring villages, sometimes our members have a vision about a cer­tain place. We always want to do much more than we really can do. We have started a lot of building projects, we have more than 80 employees in this country, every program costs money, and even if all our soldier are tithing many of them are people with zero in­come, and ten percent of zero is not very much. So we don’t have support from the church that a well established middle class church would have. We are always looking to find new resources and seeking to open new things. Now in short time we will have eight new of­ficers. That will increase our opportu­nity to open new corps.

R. TSA also has big social institutions like our orphanages. There is still a great need for orphanages in Latvia. We try to make our orphanages as caring and loving as possible. We want to show the love of God to those children. 

P. That goes for all our social work. Most organizations have as their goal to grow; we would be very happy to close all our social programs because they are not needed anymore. But as long as people are still starving it is needed. We mainly finance our orphan­ages ourselves. The local authorities are paying fees but in crises time these fees go down, and our costs stay the same. An increasing part of the cost for each child is paid by the Salvation Army.

How do Salvation Army orphanages strive to be different?

P. We talk about God in our orphan­ages.

R. There is love and care there. The children need embrace and love, they do not need distance. They have had too much distance in their lives al­ready.

If you had all the money in the world, what projects would you start?

R. We would create a house for chil­dren in Sarkani. We have several such villages, and we would like to put a chil­dren’s house in every such village, so the children could shower and have a place that is warm.

P. The centre for outreach ministry in Riga is also very much needed. Last winter we handed out food packages for people worth 27 000 Ls.

R. We would also like to increase our volunteer program, and to involve prominent and skilled people from society. For example, we would like to have a dentist who could fix peoples’ teeth; very many people have poor den­tal health. We see it even in young chil­dren. This could be helped by dentists who would volunteer one day or more a month to help.

We would also like to train a catastro­phe response team who would be able to help in floods and other disasters.

Right now we have the „Change a Vil­lage” program in Sarkani and social outreach program in Riga. .

P. We also have a dream to include a sewing ministry in our outreach center.  We would like to start to teach these people a skill – to get people started in their own maybe low scale business. Many of these people don’t have a lot of education but they can do some things. People need to have jobs for this country to have tax payers again. For somebody to wake up in the morn­ing and to have a job enormously raises his/her self-esteem.

We would also like to help children with school and homework and their read­ing skills. We would like to teach people how to cook, how to have family par­ties without alcohol. Even if we cannot change every adult we can change the lives of some of the children. Other­wise all these kids may become alcohol­ics.

R. We should not, of course, forget the places in Latvia where we have been for a long time, where steady work has been going on week by week.

P. We are extremely thankful and aston­ished about all the things that have been accomplished since we came, and how many doors that have been opened. When we had the hands, God was ready to put a ministry in these hands. Last winter was a maximum crisis win­ter in Latvia, next could be as cold.

So you see Christ restoring this land through Salvation Army, and you can be part of it?

P. TSA ministry is giving hope where there is no hope that it is possible to change. TSA teaches that life can be changed, society, values can be changed. It is worth doing something. 

R. We want to start with individuals – if you change an individual you can also change the society. We need every soldier, every member, every adherent on their feet! This is not just the offic­er’s work. If we can get the whole army on their feet, we can change the world. We want them to listen to Jesus, to ask Jesus where He wants them to go to help. We have to listen to Jesus what He wants us to do, and He has been amazingly clear putting visions into our hearts. This is not just for the leaders, it is for every soldier and adherent. Salva­tion Army is all of us.