What I have had in my hands, I lost it all,
but what I have placed in the hands of God, lasts forever".
For more than a decade, in two different countries and four Salvation Army officer quarters, our ‘home’ has been the recipient of scores of computers, printers, and keyboards. Our garage has never housed our aging car but instead is crammed with mobility scooters, bedpans, hundreds of toothbrushes and toothpaste, SA uniforms, knitted childrens wear, medical and dental equipment, tubas and trumpets, all destined for SA units in war-ravaged Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine. We’ve made 15 van-full delivery journeys and sent container loads with other mission-minded organizations, yet the bundles and cartons rule the roost!
Our kitchen and living room resemble a Salvation Army youth centre; hundreds of books, CD‘s, DVD‘s, and work projects being assembled by Chaplain Glad, with a focus on evangelizing; smothering love and attention on 60 of Liverpool’s abandoned and most vulnerable.
Needing a ‘quarter’s fever’ escape, we’re breaking out in an hour to take in some of the extraordinary battle scene events depicted in a news release, a First World War picture, 1917. We’d driven past the cinema to note the week-night screening times on our way home from yet another hospital visit. Both of us speculated on the significance of the film’s 1917 title.
In reading the film’s storyline, notices, and reviews, one learns that Sam Mendes directs, from a script he co-wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, a movie inspired by the war stories of Mendes' grandfather who fought in World War I. Grandpa Alfred told ‘about his war experiences in his mid-70s about his teenage years.’ Sam Mendes says. ‘And there was one particular story he told us… that stayed with me. And that was the story I found I wanted to tell.;
‘Well, I started writing the script in October 2017, exactly 100 years after the movie takes place.’ Mendes was inspired by stories his grandfather told to him as a child, 50 years earlier. ‘I felt this one, it was part of my childhood. It was part of my family history. And I felt compelled to tell it.’ In the film’s closing credits, a tribute is paid to Mendes’s grandfather, World War I veteran Alfred Mendes, whom the director thanks for ‘the stories.’
Questions on the 50-year-old saga’s authenticity surfaced. about whether any part depicted happened. Genealogy company Ancestry delved into the events of the film and uncovered the military records of the director’s grandfather, and doubt ensued. Was this a Walter Middy moment, adopting Winston Churchill’s laissez-faire adage; ‘History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.’
Puffing up and packing fact with fiction, built Grandpa’s tale into a matinee epic.
Our Salvation Army appointment to serve in the USSR was also inspired by battle stories shared by my grandfather many decades ago when aged 10. My grandparents began their missionary service in Russia’s capital Petrograd, just a year after the Communists took control in 1917. He never spoke directly about the battle, perhaps recognizing that my twin brother and I were too young to comprehend his experience. Instead, we read the details of our grandparents’ daily trials, suffering and witnessed martyrdom, victories, and retreats in grandfather’s diary, written while engaged in battle. Adjutant Otto Ljungholm’s diary, coupled with Karl Larsson’s Ten Years in Russia is the key source in the writing of Return to Battle – Volume I.
Our appointment to serve in the Soviet Union was never a question of rank or years of service as Salvation Army officers. It was moored to our SA roots, life experience, entrepreneurial expertise and a willingness to serve in Russia, the largest republic within the USSR.
That Capt. Ljungholm (MSc) was chosen to spearhead The Salvation Army's reentry into Moscow was not a surprise to many. He has always been a trailblazer in Salvation Army services and programming.
Commissioner Ingrid Lindberg, the principal driving force in advancing the Army’s agenda in Russia before its official entry, said in an interview in Stockholm that the Ljungholms represented the consummate requisites sought in SA pioneers; charisma, broad experience, an authoritative bearing, and passionate determination.
At NY’s Central Citadel, he established a feeding program for the homeless, mostly from Grand Central Terminal. He later expanded that program into a 19-bed shelter, at the corps, for homeless individuals who wished to pursue their GED's (High School Diploma). So successful was that program that several of the first graduating class were accepted into Fordham University. photo
The Salvation Army still maintains a feeding program at Central Citadel as part of an overall division-wide program that provides more than half a million meals a year.
Like many officers and other Salvationists, Kathie and I were born into the regiment and grew up on a strict Salvation Army schedule of SA history, music lessons, youth programming, Bible and doctrine study through a six-year corps cadet course of study with officership as its goal.
In less than 2 decades of marriage, we’d served as Salvationists on 4 continents adapting to diverse cross-cultural societal differences and communication in 3 languages.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his 19th-century classic, Democracy in America, "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."
Admittedly, the light cast by family history, SA tradition, pioneer spirit and Divine impetus on which we based our forward move cast some light, but there were also distinctive shadows on the path to which we were led.
President Harry S. Truman, a shrewd, self-educated student of history, once noted, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." So, we set about stacking up the history we knew. As a 3rd generation SA Officer, and with a unique family link to SA history in Russia, I was fascinated by the Army’s early 20th century activities there. Coupled with my insight to Russia and their culture through visits there, and friendship with Russian working with me in the travel industry there and the ‘west’ I felt comfortable, safe and secure in my dealings with them.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle said: "If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.'
The past spoke in a convincing voice and I wanted to hear and listen attentively. Although my grandparents lived and worked in Russia in times so different from our own their diary, which was passed down to me, was alive and capable of shedding light on our eventual encounter and understanding. Their past was essentially perceived as a set of hardships through which they lived, and that would justify our conditions and encourage our future mission. And knowing their nightmarish past, we could perhaps act to prevent some such circumstances from recurring. History shapes the way we view the present and may dictate what answers we offer for existing problems.
History reminds us of where we have come from, our roots and our heritage. It reminds us of the battles fought, the victories won and yes, the retreats and battles lost that were inevitable in any organization developing as quickly as the 19th-century Salvation Army.
History is far more than curiosity, for hidden away in the dusty archives are stories, facts, and data that will ‘enable contemporary Salvationists to not only understand the ethos of the organization but also to find empowerment for ministry today’.
History is a story about the past that was significant and true to Kathie and me. SA history tells a story about the past which captures the essence of an event, giving a particular and significant forward view; history had begun to draught a Divine design, deciding and driving our mission expedition for us.
If we will listen to what history has to say, we can come to a sound understanding of the past that will tell us much about the problems we now face.
My experience has led me to believe that the early Army energy and spirit were unique and empowering, and there is a real need for it to be rediscovered, revived and restored.
In the volumes and archives of SA history, and through Volumes I and II of this book, may we discover our heritage, the genesis of our corporate identity.
Sven & Kathie
