News feature 10 and

what God has in store

Children’s Ministries Unit, with Children’s Specialist (Leader Development) Tracy Wood speaking about how good leaders develop leaders.

She introduced ‘withness’, a model of being with young people and providing support alongside them. Highlighting the resources available to youth workers, including the Raise training course, Tracy advocated for the need to invest in the Church of now and tomorrow, helping young people to become leaders with purpose, character, confidence and humility.

Tracy, who is also the YPSM at Chatham, shared personal anecdotes of young people carrying out successful fundraising efforts, while videos showed young people helping at corps and taking on responsibilities. One video featured Courtney, a member of Chatham Sunday school, who said: ‘I can be a leader and that’s who I want to be. I don’t need to be who someone else tells me to be.’

‘We shouldn’t try to mould young people to be like us,’ Tracy emphasised, before highlighting young people in the Bible, such as Esther, Samuel and Josiah, who went on to become leaders and influencers.

‘As the world changes, we shouldn’t be content with leading as we’ve always led,’ said Tracy. ‘What does it look like to build a world of vibrant and passionate young leaders?’

Youth activities and sessions took place during the afternoon, helping children and teenagers discover who God has created them to be. In the final worship meeting of the day some of the young people shared what they had learnt about God’s presence and protection. They led the congregation in singing ‘Be Bold, Be Strong’, complete with actions.

It was a fitting climax to a day that had begun with Lieut-Colonel Judith recalling a line from the animated Disney movie The Lion King, when Mufasa tells his son, Simba: ‘You are more than what you have become.’

‘It’s exciting to know that God isn’t finished with any of us yet,’ she said, as she brought the day to a close. She thanked the college team and the music sections for making the day possible, before thanking everyone who attended for ‘being who they are’.

The congregation meditatively sang ‘In Thee, O Lord, Do I Put My Trust’ before guest Colonel Jenine Main shared a prayer. As people exited the hall, words from the final congregational song, ‘Build Your Kingdom Here’, summed up the day: ‘You made us for much more than this.’

YP testimonies Tracy Wood

Lieut-Colonel Judith Payne Major David Alton and Major Janet Robson

Una Voce

DELEGATES’ TESTIMONIES

ALI JAMES, THETFORD TERRITORIAL ENVOY APPLICANT After previously attending Design for Life at William Booth College, I came back for Exploring Leadership Day to soak in the atmosphere. It’s great to know that there are all these people you are willing on, and to know that they are willing you on as well. That’s what I love about The Salvation Army – it’s a family that grows. DANIEL JONES, BOLTON CITADEL ACTING CORPS SECRETARY I have long felt God’s calling on my life but I hardened my heart and kept saying ‘I’ll do it later’. Today was an opportunity to surrender myself anew and turn my ‘not now, Lord’ into a ‘here am I, send me’. I’ve spent my career to date on the railway, where the focus is on making journeys better. Today really underlined for me that I can still make journeys better – the life journeys of the people my ministry brings to Jesus.

In greenest India

Ruth Macdonald looks back at a tree-planting initiative undertaken by The Salvation Army in India and Sri Lanka

SALVATION Army work began in India in September 1882 in Bombay (now Mumbai). The Army in India developed along unique lines with its own distinctive characteristics and features that were introduced in response to the context. Foremost among these was the uniform, which was designed to suit the climate in the subcontinent and conform to local expectations of religious preachers. This was closely followed by the practice of assigning Indian names to officers serving there from Europe, Australasia and North America.

As time went on, the Army’s work extended into social work, but India was the only country to have its own variant of General William Booth’s Darkest England Scheme – the ‘Darkest India’ Scheme, launched in 1896. Many of the forms of social institutions that were established in India were firsts for the Movement and, in some cases, remain unique to India: general hospitals, day and boarding schools, village banks, a silk farm, a hand-loom factory, weaving industries, and settlements for so-called ‘criminal tribes’.

The leader of the Indian pioneers was Major Frederick Tucker, a former member of the Indian Civil Service who joined The Salvation Army while in England on leave in 1881. Tucker would go on to be one of the most senior and trusted Army officers for nearly five decades until his death in 1929. He married William and Catherine Booth’s second daughter, Emma, in 1888 and took the surname Booth-Tucker, which cemented his membership of the Booth family. He remained connected with India for much of his career, serving as leader of The Salvation Army there until 1891 and then as special commissioner for India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from 1907 until 1919. This was quite a privilege, even among senior officers, who were usually required to change appointments much more regularly.

It was during his spell as special commissioner that Frederick BoothTucker – or Fakir Singh, as he styled himself – launched Arbour Day, a campaign to get Salvation Army corps and institutions across the two countries planting and caring for thousands of new trees. Its announcement occupied the full front page of the March 1910 issue of the India and Ceylon War Cry.

The initiative was proposed as a practical way of celebrating Empire Day on 24 May, the birthday of the late Queen Victoria. Tree planting, it was argued, would bring prosperity to individuals, to corps and to all of India – and thereby the British Empire – by shaping the environment in beneficial ways and providing a long-term source of income, provided the trees were managed and used wisely.

In recent decades historians have documented how scientific observation and experimentation in 19th-century India formed the basis of concepts in conservation and environmentalism that continue to influence thinking today. This can be seen in Booth-Tucker’s claim that India’s ‘water supply depends largely on the abundance of her trees’. ‘Wipe these out and India would in a few years become a howling wilderness,’ he wrote in The War Cry. ‘Multiply them and you will increase the regularity and abundance of her rainfall and lessen the likelihood and severity of famines.’

Booth-Tucker was ambivalent about popular agrarian knowledge and practice, apportioning it criticism and praise, but in both regards his position was carefully articulated so as to support his tree-planting project. On the one hand, he argued that ‘India’s soil is much impoverished from another cause, which the planting of trees would quickly mitigate and in time remove’. ‘The manure which should be utilised for the fields is used for fuel,’ he added. On the other hand, he contended that the 90 per cent of people in India whose lives and livelihoods were at that time directly connected with the land ‘love trees, and know their value, and to a large extent understand their management’.

Arbour Day was given extensive promotion in The War Cry in the months leading up to Empire Day, with promises of significant cash prizes for those who ‘distinguished themselves’ and free silkworm eggs offered to those who provided evidence of having planted mulberries or castors with a view to starting a sericulture (silk farming) industry.

To ensure that trees and shrubs continued to be cared for after planting, only half the prize would be awarded immediately with the balance paid ‘as soon as possible after 1 December, on condition that not less than 50 per cent of the number planted are doing well, those that may have failed being replaced’. Participants were encouraged to plant mulberry, mango, coconut, shisham (rosewood), castor, cassava and babul, which had been chosen for ‘their utility’ and ‘their wide diffusion’.

Copious advice was printed on where and how to plant the trees, and the support of government agricultural experts was enlisted. Ultimately, however, the campaign was hampered by unfortunate timing, as the chosen day closely followed the death of King Edward VII on 6 May and coincided with the late arrival of the monsoon in some areas.

Despite these difficulties, The War Cry reported the following May that ‘a splendid beginning had been made’ and gave a supposedly conservative list of some 8,000 trees and 800,000 shrubs that had been planted as part of the first Arbour Day campaign. A much greater variety of trees had been planted than those on the official list, including casuarinas, palmyras, nim (neem), jackfruit, cork, pipal and other fruit trees. The lessons of the previous year were learnt and a more flexible approach was chosen for the 1911 Arbour Day campaign: each Salvation Army territory within India was permitted to select a suitable date to hold its Arbour Day celebrations between Coronation Day on 22 June and the Delhi Durbar on 12 December.

Another new feature was the introduction of 20 varieties of eucalyptus to the approved list of trees. The main reason given for this addition was that eucalyptus was ‘well known for its great value as a malaria fighter’, but the financial value of its timber, oil and gum (kino) was also noted. The fact that it was fast growing and had varieties suitable to a range of climates further enhanced its appeal. In all subsequent years that Arbour Day was celebrated, eucalyptus continued to be one of the main trees promoted for planting, principally for its health benefits, alongside mulberry for silkworms, ‘cassava as a famine food, thornless cactus and variegated alfalfa for fodder, and the best kinds of fruit trees’.

From its first year, Arbour Day was promoted as an initiative in which to involve children. The idea was for pupils at the Army’s day and boarding schools to do the lion’s share of the planting and

First detachment to India, with Tucker seated right

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