Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/55096
Volume 29, Number 2 INSIDE FEBRUARY 2012 REMEMBERING MAJOR DOROTHY E. BREEN First Good News! editor. PAGE 2 BE A 'PAL' The territory has 2,900 inmates studying its Bible Course, but only 16 have pen pals. Could you accept this calling? PAGE 6 Captain Debora Coolidge Something More >> T he soup kitchen at the Portsmouth, N.H., Citadel has fed the needy for 27 years, but Captain Debora Coolidge and Lieutenant Erin Rischawy wanted more for the people who fi nd refuge at the corps each day. When Coolidge, the corps offi cer, and GENERAL COMING TO OOB General Linda Bond; Comission- ers Roberts, national leaders; and Commissioners Hedgren, territorial leaders, to high- light OOB. PAGE 14 Good News! Online: www.SAGoodNews.org USA Eastern Territorial website: www.ArmyConnections.org USA National website: www.SalvationArmyUSA.org Rischawy, the assistant corps offi cer, arrived in Portsmouth in July 2010, they observed that many of the people coming in for the soup ministry also had ongoing drug and alcohol issues. "I felt we were just enabling people to stay in a very unhealthy lifestyle," Coolidge says. The offi cers, as well as former outreach worker Ron Johnson, began identifying people who needed practical help as well as the love of Christ. "We just built a relationship with them and let them know that we really cared about them and that God had more for them if they wanted to choose that," she says. ROBERT MITCHELL The result is that since 2010, the corps has sent 11 men to the Salvation Army's Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) pro- gram in Portland, Maine. Coolidge explains to the men that Je- sus has more for their lives than living in dumpsters and sleeping in storefronts. She is available when they are ready to talk. Slowly but surely, they come to her for help. "I think what has made our guys suc- cessful is we just allow them to get re- ally broken," she says. "I think the Holy Spirit touches their hearts and makes them realize there is something more." Eric Falk lived on the streets of Ports- mouth for three years and was arrested many times before agreeing to go to the Portland ARC. "They probably saved my life," Falk says of the offi cers in Portsmouth. "I'm not sensationalizing that at all." David Grimes says he once lived in a tent in the woods until he agreed to go continued on page 12 >> G OOD N E W S !