Commissioner Harry Read- Willing to learn

As we approach Candidates Sunday (16 May) Salvationists explain what the theme Be Willing means to them

WAS born just a few years after the First World War. It was hopefully, but erroneously, considered to be the war that would end all wars. Instead of returning to what the prime minister, David Lloyd George, called ‘a fit country for heroes to live in’, its survivors returned to unemployment, the everpresent demands of poverty and the conviction that there would be another war in the foreseeable future.

I was just 15 when the Second World War began in 1939, but when I was able to enlist to become a wireless operator in the Royal Signals we were informed that a new airborne division was due to be launched and wireless operators would be needed. I volunteered and, on completion of my training, joined the newly launched 6th Airborne Division on 25 May 1943 and began training to be a parachute soldier.

Within weeks I was a wireless operator in the 3rd Parachute Brigade. Not for the last time I discovered that new strategies are always needed. Should those strategies not work, then others must be devised, the presumption being that there is always a satisfactory answer.

This has to be true in our service for the Lord. While still on military service I was more than just willing to be a Christian soldier. I had to learn to identify needs and speak healingly. It was there that I led my first soul to the Lord. Providentially, he was not the last.

During my military service the Lord called me to officership. It was a call I accepted gladly and, on demobilisation in 1947, I became a cadet in the King’s Messengers session. After Commissioning I was retained at the college to be a cadet-sergeant, with responsibility for the young people’s work. It was there I met and fell in love with Cadet-Sergeant-Major Winifred Humphries. The love was reciprocated and we married in 1950.

As corps officers in Chichester we willingly learnt to serve our people, learning their needs and helping them grow in their faith. We also learnt how to revive corps programmes that lacked effectiveness because they had become routine. What a wonderful gospel we have! My service for the Lord more than matches the excitements of military service.

In subsequent appointments the vitality of our calling amazed us. We learnt so much. To our surprise we were recalled to the International Training College to help train cadets for their future work. What a joy and what a learning experience! We valued the teaching experiences and the opportunities afforded us to see the strategies required to fulfil the Army’s God-given role. It was there I learnt to write scripts and songs. This was followed by a further corps appointment, then a move to Scotland to become a divisional youth secretary. After that it was, surprisingly, back to the college for another seven years.

Willingness brings joy, variety and rich fulfilment. The opportunities given by my various appointments, including being the Army’s press officer, a divisional commander and training principal, followed by transfers to Canada, Australia and back to the UK as British Commissioner, have all been immense.

In retirement I was asked to write the Army’s daily devotional book, Words of Life. This I did for 10 years. Win and I established a weekday Bible study at the corps and also led that for 10 years. Opportunities to speak at officers councils and the occasional congress in other territories followed. O, the fulfilment that willingness gives!

As a near 97-year-old officer, now living alone since my wonderful wife went to be with the Lord, I follow a full programme. I have inevitable health problems but still have a rewarding worldwide ministry – principally, though not exclusively, through Facebook.

The Lord has led me to write books and another is scheduled. It is a far cry from the young ‘para’ who was willing to do whatever the Lord required of him. There are no limits to the vision and grace the Lord Jesus has for those who are willing.

COMMISSIONER READ, OF, LIVES IN RETIREMENT IN BOURNEMOUTH

*Next week Major Lindy Rose